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Mann, Scott --- "Libertarianism, Markets and Distributive Justice" [2003] UWSLawRw 3; (2003) 7(1) University of Western Sydney Law Review 57


LIBERTARIANISM, MARKETS AND DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE

Scott Mann[*]

This paper focuses upon some major ambiguities, confusions and problems associated with libertarian ideas of equality of reward as a basic principle of distributive justice. Insofar as such ideas have served to legitimate and guide recent radical political moves away from policies significantly informed by social liberal ideas and values to policies driven by an essentially libertarian agenda of deregulation, privatisation and free market forces, such confusions and problems take on profound practical significance.

The focus here is upon reward for direct involvement in the provision of goods and services. There is no consideration of the still more problematic libertarian defence of inheritance and return to productive use of privately owned assets.

Free markets

A key concept of libertarian ethical, political and economic thinking[1] , and the background to their ideas of equality of reward (of equal reward for equal contribution), is that of a ‘free market’ presented as a fair and just system of distribution of resources. In this view, everyone obtains their fair share of the total social product, in proportion to their productive contribution. The market is also depicted as an efficient mechanism of organisation of production and distribution, effectively matching supply with demand and maximising the size of the available social product (and thus also of potential individual shares of such product) in ways that no other system can achieve.

The basic neoclassical economic model, favoured by libertarians, presupposes ‘perfect competition’ where there are very many sellers providing identical products, so that none can effect the price of its own product, and many buyers so that none can effect the price they pay; all buyers and sellers have perfect information about all products and prices. It is assumed that if all factors of production – land, labour and capital – receive their appropriate price, a ‘general long-run equilibrium’ where all available resources are fully and efficiently utilised, will be achieved. Such long-run equilibrium means that the size of each industry has adjusted to the level of demand so that prices correspond to ‘marginal costs’, no productive capacity is wasted and no consumer prepared to pay a price for a good that covers its production costs remains unsatisfied. [2]

Libertarians generally see contemporary capitalist society as – by and large – corresponding to such a fair and efficient market model; though the United States is seen as closer to the ideal than the European Union, for example. And to the extent that the reality falls short of the ideal, the model is taken to provide clear policy recommendations for addressing the shortfalls

The assumption is that the free market ensures equality of reward or ‘just deserts’, in the sense that individuals get out of the market system what they freely choose to put into it. In practice, libertarians interpret this idea of ‘just deserts’ in different ways on different occasions. Sometimes it is taken to mean reward in proportion to effort and sacrifice in socially useful production; the harder you work, the less intrinsically rewarding the work, the greater the reward. On other occasions, libertarians shift their allegiance to reward in proportion to the actual value of the goods produced or services offered; the more good things or the better things you produce, the greater the reward you deserve. [3]

It is easy to dismiss the latter criterion as fundamentally unjust; if you can produce lots of good things with minimal effort why should you receive greater rewards than another who needs to make greater efforts to produce the same or a lesser amount? On the other hand, libertarians tend to argue that ‘socially useful effort’ is just too difficult (too ‘subjective’) to measure independently and that the practical approach is to use ‘objective contribution’ as the measure of such effort. Most important, if we assume that more productive people need rewards in proportion to output in order to be willing to thus ‘do their best’ for society, then such rewards can supposedly be justified in utilitarian terms.

It is readily apparent that in the real world of existing capitalist markets there is often enough an inverse relationship between effort and financial reward. Desperate millions struggle for long hours of strenuous, difficult and unrewarding effort in dirty, dangerous third world sweatshops for a pittance, while a non-executive director of a big first world corporation attends a couple of board meetings in a year in exchange for a hefty pay packet – and tax-free expenses that would feed thousands of such poor third world-ers.[4]

In face of such obvious facts, it is easy to see why defenders of the current system might want to shift their attention away from effort per se and into the ‘objective’ value of output. On this basis, sweated labour in the third world is, indeed, of little value, due to the low value of its products. Such third world workers are ‘unskilled’, and comparatively ‘unproductive’; their output is ‘oversupplied’. But this, of course, neglects the obvious fact that they are physically prevented from doing anything else in many cases, through barriers to international labour mobility and very limited job and training opportunities in their home territories. In libertarian terms, they are not free to choose to do anything else.[5]

As critics also point out[6] , even if it were true that no social structures could be created that encouraged more responsible behaviour on the part of more ‘productive’ individuals (accepting similar recompense to their less productive but equally dedicated co-workers), and even if a system which rewarded such individuals in proportion to output actually were the most productive system possible (and both such claims are contested by socialists and social liberals), there would still be questions of whether the welfare benefits of the greater production achieved through such differential rewards would outweigh the welfare costs of the resulting inequality.

Utilitarianism and equality

Generally speaking the utilitarian tradition has favoured equality of outcome over equality of reward. Equality of outcome is seen as an intrinsic good in utilitarian theory, to the extent that the utilitarian calculation involves equal consideration of the interests or welfare of all affected by our actions. As Singer says, ‘the essence of the principle of equal consideration of interests is that we give equal weight in our moral deliberations to the like interests of all affected by our actions.’ [7]

Equality of outcome is also seen as an instrumental value within utilitarian theory in relation to the law of diminishing returns or declining marginal utility. The idea here is that the more you have of something, the less benefit you gain from acquiring even more of it. To have inadequate supplies of necessities of life is a very great harm for the individuals concerned, while little hardship is involved in taking away the unnecessary luxuries of the privileged. So the greatest good of the greatest number is likely to be served by a redistributive sharing of available goods.

Most significantly, substantial recent empirical research by Wilkinson and others demonstrates how, above a certain level of economic development (a level achieved throughout the industrialised western world), it is the extent of material inequality within nations and regions that is the major cause of unnecessary and easily avoidable illness and death, including death by ‘accidents’ and violent crimes. Such inequality – particularly associated with big wage differentials, high levels of unemployment, underemployment and insecurity – contributes to increased feelings of powerlessness, frustration, depression and anger among the relatively poor, and loss of mutual respect, trust, co-operation and cohesion in society in general, leading to increasing fear, hostility, drug use, conflict, and violence. Stress-induced immune depletion leads to increasing illness and death. [8]

The utilitarian implications would seem to be clear. Radical reduction in disparities of income, wealth and social power – in pursuit of greater equality – built around satisfaction of the basic needs of all, has to be the first priority for reform, at least in such developed nations.

Wilkinson’s work, in particular, casts serious doubt upon the idea that any significant differences in reward in proportion to the value of output could produce overall welfare benefits in a developed industrial society. Libertarian counter-arguments are thin on the ground.

Value and demand

There are two other crucial questions that need to be considered in relation to reward in proportion to socially useful output. In the first instance, we need to be clear upon what output is socially useful and how we measure its real ‘value’. In the second, we need to be able to measure the precise contribution of particular individuals in generating such value – the particular ‘component’ of the value of any particular product or service contributed by a particular individual. Libertarians have serious problems in both these areas.

There are two fundamentally different ways of answering the question of what are genuinely good or useful or valuable products or services. An objective analysis looks to science to provide objective criteria of human welfare in terms of basic need satisfaction, physical and mental health of current and future generations, and the long-term sustainability of productive practices. A subjective analysis, on the other hand, argues that only particular individuals can, and do, decide what is really good for themselves.[9]

The situation is complicated by the ambiguous role of happiness. Subjectivists tend to assume that individual judgements of what people want are based upon the degree of happiness or satisfaction they know or believe they will derive from particular things. But this then raises the question of whether such individual subjective ‘happinesses’ can be objectively quantified and compared. Classical utilitarians argued that such objective comparison is possible. Others have rejected this idea.[10]

Not surprisingly, libertarians favour a generally subjectivist approach, defending it by reference to individual freedom; no-one has the right to deprive others of the freedom to make their own decisions about what they want. No-one should ‘dictate’ to others about what is ‘really’ good for them.[11]

Libertarians also tend to assume that such subjective judgements are expressed and can therefore be measured in terms of the prices people are prepared to pay for goods and services, including the amounts of particular goods that they are prepared to buy at particular prices, as expressed in individual ‘demand curves’. And such individual curves can simply be added together to get a social demand curve for a particular product.[12]

A number of problems arise here. Some might have very great desires or needs for products, but might not have the money to buy them, or not enough of them. On the other hand, others with lots of money might generate substantial (‘social’) demand for things they hardly care about. Demand curves depend upon available income. And such income is very unevenly distributed in contemporary societies.[13]

In the tradition of neoclassical economics, the work of Robbins can be seen as a response to this sort of consideration, providing a supposedly rational justification for abandoning the earlier idea of setting ‘welfare economics’ upon an objective utilitarian foundation of ‘the greatest happiness for the greatest number’. He argued that it is not empirically possible to compare the utilities of individuals since they are intrinsically subjective and personal. On this basis, mainstream neoclassical economists rejected any interpersonal comparisons of utility along with the aggregation of individual utilities in a composite social welfare. They focused instead upon individual ‘preference orderings’, with a net gain in social welfare equated with a situation in which at least one individual improved their position in terms of preferences while no other suffered a loss--a so-called Pareto improvement. [14]

In other words, we can, supposedly measure real progress in social welfare from one state of society, A1, to another, later state, A2, of the same society, but not the ‘objective’ overall welfare condition of any particular social situation, considered in itself. But then neoclassical theorists and libertarians assume that no-one is prepared to enter into a free market exchange which will leave them worse off, so in a free market, there can only be improvement!

Obviously there is some truth to the idea that people do know what they want and should be allowed to act upon such knowledge, as long as this does not restrict others from doing similarly. Yet, there are also obvious problems with any idea that monetarily effective market demand provides even a measure of subjective preference, let alone objective need. People might buy lots of things only to find that they don’t really want them after all. People might really strongly desire things that the market does not or cannot offer, such as genuine empowerment, respect and equality. And people might – still – strongly desire or desperately need things they cannot afford.

A person’s ideas about what is good for them or what they want depend upon their state of knowledge and their value system. They will sometimes change their mind about wanting a product, x, if they find that it is poisonous, or has been produced by child slave labour. We cannot assume ‘perfect knowledge’ on the part of consumers in a particular social system. We cannot therefore consider questions of distribution of other resources without considering systems of distribution of knowledge about these other resources.

It is easy to see how individuals, groups or nations could be bullied or misled into entering into market exchanges that actually leave them worse off – including lost opportunities for acquiring better things. And we cannot ignore the vast industries devoted to unscrupulous manipulation of ‘consumer preferences’ through advertising and marketing. Such consumers pay much more than the real production costs of products imbued with imaginary magical powers by virtue of media brainwashing.[15]

On the other hand, there are numerous examples of purchasers paying much less than the real social costs of production, distribution and consumption of particular products. They purchase beef and wheat and coal from overseas suppliers for a mark-up on the monetary cost of the production of these commodities (fertilisers, insecticides, harvesting, etc). But they fail to pay for the loss of topsoil, desertification, salination, poisoning of rivers and ground water, land subsidence, ecological destruction and destruction of agricultural land through dumping of tailings that are the real costs of such production. They fail to pay for the development of alternative sustainable resources to replace non-renewable resources consumed at a rate faster than the rate of their regeneration. And they fail to pay for the health, pollution and climate effects suffered by others as a result of their own consumption.[16]

In respect of objective evaluation of human need and well being, there might indeed be problems in the objective quantification of individual happiness. But need satisfaction can be independently assessed. Biological and psychological science clearly establish the existence of a range of basic physical and social requirements for, and measures of, health and well being which should be the starting point for any serious consideration of ‘welfare economics’.[17]

Attributing moral significance to Pareto optimal outcomes--where it is impossible to make someone better off without making someone else worse off--is hopelessly misleading in a society of radical, and radically unjust, inequality. In such a society, it is likely that lots of people can be made much better off at the price of a few being somewhat worse off, but still no worse than the majority.

Action to achieve this is not a Pareto improvement, but it clearly is a real enhancement of social welfare.

Value and supply

The neoclassical economic model centres upon the interaction of the demand curve, considered above, with a supply curve, generated by reference to production costs for the good or service in question. With declining marginal productivity, increased sale prices are required to generate increased output. Since changing conditions of demand shift the demand curve to a different cost position on the supply curve, there is a sense in which demand ‘determines’ the cost as well as the quantity of goods produced, even in equilibrium.

Without such declining marginal productivity – a more realistic assumption according to critics of the neoclassical theory – demand will determine the level of output while prices are determined solely by production costs. As Sraff a says:

in normal cases the cost of production of commodities produced competitively...must be regarded as constant in respect of small variation in the quantity produced. And so, as a simple way of approaching the problem of competitive value, the old and now obsolete theory which makes it dependent on the cost of production alone appears to hold its ground as the best available.[18]

Either way, the basic idea is that changes in demand really influence the sale price of goods only in the short term, with the system out of its equilibrium position. An increase in demand – with people prepared to pay more for particular goods or services, will allow the suppliers to charge more than their costs of production. A fall in demand will force suppliers to sell for less than such production costs. In the longer term, shifts of investment of resources in response to such changing prices--and ongoing competition--will bring sale prices back into line with production costs and ‘normal profits’, with the system in stable equilibrium.

It could be that demand has increased because consumers have suddenly realised how good the product really is. Or it could be that clever marketing has misled them into believing it is so good. The former might justify special reward in the eyes of some, the latter in the eyes of others.

It is far from clear, in terms of justice or fairness, why producers who merely happen to be in a sector where demand happens to increase should thereby benefit by simply pushing up their prices, or why those in a sector where demand declines should suffer accordingly. Again, only a utilitarian analysis can possibly justify such ‘undeserved’ benefits and detriments, in terms of their encouragement to others to enter high demand sectors, increase output and compete prices back down to production costs.

Libertarians, in taking market price as a true measure of value of goods and services, thereby legitimate the ongoing super-profits of those who actively contribute to maintaining situations of over or under supply, in order to keep prices and profits up in some areas and down in others. This problem is considerably exacerbated by the failure of neoclassical theorists to provide any clear – empirical – criteria for establishing whether or not a market actually is in ‘equilibrium’.[19]

Libertarians will condemn price-fixing and monopoly as incompatible with the free market relations that they support. They will condemn all barriers to the free flow of productive resources in response to demand. But they are far from wholly consistent on this point, as we have seen in relation to the international mobility of labour. Libertarians support the liberation of individual initiative in the service of economic efficiency through the free international mobility of capital – in pursuit of maximum profit. Yet, they are frequently less enthusiastic about equally free mobility of labour in pursuit of higher wages. In the world today national boundaries provide generally effective barriers to the free flow of labour in response to demand. Millions of workers are trapped in the third world in a situation of massive oversupply of labour due to ongoing displacement of farmers and others from the land by agricultural revolution, the spread of agribusinesses, big dam projects and other developments, with no chance of moving to areas of higher demand, no matter how much effort and sacrifice they make. Many who do make real efforts and sacrifices to try to improve their lot in this regard are rewarded by imprisonment and deportation.[20]

Similarly, millions of third world producers are trapped in regions where, because of a legacy of domination by foreign colonial and imperial powers, destroying indigenous industries in favour of primary production of monocultures and mining (including the recent directives of the International Monetary Fund, urging numerous poor countries to concentrate upon the same few export crops[21] ) they have no choice but to grow crops which are massively oversupplied on the world market. They are locked together in a desperate competition for foreign currency that forces their wages and revenues ever lower.[22]

The products they produce are relatively cheap in part because of the barriers to free flow of labour out of the third world that make such labour cheap, along with political repression, lack of indigenous industrial development, and competition with heavily subsidised first world primary production. There is therefore no way the cheapness of their products can be used to justify the low levels of wages, as libertarians suggest. Meanwhile, powerful first world monopolies regulate and control the supply of high technology so as to maximise their profits on a world scale. This means that technology produced in the first world is in short supply globally compared with labour, and in high demand, including high demand from the poor third worlders, who are competing amongst themselves for the foreign currency to pay for it. So the terms of international trade inevitably turn against the latter.[23]

Individual contribution

In equilibrium, as noted earlier, sale prices are supposed to reflect real production costs, with no such added demand based costs. But such production costs include market-determined prices for different kinds of human labour. On the one side, supposedly, are buyers – businesses – willing to pay wages, salaries and bonuses in proportion to workers or managers objective contribution to the value of output; the higher their output, or productivity, the bigger the wage. Those who currently enjoy high wages and salaries can therefore argue that such rewards demonstrate, and are justified by, such high output. On the other side, are workers and managers, some of whom have paid for the acquisition of particular productive skills, and expect to recoup such costs from their wages or salaries. Once again, such individuals can claim that their high levels of reward are justified by the high costs of their skills.

Demand considerations complicate the picture, both in terms of demand conditions for labour itself, allowing wages to fall below or rise above the costs of provision of relevant skills, and in terms of demand for the product, pushing the monetary value of the workers objective contribution to output up or down. Moreover, there are problems with the idea of measuring individual contribution to output. No-one in a modern industrial economy produces anything on their own. All production is a complex collective effort involving the effective collaboration of dozens, hundreds and thousands of people, directly through the division of social labour within and between productive facilities and indirectly, through the use of knowledge, skills, tools and infrastructures provided by others in the past. And this is particularly the case within large corporate structures, which often integrate productive processes around the world.

Of course, special skills are still needed to allow individuals to participate effectively in achieving particular forms and levels of output. Yet, the production of such necessary skills is itself, typically, a similarly collective social effort. In this area also monetary costs do not necessarily reflect real social costs of production. Individuals seldom bear the full monetary cost of the production of the skills they acquire; substantial public contributions are almost always involved.

A useful analogy here is that of constructing a machine mostly made up of relatively easily built and cheap components. A couple of parts, necessary to complete the system, are more complex and expensive to produce. We need to have them in order to allow the machine to function. But this does not make the more costly parts more important or more productive than other parts in the overall operation of the system, nor mean that they contribute more to whatever task the machine is designed to perform.

It is true that if this machine is used to produce a particular output for sale, and we want to replace it when it wears out, then we must factor in the differing costs of the different parts into the total sale price of the total output of the machine, during its productive life. We can then even attribute a proportion of the value of individual products to the replacement costs of the high priced parts in question. But this does not mean the more costly parts are ‘more productive’ or that they actually, in any objective sense, contribute any such measurable component of value. [24]

Suppose we add a new part to the machine and double the output of useful items from the same input of raw materials. This does not make the new part ‘responsible’ for half the new increased production. It is the addition of the new part to the other parts, and their collective operation that are responsible for the total increased output. The new part does nothing on its own. It just so happens that it is needed alongside the old parts to create the new system. There is no reason why this new part need necessarily be complex or expensive.

Similarly, and despite claims to the contrary, it is not possible to trace particular components of value of the final output back to the productive contributions of particular individuals within particular social organisations of production. It might be claimed that we can see by how much the new employee, the new CEO, for example, has increased profits. At best, the increase is really a result of new relationships between many individuals, collaborating and co-ordinating their particular activities. Perhaps the CEO ‘brings out the best’ in the workforce, but so do they give their best in the changed circumstances – and give the CEO a chance to ‘shine’. Such increased profits could equally be related to new, cheaper or more productive technology, cheaper raw materials, or some other ‘external’ consideration, most obviously increased demand for the product.

This means that the distribution of such increased profits – and indeed of all revenues from the sale of products – whether they go to workers, managers or shareholders –is not now based upon any clear principle of distributive justice; of either reward for effort or reward for ‘objective’ contribution to the value of the product. Rather it is a matter of politics – of the differential power of the relevant parties, moderated by ‘market’ demands for the replacement of productive resources and competitive capital accumulation.

In stark contrast to libertarian claims to the contrary, it seems to be generally true that individual effort is much more readily assessable than individual contribution to the value of output. As Hahnel points out, individuals working together generally have quite a good idea about who is working ‘longer, harder, or at more dangerous, stressful or boring tasks’, and who is slacking off, or doing easier, or more enjoyable work. [25]

There are problems in devising workable systems of remuneration based upon such facts; problems of possible victimisation and ‘tyranny of the majority’. And in line with the utilitarian arguments for equality of outcome considered earlier, clear limits must be placed on the nature and extent of reward for effort, so as to reduce inequalities of outcome.

Most obviously, there is the issue of the pressing needs of those unable to exercise such productive efforts. Indeed, there are very strong arguments for seeking to ensure the satisfaction of the basic needs of all, through both comprehensive public welfare provision and a universal basic income, sufficient to meet socially recognised requirements of subsistence.[26]

But a first approximation toward an effort-based system, paying all the same standard rate per hour worked, will produce much smaller disparities of final outcome than one based upon the supposed value of individual output. And we can still see how reward for effort, in combination with basic need satisfaction through social welfare, provides a solid foundation for a much ‘fairer’ and more democratic system than the present one.

Conclusion

Libertarians see a number of considerations as relevant in determining the appropriate rewards for productive contribution. These include:

(1)The market demand for goods and for labour, including particular sorts of skilled labour. Those producing goods in demand should be rewarded in proportion to such demand, and those offering skilled labour in demand should be similarly rewarded
(2)The specific contribution made by particular individuals to the monetary value of output. Individuals should be rewarded in proportion to such specific contribution.
(3)The monetary cost of providing individuals with particular skills – capable of increasing their productive potential. Individuals should be rewarded for productive effort in proportion to the cost of equipping them with the skills necessary to undertake such productive effort.

This paper has argued that:

(1) Rational and responsible demand – like consent – must be informed demand; established by reference to the real social and environmental costs and benefits of production and consumption, taking into account existing assets, productive possibilities, sustainability, positive and negative externalities and real human needs. This has nothing necessarily to do with market mechanisms or with monetary incentives or rewards. It does have to do with education, rational thought and democratic decision-making, including decisions about what sorts and how many skills should be created and how they will be distributed.

Monetarily effective demand could be partially indicative of such ‘real’ demand in a situation of comprehensive social welfare, equality of income and reliable information access. An increase in such demand could serve to indicate the need for increased investment in the sector in question. But there is no reason why this should lead to special rewards for those working in the sector in question.

(2) Specific contributions to the value of output cannot be quantified and even if they were measurable, they could not serve as a just basis for differential reward.

(3) Effort and sacrifice will be required in order to put any particular chosen production plan into action, including effort and sacrifice in acquiring relevant skills, as well as exercising them. It is both fair and just – as well as functionally effective – that individuals should be rewarded in proportion to their contribution of effort and sacrifice in the service of general social welfare. If all make an effort in working to satisfy reasonable demand, all will benefit. There is no reason to reward individuals for social expenditure in the production of their special skills or abilities.


[*] Senior lecturer, School of Law, University of Western Sydney <s.mann@uws.edu.au>

[1] See e.g. M Friedman and R Friedman, Free to Choose (1980), F Hayek, The Road To Serfdom (1944).

[2] See e.g. F Stillwell, Political Economy (2002) Part V.

[3] In their classic libertarian study cited above, Milton Friedman and Rose Friedman defend both remuneration in proportion to ‘the price a person receives for the services of his resources’ and in proportion to how ‘hard’ they work. Friedman, n1 at 43. Libertarians also present profit as reward for immediate consumption forgone, as the wage is reward for leisure forgone, or reward for investment as constructive ‘risk taking’. These ideas are the subject of a follow-up paper.

[4] See e.g. BOSSWATCH <http://bosswatch.labor.au/> .

[5] See e.g. J Petras and H Veltmeyer, Globalization Unmasked (2001) 24-25.

[6] See R Wilkinson, Unhealthy Societies (1996).

[7] P Singer, Practical Ethics (1996) 21.

[8] Wilkinson, above n 5, ch 9, 10.

[9] See e.g. D Resnik, The Ethics of Science (1998) ch 2.

[10] See e.g. P Self, Rolling Back The Market (2000) 68-69.

[11] See e.g. R Nozick, Anarchy, State and Utopia (1974).

[12] See e.g. Stillwell, n 2, ch 19.

[13] See e.g. S Keen, Debunking Economics (2001) 68.

[14] L Robbins, An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science (1935).

[15] D C Korten, When Corporations Rule The World (2001), ch 11.

[16] See e.g. P Singer and T Trainer, The Greens (1996).

[17] Self, above n 13, ch 3.

[18] Keen n 12 at 72-73, quoting P Sraffa, ‘The law of returns under competitive conditions’ 40 Economic Journal 538-550.

[19] R Hahnel, The ABC of Political Economy (2002) 97.

[20] See e.g. M Head, 'Whither the Refugee Convention? a New Perspective for the 21st Century' (2002) 21 Mots Pluriels.

[21] See e.g. M Rowbotham, Goodbye America (2000) ch 5.

[22] Ibid.

[23] Hahnel n 18, ch 8.

[24] Marxist economists assume that a machine, produced by a certain expenditure of human labour time, as measure of value, transfers this past value to the commodities it is used to produce in the course of its working life. On this basis, it is supposed to be possible to identify the contribution of present labour to the labour value of the finished product. But the machine really functions only in the context of a complex production process; its particular contribution is a technical issue of understanding how it works together with other elements, and its – real causal -- role in the generation of output would be unaffected by radical change in its own conditions of production, if its technical structure remained the same. On the other hand, such labour time accounting is basically compatible with an effort based analysis.

[25] Hahnel n 18 at 282-284.

[26] A Callinicos, An Anti-Capitalist Manifesto (2003) 134.


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