> don't get ownership over the full value that they produce.
But the value is subjective. A few lines of code is not valuable to me, no matter what context, so I am happy to trade it for a salary.
If I dig a hole for someone, someone agrees to pay me $50 for it. I value the $50 more than the cost of labour to do the hole. Me making holes is no value to me, and infact it's a good workout, so if they didn't pay me to do it I'd just go to the gym and do the same movement for free.
To them, it's probably the start of a fence or a clothesline or something that solves a real problem for them. Much more valuable than $50
on an individual level maybe it's (partially) subjective, but marx is concerned with the systemic level. he's talking about the industries which really drive the economy
i don't think there's ever been a successful attempt to reduce macroeconomics down to the microeconomics level. basically, the system as a whole cannot be calculated by summing up a model of all the individual behaviors, it doesnt work that way. there have been several broadly successful macroeconomic models
steve keen talks a lot about this same type of stuff and he's very much not a marxist, if you want a different perspective on it
But the value is subjective. A few lines of code is not valuable to me, no matter what context, so I am happy to trade it for a salary.
If I dig a hole for someone, someone agrees to pay me $50 for it. I value the $50 more than the cost of labour to do the hole. Me making holes is no value to me, and infact it's a good workout, so if they didn't pay me to do it I'd just go to the gym and do the same movement for free.
To them, it's probably the start of a fence or a clothesline or something that solves a real problem for them. Much more valuable than $50