Workmen's advocate., 1886-12-26
PROFESSOR ELYS NEW BOOK
"The Labor Movement in America" ."
FIFTH PAPER.

FIFTH PAPER,
 The first serious error in Professor Ely's criticism on the falIacy of the elder economists that the assumption that labor is a commodity of the same nature as other comnodities) is in his persistent confusion of labor with labor-power. This confusion was inevitable in the time of the men he criticizes. It ought not to occur now. Our urscientitic master Karl Marx, has made so perfectly clear the essential distinction between labor power and labor, has shown so plainly that the former is, and the latter is not, commodity, that any one who IS sup posed to have to read "Das kapital,' ought to distinguish accurately between the two.
 Labor is no more a commodity than the use-value of a watch, as a means of telling the time, is a commodity. The watch is a commodity. It is human products; it has a use-value; it is not go- in to be used, [. C., consumed, by it's actual producer. Therefore, it is a com modity. Labor-power is d human pro- | duct it has a value; 1t is under the wage system) not going to be used, L. C., consumed by it's actual producer the laborer and he that directs not simply employs) him and in so far is laborer. Therefore it is commodity. The watch has a use. It Is consumed, slowly but surely, in telling the time. Labor power has a use. It is consumed in la bor Labor is the realization of the use value of the commodity, labor-pOwer It is the consumption of that commodity. just as the eating of a purchased loaf is the realization of the use-value, is the consumption, of the commodity, loaf.
 It may be urged that these are fine distinctions, and that to introduce them in popular works and newspapers is likely to confuse the questions under discussion But. they are not fine dis tinctions; they are very broad ones, And, far from confusing questions and those studying them, a clear understand ing of the essential difference between the commodity labor power and it's real izatiou, or the result of its consumption, labor, simplities matters at once, and makes many difficulties in the labor problem vanish directly. The fact is that the political economists have ignor- antly or wilfully, confused these two distinct things, and have thus been 0Lie to perform many feat of intellectual iugglery, for tue delectation of the up holders of the present system of produc ton and distribution of goods.
 In every case, therefore, where a la borer is said to sell his labor, remember that the actual thing sold is his lahor- power, !. C., the sum of his bodily func- tions physical and mentaN tha, in action use, consumption, realization, become labor And in every case where. at the end of my last article, quoting from Fro, lessor Ely. l wrote labor" let Us read lalQr-pnwer Then we can admit that the commodity, Iabor-power, differs from all others in that its use-value involves the welfare of personality; that labor power cannot be withdrawn from tn, market like other wares; that the pric, of labor-power does not at once rise wheI the demand increases; that the employer controls almost every detail of the life o the seller of the lahor-power; that tn, existence of the latter is uncertain all, that he IS evil-entreated of society.
 But to all this we must add thing economically far more important thai any of these; thing omitted by ou author. Labor-power is the only com modity whose consumption creates value In that pregnant phrase of Marx. VI