Labour as Sacrifice or Self-realisation

A. Smith’s view is that labour never changes its value, in the sense that a determined quantity of labour is always a determined quantity for the worker, i.e. according to A. Smith, it is a sacrifice which is quantitatively of an equal size. Whether I receive more or less money for an hour’s work (depending on its productivity and other circumstances), I have worked for one hour. What I have had to pay for the result of my labour, for my wages, is always the same hour of working time, no matter how variable its result. ‘Equal quantities of labour, at all times and places, may be said to be of equal value to the labourer. In his ordinary-state of health, strength and spirits; in the ordinary degree of his skill and dexterity, he must always lay down the same portion of his ease, his liberty, and his happiness. The price which he pays must always be the same, whatever may be the quantity of goods which he receives in return for it. Of these, indeed, it may sometimes purchase a greater and sometimes a smaller quantity; but it is their value which varies, not that of the labour which purchases them.… Labour alone, therefore, never varying in its own value, is alone the ultimate and real standard by which the value of all commodities can at all times and places be estimated and compared. It is their real price; money is their nominal price only.’1