Das Kapital

“Labour, then, as the creator of use-values, as useful labour, is a condition of human existence which is independent of all forms of society; it is an eternal natural necessity which mediates the metabolism between man and nature, and therefore human life itself.”

Labor is central to Marx’s understanding of not only economics but also society and history. It is how labor is done and how productivity is established that shapes society, not the other way around. This passage also reflects Marx’s belief in The Labor Theory of Value.

“The body of the commodity, which serves as the equivalent, always figures as the embodiment of abstract human labour, and is always the product of some specific useful and concrete labour.”

The value of any commodity is determined by the work and the hours of labor put into it. For Marx, any commodity or service is literally just the final expression of work done by at least one human being.

“A commodity appears at first sight an extremely obvious, trivial thing. But its analysis brings out that it is a very strange thing, abounding in metaphysical subtleties and theological niceties.”

This passage reflects what Marx describes as the “fetishism of the commodity” (163). In other words, Marx is referring to the fact that society assigns a certain value to a thing, regardless of how much labor actually went into making it.