Economic content of the category of value
Economic content of the category of value

Summary/Abstract: The paper aims to demonstrate that the category of value, being a key category in market economy, is intrinsically associated with the development of social labor. Since labor is provided by humans, it embodies their physical and intellectual effort as well as their skills and their perception of the purpose of the work being, or to be, done. This means that labor is useful, hence it has use-value relating to its quality. The notion of use-value presupposes relations between all instances of labor, implying its linkage to social allocation of labor. Social labor develops through the equation of use-value with value. The dynamic development of labor performed under specific conditions of use-value creation is reflected in the category of efficiency, which is not neutral or extraneous to the macroeconomic criterion of social efficiency. Directing scholars’ attention to establishing a macroeconomic criterion for the development of social labor – a criterion by which to improve labor at an individual level – seems to be a promising path in the ongoing search for an ideal model of market economy.

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