On Socially Necessary Labour

Socially necessary labour time is a key concept in Marxian economic theory. However it is hardly ever properly discussed. This article presents the English translation of a section of a textbook on political economy of socialism published in the former German Democratic Republic in 1974 by an author collective of the Institute of Social Sciences of the Central Committee of the SED, the socialist party. Although it contains some serious errors it shows that prices of production are proportional to labour values. This does not only apply to socialism but also to perfect competition economies as here also capital accumulation is a social necessity and has to be included in the calculation of labour values. The fact that most Western Marxian works do not include capital accumulation as part of socially necessary labour time leads to serious contradictions and uselessness which was even sometimes recognized by those theorists themselves