Problems In Reducing Complex Labor to Simple Labor In Marxist Political Economy

Those who have studied Marxist political economy know of the existence of one very difficult and still not entirely resolved problem which in its complexity recalls the famous problem in the past of squaring the circle. The question under discussion was formulated in mathematical terms at the end of chapter five in the first volume of >u>Capital>/u>. In examining the differences between simple and skilled labor, Marx wrote that "in every process of the formation of value, the higher labor must always be reduced to average social labor, e.g., one day of higher labor to >u>x>/u> days of simple labor." (>u>1>/u>)