On Labor Theory of Value free essay sample

Compares views on labor power, private property, individual vs. social needs, creation of wealth, capitalism. Marx Locke The purpose of this essay is to examine Lockes and Marxs similar views on the labor theory of value and their divergent positions on the nature of private property. For Marx, labor power is the mental and physical capabilities existing in a human being. (Marx 336) Locke envisions labor as part of a human beings own person to be used as his or her property. (Locke 18-19) These are closely related assumptions about the nature of labor power in essence both agree that humans innately own their labor power and this ownership is transferred to its object. It is in the result of labor, what becomes transformed through labor to become private property, that Marx and Locke will ultimately part ways. Locke argues that labor is process through which humans create property out of that which God gave to mankind in