Labor power only becomes a value through the possibility of exchange.

Evidence

The conception, for example, that the real value-element in all values is the socially required labor time objectified in them has been applied in both of these ways, and provides a standard, directly or indirectly applicable, which makes value fluctuate positively and negatively with respect to price. The fact of that single standard of value in no way establishes how labor power comes to be a value in the first place. It could hardly have done so if the labor power had not, by acting on various materials and fashioning various products, created the possibility of exchange, or if the use of the labor power were not perceived as a sacrifice which one makes for the sake of its fruits. Labor energy also, then, is aligned with the category of value only through the possibility and reality of exchange, irrespective of the fact that subsequently within this category of value labor may itself provide a standard for the remaining contents. If the labor power therefore is also the content of every value, it receives its form as value in the first place only because it enters into the relations between sacrifice and gain, or profit and value (here in the narrower sense). — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 258

Categorization

• XREF: Directly engages Marx’s labor theory of value; Simmel inverts the priority, putting exchange before labor as the source of value. — connects to: Expanding the market weakens the producer’s ethical investment in labor — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 698; Exchange is a change within each party, not a thing between them. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 223; Exchange creates value as genuinely as production does. — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 228 (+8 more)

Related

• Exchange itself, not utility or scarcity, creates economic value. (similarity 0.90)
• Exchange creates value as genuinely as production does. (similarity 0.88)
• Labour-power is the sole commodity whose use-value is the creation of value itself (similarity 0.87)
• Economic value arises only through sacrifice and exchange (similarity 0.86)
• Labor is the commodity whose surplus value is expropriated and realized through market exchange (similarity 0.86)
• Exchange creates value such that the sum exceeds what each party held. (similarity 0.84)
• Exchange value is measured by what a commodity trades for, not by its price (similarity 0.82)
• Competition drives price toward exchange value determined by embedded labour (similarity 0.81)
• Labor produces nine-tenths or more of all useful value (similarity 0.80)
• Exchange is a change within each party, not a thing between them. (similarity 0.80)
• Expanding the market weakens the producer’s ethical investment in labor (similarity 0.80)
• Profit arises from labour’s dual commodity-and-experiential nature. (similarity 0.79)
• Two-person exchange is a subspecies of the individual’s internal sacrifice-and-gain. (similarity 0.79)
• Human labour contains an uncommodifiable part beyond its market price (similarity 0.79)
• Surplus-value emerges where equivalent exchange opens a gap over reproduction costs (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Labor is the commodity whose surplus value is expropriated and realized through market exchange #expands (0.80)
• Market ideology conceals exploitation by making exchange stand in for production #corroborates (0.70)
• Every exchange is individually advantageous given its actual circumstances #qualifies (0.60) — Georg Simmel, on individuality and social forms_…, 255