Labor produces nine-tenths or more of all useful value

Evidence

Nor is it so strange, as perhaps before consideration it may appear, that the property of labour should be able to over-balance the community of land: for it is labour indeed that puts the difference of value on every thing; and let any one consider what the difference is between an acre of land planted with tobacco or sugar, sown with wheat or barley, and an acre of the same land lying in common, without any husbandry upon it, and he will find, that the improvement of labour makes the far greater part of the value. I think it will be but a very modest computation to say, that of the products of the earth useful to the life of man nine tenths are the effects of labour: nay, if we will rightly estimate things as they come to our use, and cast up the several expences about them, what in them is purely owing to nature, and what to labour, we shall find, that in most of them ninety-nine hundredths are wholly to be put on the account of labour. — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 50

Categorization

• XREF: This labor theory of value is the seed later developed by Smith, Ricardo, and Marx — a natural bridge. — connects to: Mixing one’s labor with nature generates private property — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 36; Property rights are limited to what one can use before spoilage — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, 40; Growth rests on workers selling labor for less than the value they create — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism: An Intervention, 95 (+6 more)

Related

• Labour-power is the sole commodity whose use-value is the creation of value itself (similarity 0.83)
• Profit comes from surplus value workers generate (similarity 0.80)
• Labor power only becomes a value through the possibility of exchange. (similarity 0.80)
• Surplus value arises from the gap between labour time given and reproduction cost (similarity 0.80)
• Labor is the commodity whose surplus value is expropriated and realized through market exchange (similarity 0.79)

Broader Connections

• Growth rests on workers selling labor for less than the value they create #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 95
• Labor is the commodity whose surplus value is expropriated and realized through market exchange #corroborates (0.82)
• Profit comes from surplus value workers generate #expands (0.82) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 103
• Labour-power is the sole commodity whose use-value is the creation of value itself #expands (0.80) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1356
• Surplus value arises from the gap between labour time given and reproduction cost #expands (0.80) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1364
• Society, through the division of labour, produces more than the sum of its parts. #corroborates (0.75)
• Productive labour in Marx means work done on natural, non-conscious material #qualifies (0.72) — Dirk Braunstein, Adorno’s Critique of Political Economy, 1312