[Discussion originally from  
http://eh.net/pipermail/hes/2006-June/006494.html  
HB]  
  
  
James Ahiakpor and Rod Hay are asking about Marx's theory of exploitation.  
        For "all value derives from labor" you need to go the first   
sixty to eighty pages of Capital, where Marx talks about how all   
exchange value derives from labor time.  (Use value, as Marx says,   
derives from the natural qualities of the object and the particular   
qualities of the labor involved in making it; exchange value derives   
from the quantity of abstract labor [time].)  
        For "not given labor all of production amounts to   
exploitation," one place to go is Marx's Critique of the Gotha   
Program (published alone & in many readers, like The Marx-Engels   
Reader).  There Marx criticizes the Gotha Program, written by Lasalle   
and his allies, for making that argument.  Marx points out that, in   
order to have an on-going society that can reproduce and improve   
itself, some of production must go to replacing depreciation, some to   
education, etc., before the remaining production can be returned to   
the laborer directly.  
  
Peter G. Stillman