“The product of mental labor – science – always stands far below its value, because the labor-time necessary to reproduce it has no relation at all to the labor-time required for its original production.”
- May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883
- Born in the Kingdom of Prussia (Germany)
- Philosopher, economist, political thinker
- Wrote Das Kapital and laid the foundations for socialist and communist thought
Quote
“The product of mental labor – science – always stands far below its value, because the labor-time necessary to reproduce it has no relation at all to the labor-time required for its original production.”
Explanation
In this quote, Karl Marx is commenting on the discrepancy between the value of intellectual labor and its reproduction. Mental labor, such as the work done in science, research, and intellectual pursuits, is undervalued because once knowledge is produced, its reproduction—through dissemination, teaching, or publication—does not require the same amount of labor. The “labor-time” necessary to reproduce scientific knowledge is often minimal compared to the time and effort that went into its original creation. This contrasts with physical goods, where the labor time involved in manufacturing and reproduction is more directly connected to their value.
Marx’s theory of value, based on labor, posits that the value of a commodity is determined by the amount of socially necessary labor time required to produce it. However, intellectual products like science or literature often transcend this principle. After the original intellectual labor is completed, reproducing the product—such as a book, a scientific paper, or a teaching—can be done with relatively little effort, which leads to the devaluation of intellectual work in comparison to manual labor. Marx saw this as part of a larger critique of the capitalist system, where the exploitation of labor is often hidden and intellectual labor is not rewarded in proportion to its contribution.
In today’s world, we see this issue reflected in the fields of academia, technology, and media, where the intellectual work behind innovations or academic achievements can be vastly undercompensated relative to its impact. For example, in the tech industry, a software engineer may develop an innovative algorithm or product, but once the code is written, reproducing and distributing the software involves much less effort. Yet, the value of the engineer’s work may not be fully reflected in compensation or recognition, particularly when the company profiting from this work is focused on scalability and profit margins rather than equitable distribution of intellectual labor. This quote remains relevant as a critique of how capitalism undervalues intellectual contributions while profiting from them.
