ABSTRACT
The psychodynamic meaning of the productivity of labour power becomes very clear in Karl Marx’s discussion of constant and variable capital. The value of the raw material is dissolved into the labour which is used in its production; it becomes crystallized labour-time. The mystery, the secret of productivity, the faculty of being able to produce more than there was before, to create something new, is now attributed to labour. The male factor, labour, is considered to be the real creator of value. Marx had explained surplus value as the difference between the market value of labour power and the market value of the product of labour (minus the value of the non-labour factors of production). In psychological terms: the entire Marxian argument culminates in the conclusion that the masculine element, labour, plays the decisive part in the procreation of economic value.
