K. Marx’s conceptual approach to the labor force and modern realities

The need to reproduce the labor force determines the lowest limit of its value, while the highest limit is formed by the cost of goods and services that this labor force is able to produce and actually produces. Fluctuations in the cost of labor occur in this range. The more technologically advanced the goods and services, and, consequently, the more complex and skilled the employee’s work, the wider the range under consideration. Taking into account the general trend of increasing the complexity of work and improving its skills, especially in the digital economy, we can conclude that there are prospects for increasing the upper limit of the cost of labor and expanding the corresponding range of fluctuations in its cost. These boundaries, as well as fluctuations in the cost of labor within them, are dynamic. They depend on the historical, geographical, and socio-economic conditions of the development of countries and peoples. In particular, they are influenced by the multifaceted cyclical development of the market economy. In the conditions of crises, there is, respectively, a downward trend, and in the conditions of ups, an upward trend. As the modern market economy develops, qualitative changes in ownership relations occur, primarily related to the large-scale and widespread development of the joint-stock form of ownership. It is often accompanied by a «dispersion» of the ownership of large companies among small shareholders and a relative decrease in the size of the controlling stake, which allows for real management. Workers become co-owners, and their labor force ceases to be just a commodity. Accordingly, the more actively employees participate in corporatization, the more they are co-owners, the less their labor force can be considered as a commodity. More and more employees are involved in the sphere of subjects of property relations not only through the system of corporatization, but also through the system of management relations. Managers involved in the management process and the organization of production also perform the economic functions of the owner, although from a legal point of view they are not. It turns out that the amount of remuneration depends not only on the cost of their labor, but also on their performance of the functions of the owner. Qualitative changes are taking place in the sphere of property relations, which gradually lead to a weakening of the confrontation between the interests of labor and capital. At the same time, the complete identity of these interests is unattainable.