“The labor theory of property” is a core proposition in political philosophy. Adam Smith integrated John Locke’s concept into the discourse of political economy and recognized that the “identity of labor and property” inherent in “the labor theory of property” contradicts the “second determination” of exchange value.However, Smith merely attributed this contradiction to a violation of the law of value, Karl Marx, by introducing the concept of “labor power”(Arbeitskrat), pointed out that “the labor theory of property” had become a justification for the ownership of others’ labor, based on the separation of labor from property, ultimately obscuring the exploitative nature of the capitalist mode of production. By embedding “the labor theory of property” within the critique of political economy, Marx clearly revealed the fetishism within “the labor theory of property,” a mentality that deliberately asserts the “natural attributes” of the capitalist mode of production, further concealing the fact that the structure of commodity economy is the real basis for the property of others’ labor.

Editor: Zhong Yao  LiuTingting

From:Studies on Marxist Theory.2024.No.9.