Value Creating Labour Quotes

“Exchange converts a good into a commodity, an object no longer intended
for the satisfaction of an individual need or brought into existence and
vanishing with that need. On the contrary, it is intended for society,
and its fate, now dependent on the laws which govern the social
circulation of goods, can be far more capricious than that of Odysseus;
for what is one-eyed Polyphemus compared with the argus-eyed customs
officials of Newport, or the fair Circe compared with the German meat
inspectors? It has become a commodity because its producers participate
in a specific social relationship in which they have to confront each
other as independent producers. Originally a natural, quite
unproblematic thing, a good comes to express a social relation, acquires
a social aspect. It is a product of labour, no longer merely a natural
quality but a social phenomenon. We must therefore discover the law
which governs this society as a producing and working community.
Individual labour now appears in a new aspect, as part of the total
labour force over which society disposes, and only from this point of
view does it appear as value-creating labour.”
― Rudolph Hiferding, Finance Capital: A study in the latest phase of capitalist development