this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2025
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Am I going crazy or something? Because I distinctly remember reading somewhere that the labor-power of a human, their capacity to perform labor is the economic analogue of the horse-power of an engine, it's ability to do work.

I also remember reading somewhere that Marx modeled the concept of labor-power after it's thermodynamic counterpart (hence the name, labor-power)

Now I've been searching for a source from Marx's own writings, and although the way marx treats labor-power is entirely analogous to how one might treat an engine with the capacity to do work, I haven't yet found an explicit comparison in his writings. Reading through chapters of capital is taking some time ...

So my question to the comrades here is, am I hallucinating this connection between political economy and thermodynamics, or is it real (and where in marx's writings should I look).

For additional context: I was banned from a certain place for using this analogy (oddly harsh punishment perhaps). I don't really care about being unbanned, but I do want to know if I was wrong.

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[–] Commiejones@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 3 weeks ago

Labor is not a constant. Horsepower is.

So one horsepower will always be a horsepower regardless of whether you are moving one feather or a 33000 pound rock if you exert one horsepower on it it will move a certain distance per minute. The rock will move one foot that feather will move much much farther.

Labor is not a constant. The constant is productivity. A linen shirt takes a certain amount of time depending on the tools used to make it and the skill of the labor. The product remains constant while the labor and tools that are used change how long it takes.