The Eccentric Commodity: Why Only Labor-Power Produces Value

Who or what produces surplus value across the economy-ecology nexus? The question is central to Marxism and to eco-Marxism more specifically. This article argues that only labor-power produces value and develops what it calls the work theory of value. It argues, first, that abstract labor, the source of all value, comes onto the historical scene as labor-power. Second, it shows that labor-power has both a use-value, its capacity to do thermodynamic “work,” and an exchange-value, its wage, and that neither of these are unique to labor-power. Third and fourth, the article offers an immanent critique of labor-power and capital respectively. On this basis, the article concludes that labor-power “produces” value because it is an eccentric commodity, the unique part of the economy that has the power to refuse the transition from ecology to economy. In its struggle with capital, labor-power transforms ecological energy into economic “work” or value.