This being so, it is evidently absurd to make a point of the fact that one day's work of a skilled laborer may produce as much value as several days' work of an unskilled laborer, and to consider skilled labor as an exception to the laws of value. There is no exception, for there is no such rule except in the perverted imagination of Marx-critics, and, perhaps, some "alleged" Marxists. Were this "allegation" of the rule correct, the exceptions would be too numerous to count. We have already noted before one such important "exception," for instance, in the case of the introduction of improved methods of production before they are generally adopted, or the retention of obsolete methods of production. In either event the value of the commodities produced under the exceptional circumstances by ordinary unskilled labor will not depend on the labor actually spent in their production. Other "exceptions" will easily suggest themselves to the intelligent reader. The only trouble with all of them is that they are exceptions only to an imaginary rule, and not to the rule laid down in Marx's theory of value. It is, therefore, very sad to see how some Marxists spend their energies in making futile attempts to explain away these objections to an imaginary Marxian theory. They would spend their time with more profit to themselves and their readers if they would leave fancy theorizing and see to it that Marx's theories are not misstated; the objections would then take care of themselves.
The matter in itself is very simple. Skilled labor, whether the skill be personal with the producer, acquired by study and training, or impersonal, due to the use of better tools, is more productive. A skilled laborer produces in a given space of time more than the unskilled one. The value of a commodity being equal to the labor which it would cost to produce it, the value of the commodity will, in accordance with the laws of value already explained by us, be the amount of ordinary average labor necessary for its reproduction. For it is by this labor that society will have to reproduce it, the amount of skilled labor being by its very terms limited,
