cludes a variety of considerations, only the most important of which can be noted here.
To begin with, "socially necessary" labor must not be confused with "average" labor. The average labor only comes into play when the productive power of individual producers working with the same tools is under consideration. Otherwise, "socially necessary" and "average" may, and very often do, represent different things. For instance, the labor expended on the production of an article, in order to create new value, must, in addition to having been productive according to the average expenditure for the production of such articles, have created something which was necessary for society. In determining whether an article is "necessary" for society or not, it is not merely the general usefulness of the article and its actual' necessity for some of the members of society that is to be considered, but also whether, in the state of the society's economy, the need for such articles has not already been provided for sufficiently when compared with other needs, and having due regard to the general conditions of production and distribution in society. If too much of a certain commodity is produced, too much not absolutely, but according to existing social conditions and relations, such production does not create any additional value. It is so much labor wasted. Of course, that does not mean that any particular labor thus expended will create no value, or that any particular article thus produced will have no value. But, value being a social relation, all the labor expended in the production of this class of articles in society will produce less value proportionately, each article will have so much less value, so that the aggregate of such articles produced will have no more value than if that labor were not expended and the additional article were not produced.
Again,—the tools of production in a certain industry may be undergoing a change by which the amount of labor necessary to be expended in the production of a certain
