ENGL 200 D: Reading Literature: Literature in the Marketplace

In this first assignment, I will use John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government and Stephen Duck’s The Thresher’s Labour to address the question of “why labor value is so difficult to establish.” This paper will expand on the idea that labor value is difficult to establish because labor has no intrinsic value. Rather, the value is decided by the individual who is directly benefiting from the labor, and often, this individual is not in fact the laborer.

I chose to use these two works because I feel that they are the two papers we have read that most directly address the issue of labor value. Beyond that, they are also in conflict with each other. In his paper Locke talks at great length about the high value of labor. On the other hand, Duck is a lowly field laborer, seeing little from his long hours working in the field. This conflict between the two authors is extremely important because it shows that there can be very different values placed on labor and that this is a question that deserves to be written about.

As of now, there are a few points I plan on making in my paper:

• Labor cannot have an intrinsic value because not all labor is the same. For example, in Thresher’s Labour, Duck describes how the women working in the field do significantly less then he and the other men do. Clearly, labour by some individuals is much more valuable.
• In Locke’s paper, he mainly discusses an individual working to collect what is necessary to survive. In this case, that individual is the only benefactor from this labor, so they are the ones to place value. This is why Locke is able to say that labor has such a high value and that it brings property.
• The reason that Duck doesn’t feel that he benefits directly from his labor is that he is not working for himself, rather he is working for someone else. Duck’s labor holds more value to the owner of the field than it does to Duck himself.