The value of labor power
The value of labor power is determined by the value of the means of subsistence workers must consume to reproduce their labor power. This includes the developing labor powers of their children, who in time will replace them on the labor market. At the minimum, the means of subsistence must enable the workers to live and raise their children in the biological sense.
Like all commodities, means of subsistence have three values. One is their use values necessary for the reproduction of human labor power. Among these are food, shelter and clothing. Second is the amount of (abstract) labor, measured in some unit of time, necessary under the prevailing conditions of production to produce the means of subsistence. Finally, the commodities that go into the value of labor power have a value form or money price, called the wage.
Regardless of the epoch, there is always a quantity of the means of subsistence below which human life cannot be sustained. As we saw last month, industrial capitalists operating in southern India can pay a wage so low that their workers will be unable to buy warm clothing and winter heating while still expecting them to survive biologically. However, industrial capitalists operating in Siberia, Russia, must pay a wage sufficient to allow their workers to purchase a winter coat and pay for heating. Otherwise, the workers will perish.
Even if workers are barely able to survive biologically, they might still not be able to produce children and raise the next generation of workers. So the biologically determined minimum wage must in addition cover the costs of bearing and raising children. These factors establish a level of wages below which the real wage cannot fall for any extended period of time.
If wages were to fall below the level necessary to buy food, the working class would be extinct within a few weeks, and so would the capitalist mode of production. Without workers, surplus value cannot be produced, and without the production of surplus value, there can be no profit, and without profit there can be no capitalism.
If bosses paid the workers just enough to maintain the workers’ lives but not enough to raise the next generation of workers, the number of available workers would progressively decline, which would also lead to the extinction of the capitalist mode of production. This biologically determined minimum wage is the level to which capital always attempts to depress the actual wage. In the absence of counter-pressure from the side of the workers, the biologically minimum wage will constitute the actual wage.
A Critique of Crisis Theory 