The Assumption That Labor Creates Value and Private Property

Translation of https://dialoogid2.blogspot.com/2026/01/eeldus-et-too-loob-vaartust-ja-eraomand.html from Estonian.

 

The Assumption That Labor Creates Value and Private Property 

Karmo Talts

 

Let's examine at the justification for the Marxist notion that property should belong to workers. It is based on the assumption that value is created by labor. 

Let's examine now whether this assumption necessarily justifies the fact that property should be common. Common property can be justified based on the assumption that value is created by collective labor. 

Let´s examine now what the does assumption that each worker creates value with his own labor justify. Then each worker has the right to the value he has created. 

Let´s examine now one possible view of the origin of private property. In the beginning, the one who has created something with his own labor uses it himself or exchanges it with others. Exploitation arose in one way or another from the unjust appropriation of value belonging to others. One form of exploitation was the overt unjust acquisition of value, either by force or by taking it away when the owner, who had acquired the property in a fair manner, did not look after his property, etc. Another form of exploitation was the covert unjust acquisition of value, where the more cunning party made a bad exchange to the detriment of the less cunning party. 

Let's consider now one possible moral and legal view of private property. The individual has a moral right to the value created by his own labor or acquired in a fair exchange. The law must protect private property thus acquired, provide penalties for unjust means of acquiring property, and provide means for the return of the unjustly acquired value to the individual whose rights to private property have been violated.