Calculating the parameters of labor power
This article describes the design of a complex wage system for the workforce of cooperative farms in 1950s Hungary. Inspired by studies in industrial engineering and scientific management conducted in Hungary and Germany during the interwar period, calculations of the value of labor were calibrated...
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| izdano v: | URI:https://journals.openedition.org/statsoc, |
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| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Jezik: | Anglais |
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Statistique et société
2025
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| Online dostop: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
| Izvleček: | This article describes the design of a complex wage system for the workforce of cooperative farms in 1950s Hungary. Inspired by studies in industrial engineering and scientific management conducted in Hungary and Germany during the interwar period, calculations of the value of labor were calibrated according to careful measurements of the physical effort, skill and temporal duration required for each specific task at the farm. Previous practices in manorial estate management served as a guide for the calculations, but the exacting standards stipulated in the overall wage design were worked up by experts of longstanding at the Ministry of Agriculture in a short six weeks as the socialist regime was still being consolidated. A remarkable feature of this history is the negligible influence of the Soviet Union and the virtual absence of market dynamics in the design of the wage system. It is also argued that this means of commodifying labor brings into sharp relief the investments in form—quantification and commensuration—by which the value of labor is ascertained. |
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