Footnote

What does it mean to say "the cost of production of labor?" This is a key point for Marxism and one on which a range of opinions may be possible. Here are a couple of guidelines Marxists would agree on:

The cost of production of labor is the labor value of the goods and services a worker and her or his family would consume over a life cycle, with enough children to reproduce the working class, on the average.

The cost of production of labor is more than just subsistence, and may depend on customs and traditions as well as technology and nutrition.

The cost of educated labor is greater than that of uneducated labor, so that the wages of educated labor will be greater than those of uneducated labor by some proportion that will depend on the extent of the education.