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Marx argues in Capital: Some people might think that if the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labor spent on it, the more idle and un-skillful the laborer, the more valuable would his commodity be, because more time would be required in its production. The labor, however, that forms the substance of value, is homogeneous human labor, expenditure of one uniform labor power. The total labor power of society, which is embodied in the sum total of the values of all commodities produced by that society, counts here as one homogeneous mass of human labor power, composed though it be of innumerable individual units...The labor time socially necessary is that required to produce an article under the normal conditions of production, and with the average degree of skill and intensity prevalent at the time.
Thus, according to Marx any labor power squandered during the production of a commodity, i.e. labor that is socially unnecessary, does not add value as value is determined by the average social labor.
Robert Nozick has criticised the qualifier "socially necessary" in the labor theory of value as not well-defined and concealing a subjective judgement of necessity.[9] For example, Nozick posits a laborer who spends his time tying knots in a piece of cord. The laborer does his job as efficiently as is humanly possible, but Marx would likely agree that simply tying knots in cords is not a socially necessary use of labor. The problem is that what is "socially necessary" depends entirely on whether or not there is demand for the finished product, i.e., the knotted cord. In this way, introducing the "socially necessary" qualifier into the labor theory of value simply converts the theory into a roundabout and imprecise description of supply and demand. Thus Nozick argues that there is no longer any labor theory of value but rather the notion of what makes labor time socially necessary is dependent upon supply and demand in the market.