produktionsløn

Produktionløn is a term used in Danish and Norwegian economic literature to denote the portion of a worker’s wage that is allocated to reproducing the labor power necessary for the production process. In classical and Marxian political economy, it is often described as the “necessary wage” or the part of the wage corresponding to the socially necessary cost of subsistence and the ability to work.

In Marxian theory, production is divided conceptually into productive and unproductive labor in the sense of value creation for capital. Produktionsløn focuses on the wage component that covers the costs of maintaining the worker's capacity to work—i.e., the subsistence level and the means of reproduction—while the remainder of the value created by labor can accrue as surplus value to capitalists in the form of profit, rent, or interest.

The size of produksionsløn is linked to the social and environmental conditions that determine the cost of living, including food, housing, and healthcare, as well as norms and bargaining power in the labor market. In this framework, the concept emphasizes that part of wages is tied to the reproduction of labor power, not solely to productivity in a given period. Consequently, produksjonsløn can vary across societies and historical eras with changes in living standards and social arrangements.

Today the term is rarely used in English-language economics; its closest equivalents are the subsistence wage or the wage necessary for the reproduction of labor power. The concept remains a tool for analyzing wage distribution and the exploitation dynamics within capitalist production.