2014-05-02
Explanation
The Joke
A man who looks like Karl Marx is in bed with a woman. He exclaims, "What do you mean it wasn't good?! I spent six hours doing it!" The caption below reads: "Karl Marx explains the Labor Theory of Sex."
The Humor
The joke is a mashup of Karl Marx's Labor Theory of Value with sexual performance. The Labor Theory of Value holds that the economic value of a good or service is determined by the total amount of labor required to produce it. Marx is applying this same logic to sex -- arguing that because he spent six hours on it, it must have been good. His partner's dissatisfied expression makes clear that this is not how sexual satisfaction works, just as critics of the Labor Theory of Value argue that the amount of labor put into something does not necessarily determine its actual worth or quality. The humor lies in the absurdity of applying an economic theory to an intimate context, and in the implication that Marx would be exactly the kind of person to make such a tone-deaf argument.
References
- Karl Marx (1818-1883) was a philosopher, economist, and socialist revolutionary who developed the Labor Theory of Value as a central component of his critique of capitalism.
- The Labor Theory of Value posits that the value of a commodity is determined by the socially necessary labor time required to produce it. Critics argue that value is subjective and depends on factors beyond mere labor input.