Classical labor-values measure strictly technical costs of production, whereas natural prices measure social costs of production.

Total labor cost addresses this problem by distinguishing between technical and total labor costs. Technical labor cost corresponds to the classical concept and total labor cost includes additional real costs of production incurred in virtue of non-technical, or social, conditions of production, such as production financed by a capitalist class.

This distinction separates theoretical concerns that are conflated in the classical theory. For instance, labor-values apply to distribution-independent questions about an economy, such as the productivity of labor over time or the quantity of “surplus labor” supplied by workers to capitalists, whereas total labor-values apply to distribution-dependent questions, such as the relationship between nominal prices and the actual labor time required to produce commodities.