Simple Labour, labour not requiring special training, unskilled labour "which any average individual can be trained to do" (Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, p. 31). Under 323 commodity production simple labour is the basic form to which all types of complex labour are reduced. Commodities are thus realised as products of simple labour, since their value is expressed in different amounts of simple labour. Types of complex labour are reduced to it as a unit of their measurement in societies in which commodity production and commodity-money relations exist. Under private ownership of the means of production, this reduction is spontaneous and done on the market, behind the back of the commodity producers, which predetermines commodity fetishism. In socialist society labour is reduced in a planned way both in production and in circulation. Differences in the qualification of work are taken account of in elaborating plan assignments to increase the volume of production and train the labour force, and in distributing material benefits in conformity with the law of distribution according to the work done. The ongoing scientific and technological revolution and the transition to comprehensively automated production prepare the material conditions for implementing a broad programme of measures to ensure a steady growth in the workers’ cultural standards and work skills, and to overcome essential distinctions between mental and physical labour and skilled and unskilled work.