Abstract Labour and Capital

In: Historical materialism: research in critical marxist theory, Heft 5, S. 255-279

Abstract

Since the 1970s, most scholars have rejected the traditional interpretation of Marx's labor-embodied theory of value, but two of its ideas about abstract labor remain influential: (1) Abstract labor is real, as opposed to assumed. (2) It is productive activity, in some sense. However, these two statements cannot be true simultaneously. If "abstract labor" is intended to indicate something real, it cannot be productive activity, because the terms "abstract" & "productive" are mutually exclusive. If labor were merely productive activity & could never be anything else, the theory of value & the theory of labor would be incompatible, because the only concept of abstract labor available for the former would be ruled out by the latter. However, labor can be more than merely productive activity & actually is more in conditions with which the theory of value is concerned. These conditions are generalized exchange, & labor becomes a means of acquisition as well as a means of production when products are systematically exchanged as commodities. Abstract labor is consistent with Marx's account of production & has the same scope & appearance as the more familiar concept of generalized productive activity. However, it differs from the familiar concept in three basic ways: (A) It arises in exchange, rather than in production. (B) It is reached by going out from labor through its products, rather than by going into its core or essence. (C) It is a social relation, rather than a natural attribute of labor. 30 References. A. Funderburg