Re: AUT: abstract labour (resent)

[Fiocco@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Fiocco Laura)]

Sorry, I sent the peviows message before ending it

Massimo wrote


>Some scattered comments on recent postings.
>
>In response to my quotation "Marx defines abstract labour as `human labour
>power
>expended without regard to the ***form*** of its expenditure' (Marx CI p.128)
>
>Bernard wrote:
>
>"Sometimes it seems not be enough quoting only half a sentence to get a whole
>philosophical concept"
>
>Bernard, of course you are right here. Please see my article in Capital and
>Class #57
>Capital and Class 1995 and in Review of Radical Political Economics Volume
>Vol. 28 N. 4
>
>1996 for a slightly more extended discussion of the "whole philosophical
>concept".
>
>"Marx does not define `abstract labour' in the above sense: abstract labour is
>not a special
>kind of work, like work which is boring. Abstract labour is work/labour
>treated as `general
>human labour' in the act of exchange of products of human work. Every work can
>be
>`abstract labour', if, when and insofar its products are commodities."
>
>Well we have a disagreement here. It is of course true that abstract labour
>(AL) is not a
>special kind of work, (like tailoring, writing, etc.), that is, not a specific
>concrete labour.
>Yet, this does not mean that AL is not real and tangible. In order to see this
>however, you
>must look at Marx's meaning of the "abstract". I found his implicit discussion
>of the abstract
>in the manuscripts of the 1844 revealing. Here you can see that for him the
>category of the
>abstract is not only a category of representation (an abstract (ideal) chair
>as opposed to this
>or that chair), but revealing of real and sensuous reality. In the manuscript,
>the category of
>the "abstract" is a category indicating a sensuous activity, generated by some
>form of
>constraint, and therefore it is a lived experience in which human sensibility
>is confined and
>restricted to one dominant character, in which the form of expenditure of
>human energy in
>this activity does not matter, it is secondary, contingent.


I agree, if you change "generated by some form of constraint" into: "a
specific form of constraint" (see below why)

(I cutted a part I agree whith)

>Marx also refers to an immanent measure of value, that is Socially Necessary
>Labour time
>(SNLT). The two measures are the two sides of the same coin (shitty reality
>and shining
>representation) as two sides of the same coin are abstract and concrete
>labour. You say
>that a watch measures concrete labour. But this measurement is not implemented
>to satisfy
>a curiosity.
You may be working slower than SNLT, then youll feel

(sic!!!) or you work faster or you are fired.

The problem is that " Socially Necessary Labour time" is not simply a
measure: is the condition of existance of capitalists as capitalists. Each
capitalist can exist as capitalist if the rate of exploitation he succeed
to impose over "his" workers is that "sociale media" (conform to that of
the others capitalists, ie Socially Necessary Labour time).
This make of AL a capitalistic cathegory.

I'm not sure I understand complitely what implies below, so I will not
comment it
ciao laura


the pressure to work
>faster. This means that within the context of this external pressure (embodied
>by the
>foreman, competition, the bureaucrat, or who/what ever) the form of your labour
>expenditure becomes secondary in relation to the fact that your labour time
>must be now
>expended at a higher **rate** . The act of measurement was only a **moment**
>in the
>process of **enforcing** abstract labour. In so doing, also the immanent
>measure of value
>(SNLT) changes.
>
>"A factory-full of workers might labor for a month to produce cars; if they
>cannot be sold,
>they have performed no abstract labor time, no value at all."
>
>Paul, although in general you perform abstract labor (a human activity), you
>never
>perform value (an objectified result). In you example, value is certainly not
>"socially
>validated" and therefore does not socially count. Yet, abstract labor as real
>activity has
> been performed.
>
>Finally, a comment to Herald, who wrote:
>
>"No Massimo, you did not merely quote Marx's definition of `abstract labor',
>you
>interpreted it."
>
>Of course Herald, I agree. But I assume we also agree on the fact that any
>statement
>about a theory in a text is an interpretation.
>
>". . . it seems to me that your definition of abstract labor time just as well
>could be used
>to prove that it has existed since the origin of (wo)mankind"
>
>Depends what you mean by prove. Has abstract labour existed before the
>capitalist
>mode  of production? In certain spheres yes. Marx refers for example to gold
>mining
>during antiquity. Did AL exist as a organizing principle of society?
>Definitively no. And this
>is what matters for us. The same can be said about money, the market, etc
>"Your definition it seems to me goes a long way to render the distinction
>between
>exchange- and use-value meaningless."
>
>Why so? I do not understand. See my reply before to Bernard, perhaps it
>clarifies
>my position. In stating that abstract labour is a tangible reality (is not
>just a matter
>of representation) does not take away anything to the fact that to produce a
>vase you
>need a concrete labour (potter's) which is different from that a tailor (to
>use very old
>examples which do not take in to  consideration social cooperation of labour).
>
>Ciao
>
>
>Massimo
>
>
>
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