Re: [Marxism] Socially Necessary Abstract(?) Labor Time

["Ed George" <edgeorge1963@xxxxxxxxx>]

I think Ian is right. The distinction between abstract labour and
concrete labour is a distinction of abstraction. Marx's theory of
value is that labour is the substance of value, and that it is value
that quantitatively determines commodity exchange. Labour, therefore,
has both a quantitative and a qualitative character. Abstract labour
is precisely this, labour considered abstracted from its qualitative
character, measured in time. Therefore, socially necessary labour is
abstract labour by definition, and the addition of the word 'abstract'
to the formulation is a redundancy.

Maybe the point is arcane; but, just as Marx was insistent that
exchange-vaalue and use-value were not just two different 'types of
value', then if the expression 'socially necessary abstract labour'
suggests the existence of two different 'types of labour' â viz.
concrete labour and anstract labour â then the point is worth making.
Labour is labour; abstract labour is simply concrete labour considered
at a specific level of abstraction.

I think it is worth pointing out here as well that the distinction
between simple and complex labour is something else again. In volume 1
of capital Marx says that 'More complex labour counts only as
intensified, or rather multiplied, simple labour, so that a smaller
quantity of complex labour is considered equal to the product of
simple labour, hence it represents only a specific quantity of simple
labour.' I read this as saying that a given unit of complex (i.e.
skilled) labour counts as a multiple of that unit of simple (i.e
unskilled) labour (the multiple depending on the magnitude of the
skill). Socially necessary labour time does not disregard this fact,
but necessarily assumes it.
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