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

[Angelus Novus <fuerdenkommunismus@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ed George:

> I think Ian is right. The distinction between 
> abstract labour and concrete labour is a distinction
> of abstraction.

This doesn't say anything yet.  In the case of
abstract labour, we are dealing with a *real*
abstraction, not with a mental abstraction.  

An example of a mental abstraction is the word "tree"
as a way of describing the common features of various
really existing concrete botanical growths.

Abstract labour, however, as a real abstraction, is an
abstraction that exists in reality.

In his revision Manuscripts for Volume One of Capital,
Ergänzungen und Veränderungen zum ersten Band des
?Kapital?, Marx refers to the objective character of
value as an "unsubstantial reality" or "ghostly
objectivity" (German: Gespenstige Gegenständlichkeit).
 This understanding is irreconcilable with the
quasi-physiological definitions of abstract labour
being given on this list.

Thus you write:

> Abstract labour is precisely this, labour considered
> abstracted from its qualitative character, measured 
> in time.

But this is incorrect, because only a concrete act of
labour can be measured in time, by a clock.  Abstract
labour, on the other hand, as socially necessary
labour time, is measured in money, the general
equivalent.

Abstract labour is a *relational category*.  When
commodity owners engage in an act of exchange, they
abstract from the concrete use value and physiological
qualities of a commodity, and treat their commodities
as commensurate, aliquot parts of the total labour of
society.  In the act of exchange, concrete acts of
labour are made commensurable by force and only when I
receive payment for my commodity is it clear whether
or not my labour expenditure was socially necessary
for society.






      
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