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

[Angelus Novus <fuerdenkommunismus@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ed George write:

> Labour (which is itself a conceptual abstraction, in

> that certain human acts are considered independently

> from others according to conceptual criteria) is 
> human activity, carried out in time, which fashions 
> use-value. If we measure it according to time, then 
> we are abstracting one facet of it, that it is 
> carried out in time, from others. This is labour 
> considered as abstract labour. 

Sorry, you're wrong.  Any concrete activity can be
measured by time, whatever the mode of production. 
The field work of a feudal peasant can be measured by
time, but that doesn't mean that abstract labour
exists in pre-capitalist societies.  The object of
Marx's critique of political economy is *capitalist*
society.    

Again, from the same text I quoted earlier, Marx's
revision manuscripts for Volume I:

"Die Reduction der verschiednen konkreten
Privatarbeiten auf dieses Abstractum gleicher
menschlicher Arbeit vollzieht sich nur durch den
Austausch, welcher Producte verscheidner Arbeiten
thatsächlich einander gleichsetzt."

"The reduction of different acts of concrete labour to
this abstraction of equal human labour is consummated
only through exchange, which in fact equalizes
products of different acts of concrete labour."

If you want to allege that Marx is wrong, then say so,
but don't pretend that your understanding of abstract
labour is actually Marx's.




      
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