This question <80|79> overall <96-1|98> Ayn: <96|114-1>.

Question 76: Labor does not exist in the abstract but must always be expended in some concrete form. How does it then show up that a commodity actually represents human labor in the abstract and not simply e.g. tailoring labor?

[97] Ayn: Why abstract and not concrete labor expressed in commodity   Everclear [79] was right in analysing excatly what abstract labor is; but I believe that he failed to completely point out why abstract labor is used to compare or reveal the use value of a commodity on the exchange market.

Because commodities must “speak” to each other, the only thing they have in common, their only common denominator, the only thing that can be measured equally between them is the abstract labor value they represent. The abstract labor is measured on a socially equal basis, and thus reveals the exchange value (point analysed in other responses). Tere is no way tailoring labor can be measured against, say, baking, because they are two fundamentally different process, using fundamentally different concrete body functions. Therefore, labor must be measured in the abstract in order to give equal weight to these two different types of labor, measured one against the other. This labor must have the type 2 social interaction to be validated.

Hans: Good clarification, you used your own words,

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