| This question <28|105> overall <28|30> Hans: <26|35>. |
| Exam Question 84: What is abstract human labor? I want you to say what it is, not what its significance is in commodity-producing society! These are two different questions. |
| [29] Hans: Definition of Abstract Labor versus its Social Significance All submissions to Question 84 are ungraded, because Question 84 is labeled “Exam Question” in the Annotations. I.e., it is too easy for a normal homework Question. The same is true for Question 86. |
| There are disagreements between Marxists regarding the definition of abstract human labor. Many Marxists say that abstract human labor only exists in commodity-producing society. The interpretation which I am taking in the Annotations is that abstract human labor is an aspect which every labor process has naturally. Every labor process is the application of human skills, and the exertion of the human body. This is true in all societies. Commodity-producing society is distinguished by it that this aspect of the labor process is the organizing principle for the coordination of the social production process. |
| Brutal's [28] starts out with the right definition of abstract human labor, but what he says in the second half of his submission goes beyond a definition. Let's look at it: |
| Similar to other “machines” that do work, the human body has a limited capacity to do work (i.e. as we age our mental and physical capacities diminish until we die and can no longer do work). Abstract labor is an attempt to assign a value to the wear and tear our bodies take while laboring. |
| Here, Brutal tries to explain why abstract human labor is socially relevant. This is exactly what the Question asked you not to say here! As such an explanation, it is too subjectivist. It implies that the worker demands a price for his labor because for him it is only a limited resource. It is a version of the disutility of labor. This is not the Marxist view. Even if everyone would live for ever, and even if labor would be so enjoyable that everyone loves to work, society still would be faced with the problem of allocating the limited mass of human labor available at any given time to the various branches of production, and to determine how much everybody gets of this annual product. Society does this by looking at the content of abstract human labor in the commodities---without anybody deciding or planning it, but merely as the unintended by-product of the competitive hustling of the private producers. |
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