| This question <167-5|172-10> overall <168|169-4> Steelwool: <90|172-11>. |
| Exam Question 89: 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. |
| [169-3] Steelwool: To define this, lets break it down. Human labor is the expenditure of “effort” by a human being in any form, whether physical or mental. When a person does anything, even something as basic as sleeping or eating, human labor is expended. Thus it can also be translated into larger activities like building a bridge or cutting down a tree. |
| The dictionary defines abstract as: “Not applied or practical; theoretical.” Hegel states: “A concrete concept is the combination of many abstractions”. With these definitions you can see that abstraction is a broad generalization. Concepts are more concrete (thus less abstract) the longer and more thorough they are described. In the case of Abstract Human Labor, we are taking a generalization of the Human Labor a commodity embodies, and not looking at the specifics of each laborer. |
| Therefore the definition of Abstract Human Labor is: the generalization of any human activities that are related to creating a commodity, thus creating a generalized “mass of human labor” that the commodity embodies. |
| Hans: Your in-class exam was quite different than this; it only spoke of the quantity of abstract labor, while the resubmission only spoke of its quality. BTW, sleeping is not labor. Labor is purposeful goal-directed activity. |
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