| This question <72|59> overall <72|74> Hans: <69|79>. |
| Question 99: 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. |
| [73] Hans: Photosynthesis and combustion. Desarrollo [71] and [72] gives an interpretation of the following Marx quote: |
| “This reduction takes the form of an abstraction, but it is an abstraction that is made every day in the social process of production. The conversion of all commodities into labor time is no greater an abstraction, and is no less real, than the resolution of all organic bodies into air.” |
| In Desarollo's interpretation, “resolution of all organic bodies into air” refers to the process of photosynthesis, through which plants absorb nitrogen and carbon dioxide out of the air and release oxygen. There is similarity to labor because looking at all commodities as products of labor is just as abstract as looking at all plants as machines that produce air. |
| This is an interesting interpretation although I am sure it is wrong. Let me just give what I consider the right interpretation, then you can judge by yourselves which interpretation is better. (This intepretation can be found in the Annotations p. 59.) |
| By “organic bodies” Marx does not mean plants but all materials which are the subject of “organic chemistry”, i.e., molecules which are mainly composed of carbon and hydrogen atoms. It is a theoretical abstraction to say: these varied materials consist mainly of C and H atoms. It is a real abstraction to put a match to these materials and see them burn, a process in which the C atoms grab oxygen out of the air to generate CO2, and the H atomes grab oxygen out of the air and generate H2O. This is how these materials themselves tell us that they mainly consist of C and H atoms. The process of burning is a process of real abstraction, because the concrete various organic materials really turn into the “abstract” combustion products CO2 and H2O. |
| Now Marx says: the reduction of labor into abstract labor is also a process of real abstraction. Not only is it an abstract but hidden truth that all commodities are the products of labor, but when these commodities are turned into money in the market exchange, then the fact that they all consist of homogeneous abstract labor is just as strikingly revealed, as the composition of various organic bodies out of C and H is revealed when you throw them into the fire. |
| Every analogy has its limits. The limit of this analogy here is that organic compounds are always combustible, while products of labor show their labor content by their ability to be turned into money only in a market economy. |
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