 | Abstract labour and concrete labour: Encyclopedia II - Abstract labour and concrete labour - Abstract labour and exchange
Abstract labour and concrete labour - Abstract labour and exchange
Marx himself considered that all economising reduced to the economical use of human labour-time; "to economise" ultimately meant saving on human energy and effort.
However, according to Marx, the achievement of abstract thinking about human labour, and the ability to quantify it, is closely related to the historical development of economic exchange in general, and more specifically commodity trade.
In fact, he argues the abstraction in thought is the reflex of a real process, in which commercial trade not only alters the way labour is viewed, but also how it is practically treated.
If different products are exchanged in market trade, Marx argues, the exchange process at the same time relates and commensurates the quantities of labour expended to produce those products, regardless of whether the traders are consciously aware of that.
Therefore, the exchange process itself involves the making of a real abstraction, namely abstraction from the particular characteristics of concrete (specific) labour that produced the commodities whose value is equated in trade. Closely related to this, is the growth of a cash economy, and Marx makes the historical observation that:
"In proportion as exchange bursts its local bonds, and the value of commodities more and more expands into an embodiment of human labour in the abstract, in the same proportion the character of money attaches itself to commodities that are by Nature fitted to perform the social function of a universal equivalent. Those commodities are the precious metals." http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch02.htm
In a more complex division of labour, it becomes difficult or even impossible to equate the value of all different labour-efforts directly. But money enables us to express and compare the value of all different labour-efforts - more or less accurately - in money-units (initially, quantities of gold, silver, or bronze). This is illustrated by the popular saying, "time is money".
Other related archivesDas Kapital, Karl Marx, Labour power, Marxist theory, agriculture, capitalist mode of production, commodities, commodity, division of labour, exchange value, labour market, labour power, labour theory of value, law of value, money, socially necessary labour time, surplus value, time use surveys, trade, use values
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