abstract labor

work

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is labor viewed through the lens of capitalism, which has the astounding ability to extract out or 'abstract' one common unit of measure and apply it universally to the labor of so many different histories and peoples.

Abstract labor combines in itself Enlightenment themes of juridical freeedom (rights, citizenship) and the concept of the universal and abstract human being who is the subject of this freedom. . . ' (Chakrabarty public culture 12(3):654). . . 'gave marx a way of explaining how the capitalist mode of production managed to extract, out of peoples and histories that were all different, a homogenous and common unit for measuring human activity' (655). . . . . . ..he described as 'the secret of the expression of value. . . (656) Simply put, abstract labor refers to an 'indiffereence to any specific kind of labor' (657). . . .'as cystals of this social substance, which is common to them all, they are values-- commodity values' (658).

is work done simply in order to earn a wage rather than for the worker's own specific purposes.

Marx wants to ask larger questions, ignored by economist, such as 'What in the evolution of mankind is the meaning of this reduction of the greater part of mankind to abstract labour'' (By 'abstract labour' Marx means work done simply in order to earn a wage, rather than for the worker's own specific purposes. (Singer 'very short intro to marx : 33)

abstract labor, n.All

abstract labor