Dual Character of Labour

How are the two sides of the commodity tied to the two sides of labour?

In the first section of Capital, volume I, Marx said the commodity has two sides: its usefulness in meeting human needs, its use-value, and its value, which makes it exchangeable with other commodities in definite proportions. In the second section he argued that these two sides come from two sides of labour: "At first the commodity appeared to us as something twofold, use-value and exchange-value. Later it turned out that labour too, in so far as it is expressed in value, no longer possesses the features that belong to it as a producer of use-values. This twofold nature of the labour contained in the commodity was first critically demonstrated by me. Since this point is the pivot on which an understanding of political economy turns, it must be examined more closely here."

Diese zwieschlächtige Natur der in der Ware enthaltenen Arbeit ist zuerst von mir kritisch nachgewiesen worden. Da dieser Punkt der Springpunkt ist, um den sich das Verständnis der politischen Ökonomie dreht, soll er hier näher beleuchtet werden.

Marx regarded this distinction as among the most important innovations he contributed to the theory of value. Smith and Ricardo also held that labour creates value, but in his criticism they failed to distinguish which labour creates value and in what sense.

What is concrete labour?

Marx takes a coat and 10 yards of linen. Making the coat requires a particular activity, tailoring; making the linen requires another, weaving. Their aims, tools, materials and results differ. Labour whose usefulness shows itself in the use-value of its product he called "useful labour". "As the coat and the linen are qualitatively different use-values, so are the labours that bring them into being qualitatively different: tailoring and weaving."

Wie Rock und Leinwand qualitativ verschiedne Gebrauchswerte, so sind die ihr Dasein vermittelnden Arbeiten qualitativ verschieden - Schneiderei und Weberei.

Without qualitative difference there is no exchange: a coat is not exchanged for a coat, since there is no reason to swap a use-value for the same use-value. The division of society into many kinds of concrete labour, the social division of labour, is a precondition of commodity production.

What is abstract labour?

Yet if a coat exchanges for 20 yards of linen, the two must have something in common. Marx said that once the concrete differences between tailoring and weaving are set aside, what remains is the expenditure of human labour-power: "Tailoring and weaving, although qualitatively different productive activities, are both a productive expenditure of human brain, muscles, nerves, hands etc., and in this sense both human labour."

Schneiderei und Weberei, obgleich qualitativ verschiedne produktive Tätigkeiten, sind beide produktive Verausgabung von menschlichem Hirn, Muskel, Nerv, Hand usw., und in diesem Sinn beide menschliche Arbeit.

Labour counted as the same regardless of its concrete form is abstract labour, the substance that forms the value of commodities. Marx closed the section: "All labour is, on the one hand, an expenditure of human labour-power in the physiological sense, and in this quality of equal or abstract human labour it forms the value of commodities. All labour is, on the other hand, an expenditure of human labour-power in a particular form and with a definite aim, and in this quality of concrete useful labour it produces use-values."

Alle Arbeit ist einerseits Verausgabung menschlicher Arbeitskraft im physiologischen Sinn, und in dieser Eigenschaft gleicher menschlicher oder abstrakt menschlicher Arbeit bildet sie den Warenwert. Alle Arbeit ist andrerseits Verausgabung menschlicher Arbeitskraft in besondrer zweckbestimmter Form, und in dieser Eigenschaft konkreter nützlicher Arbeit produziert sie Gebrauchswerte.

Many readers hold that the "abstraction" here is not merely mental. When different products are exchanged on the market in definite ratios, the different labours that made them are actually equated, whether the traders are aware of it or not. This idea leads on to the analysis of the value-form and of commodity fetishism.

How is complex labour compared with simple labour?

Is a surgeon's hour the same as a porter's? Marx answered: "More complex labour counts only as intensified, or rather multiplied, simple labour, so that a smaller quantity of complex labour equals a larger quantity of simple labour."

Kompliziertere Arbeit gilt nur als potenzierte oder vielmehr multiplizierte einfache Arbeit, so daß ein kleineres Quantum komplizierter Arbeit gleich einem größeren Quantum einfacher Arbeit.

Engels, in Anti-Dühring, called this reduction a social process going on behind the backs of the producers. But Marx gave no specific calculus for expressing the value of skilled labour as a multiple of unskilled labour, and the question remains an unresolved debate among Marxian economists. Anwar Shaikh of the New School tried to treat the market valuation of skill differences empirically from US input-output, wage and labour data; others hold that the valuation of skills depends heavily on the education system and on the balance of class forces.

Why do goods multiply and value shrink when productivity rises?

The dual character of labour explains a paradox of capitalism. A small example (an assumption): a worker who made 8 shirts in 8 hours makes 16 with a new sewing machine. The productivity of concrete labour has doubled, and so has the use-value, the shirts to wear. But as abstract labour the worker still worked 8 hours, so the total of new value is unchanged. The value in each shirt falls from an hour's worth to half an hour's.

Marx wrote: "A rising mass of material wealth may correspond to a simultaneous fall in its magnitude of value. This contradictory movement arises from the twofold character of labour." Productivity is always the productivity of concrete useful labour and has no effect on the labour represented in value as such.

Dennoch kann der steigenden Masse des stofflichen Reichtums ein gleichzeitiger Fall seiner Wertgröße entsprechen. Diese gegensätzliche Bewegung entspringt aus dem zwieschlächtigen Charakter der Arbeit.

How is the distinction used in analysing capital?

In chapter 6 of volume I Marx uses it to explain constant and variable capital. Spinning, as abstract labour, adds new value in proportion to the time worked; as concrete labour, spinning, it carries the value of the cotton and spindle into the yarn. That is why, though the worker works only once, old value is preserved and new value added. Since the whole theory of surplus value rests on the difference between the value labour-power creates and its own value, the dual character of labour serves as a cornerstone of the whole argument of Capital.

Does abstract labour exist only under capitalism?

Later Marxists disagree over what kind of historical category abstract labour is. In the introduction to the Grundrisse Marx said that the category of labour in general expresses an ancient relation existing in all social formations but is fully realised in practice only in modern bourgeois society. Some, such as the American economist John Weeks, read abstract labour as a category specific to capitalism, holding that only under capitalism is concrete labour transformed into abstract labour. Others, such as Makoto Itoh of Japan, hold that the abstract comparison of labour time developed over the whole history of trade and is fully realised only with generalised commodity production under capitalism.

What criticisms and replies have been made?

The difficulties of the concept of abstract labour were among the main reasons many economists abandoned the labour theory of value. The marginalist William Stanley Jevons pointed out in The Theory of Political Economy (1871) that labour is itself of unequal value and infinitely varied. The value of labour, he held, must be determined by the value of the produce and not the reverse, and the productive powers of a navvy, a carpenter, a schoolmaster and a barrister cannot be compared a priori.

Replying to such criticism, the Soviet economist Isaak Rubin argued that abstract labour is a far more complex concept than it seems. He distinguished "physiologically equal" labour, labour "socially equated" through social evaluation, and labour equated through the exchange of products with money as universal equivalent. More recently, when the German Michael Heinrich interpreted abstract labour as a social relation constituted only in exchange, the British computer scientist Paul Cockshott objected in 2013 that this made it a concept no longer scientifically testable. John Holloway, in Crack Capitalism, treats abstract labour as the most radical foundational category of Marx's theory and proposes struggle against abstract labour as the centrepiece of anti-capitalist politics.