不仅是价值的源泉，而且是比它本身更有价值的源泉(113)，或者说，剩余价值……只是活劳动与物化在工人身上的劳动的关系’(114)—一它们的可理解性在于抽象劳动时间。如果没有抽象劳动的概念，剩余价值就没有意义。剩余劳动时间的本质是“对劳动时间的盗窃”，但这不仅仅是因为从工人那里偷走了无数的时间。剩余劳动时间同样是一种质的盗窃，其基础是抽象劳动首先是一种纯粹关系的——纯粹社会的——时间形式。抽象劳动有质，但用黑格尔的话来说，生产作为价值尺度的劳动时间的具体劳动和抽象劳动的辩证法，不能直接映射到《逻辑学》中的质和量的辩证法上。也就是说，质+量→尺度不能改写为“具体劳动+抽象劳动→尺度”。质和量的辩证法在马克思那里已经是抽象劳动内在的。由于劳动力的商品化，生产使用价值的劳动的质被量化，正是因为它已经是生产交换价值的劳动的质的内在，或者说是纯粹的可交换性115。
然而，另一方面，抽象劳动的纯粹关系性质必须被理解为内在的，事实上是从必要劳动和剩余劳动之间的双重关系中产生出来的。我们已经假定了这一点，第四章的大部分内容将从历史时间的生产的观点来重新阐发这一点。但是这里需要强调的是，如果说抽象劳动在其核心上起源于必要劳动和剩余劳动之间的双重关系，那么它也掩盖了这种关系。抽象劳动时间的同质性、可量化性和可分割性，既表达又掩盖了必要劳动和剩余劳动之间的双重关系;或者说，这种表现和伪装既存在于内部，又同时存在。因此，货币作为“一般劳动时间的物化”具有双重重要性。除劳动力以外的一切劳动产品的销售，在理想上表现了(利润)，掩盖了(价格)这些产品中的剩余劳动，即剩余价值。这种实现是追溯的，并且与剩余劳动是社会必要劳动的内在意义相适应。劳动力的出售更为复杂，但可以用类似的术语来描述。它启动了劳动力市场和劳动力市场
113 Marx, Capital 1, 301.
114 Marx, Grundrisse, 337. For Marx, it is not at all contradictory, or, rather, the in-every-way mutually contradictory statements that labour is absolute poverty as object, on one side, and is, on the other side, the general possibility of wealth as subject and as activity, are reciprocally determined and follow from the essence of labour, such as it is presupposed by capital as its contradiction and as its contradictory being, and such as it, in turn, presupposes capital.’ Ibid. 296.
115 This point is indebted to the fifth chapter of Arthur’ s The New Dialectic and Marx's Capital. See Arthur, The New Dialectic and Marx's Capital, 90, 109. In addition to this, see Christopher J. Arthur, 'Marx, Hegel and the Value-Form’ , in Marx's Capital and Hegel's Logic: A Reexamination, 269-91. Tombazos is correct to point out that abstract labour is indifferent to the productivity of concrete labour, that it can thus only be more or less extensive and intensive' , but it does not follow that abstract labour is a purely quantitative category, that, as he puts it, the “quality" of abstract labour is precisely that it has no “quality". Tombazos, Time in Marx, 112.
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