{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181","title":"Marx and the Concept of Historical Time","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181","id":"cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181","uuid":"cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181","title":"Marx and the Concept of Historical Time","normalized_title":"marxandtheconceptofhistoricaltime","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":null,"isbns":[],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":216,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Marx%20and%20the%20Concept%20of%20Historical%20Time","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/cfa147d3-494e-49cc-b356-7aceff50b181/search"},"page":{"printed_page":106,"pdf_page":110,"physical_index":110,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"f077f0467a209e550df9a0d7c006335c2a33a9e360ed451a94c176cfbdd1cf17"},"chapter":"Marx and the Concept of Historical Time","content":"In a letter to Engels written after the publication of Capital, Marx identifies his analysis of ‘the doubled character of labour, according to whether it is expressed in use-value or in exchange-value’, as one of the two ‘best points of my book.’<sup>35</sup> ‘All understanding of the facts depends on this’<sup>36</sup>, he claims (to which we might add: ‘so too our understanding of historical totalisation and temporalisation’). Like the concept of labour-power, the concepts of concrete and abstract labour do not extend across Marx’s corpus. In the Grundrisse, ‘labour as such [Arbeit schlechthin] and ‘labour sans phrase’ appear as proto-formulations of abstract labour, but they are not concepts of abstract labour, because they are not structured dialectically in relation to concrete labour. It is only after the Contribution (from 1859) wherein concrete and abstract labour feature as concepts essential to Marx’s critique of political economy (this is interesting insofar as ‘labour-power’ does not feature until the mid-1860s). Therefore, despite the fact that ‘labour-time’ [Arbeitszeit] does feature in the Grundrisse, we cannot state that it functions as a concept in Marx until after the Contribution (there are several passages in the Grundrisse with which to construct ‘concrete labour-time’ and ‘abstract labour-time’ alike as concepts, but only on the condition that they are retroactively read through the dialectic of concrete and abstract labour). This dovetails with the standpoint (of this thesis) that Marx must be read in such a way that ‘concrete labour’ and ‘concrete labour-time’, and ‘abstract labour’ and ‘abstract labour-time’, each become two different expressions of one and the same thing. Thus, for instance, abstract labour is already always abstract labour-time: a particular form of homogenous, quantifiable and divisible time which constitutes the measure and substance of value. In both its concrete and abstract manifestations, the ‘time’ of labour-time is inseparable from the ‘labour’. However it is grasped (even if it never leaves the domain of the ‘ordinary conception of time), it is not something which can be tacked on to, and severed from, ‘labour’.\n\n<sup>34</sup> Wolfgang Fritz Haug, ‘Commodity aesthetics revisited: Exchange relations as the source of antagonistic aesthetization’, Radical Philosophy 135 (January/February 2006), 19. Labour-power is a problem for Haug, insofar as its use-value promise – the ‘aspects offered by the commodity’ – cannot be reduced to ‘the Archimedean ellipse of commodity aesthetics.’ Ibid. 19-20.\n\n<sup>35</sup> Letter to Engels on 24 August 1867, Marx and Engels, MEW, Band 31 (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1965), 326. According to Marx, the other best point of the first volume of Capital is his ‘treatment of surplusvalue independently of its particular forms as profit, interest, ground-rent, etc.’ Ibid. <sup>36</sup> Ibid.\n\n106","previous_page":105,"next_page":107}