{"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":120,"pdf_page":124,"physical_index":124,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"3379cebeafa7f9ab85af7a0e6ea3da7854b035be9b44a7e2787e0d8392b95319"},"chapter":"Marx and the Concept of Historical Time","content":"There is no doubt that the category of labour in general is irrevocably altered by Marx’s critique of political economy. In the aftermath of the Contribution and Capital, the totalising, temporalising and historicalising power of labour must be rethought through the concept of abstract labour, unto itself and in its dynamic relationship with concrete labour.<sup>103</sup> Yet abstract labour is nothing – it has no practical materiality – if it is not joined with the other ‘best point of the first volume of Capital: the concept of surplus-value [Mehrwert]. More than any other concept, surplus-value – the investigation of which guides the rest of this chapter – illuminates the complex (and politically vexing) directions history takes within capitalism. Insofar as ‘the only utility [Nützlichkeit] whatsoever which an object can have for capital can be to preserve or increase it’<sup>104</sup>, surplus-value determines the fact that living labour ‘confronts capital not as a use-value, but as the use-value pure and simple…the use-value of capital itself.’<sup>105</sup> From the dialectic of abstract and concrete labour two new concepts appear (which, again, are identical): surplus-labour [Surplusarbeit] and surplus-labour-time [Surplusarbeitszeit]<sup>106</sup>. Just like the surplus-value it produces, surplus-labour is by no means a straightforward concept (as is often assumed). It registers a contradiction at the heart of ‘socially necessary labour-time’ (one more basic than the contradiction between the social labour necessary to produce a commodity and the social need for that commodity). Surplus-labour thus registers a contradiction at the heart of abstract labour/value, and for this reason the relation between necessary and surplus-labour must be examined in its own right, before – and this is the task of Chapter 4 – it can be grasped as constitutive of a distinct historical dynamic.\n\n<sup>102</sup> Marx and Engels, DI, 21 (GI, 42).\n\n<sup>103</sup> Consider this passage by Tombazos : ‘In the usual way of reading Capital, the commodity divides itself into abstract and concrete labour, in value and use-value, without being able to be value if it is not also use-value, and vice versa. This is correct but insufficient. Abstract labour divides itself, within itself, into abstract labour (universality) and abstract/concrete labour (universality/particularity)…It seems to us more correct to say that the commodity is divided into value and value/use-value in order to highlight the non-independent (and neutral) character of use-values under capitalism. Thus, abstract labour appears in two forms: as a simple unity with itself (value, universality) and as a “composed” unity (value/use-value, abstract/concrete labour, particularity).’ Tombazos, Time in Marx, 29-30. The problem with this passage is not that all use-values are dependent on value, but that they are all neutral (the use-value of labour-power is by no means ‘neutral’).\n\n<sup>104</sup> Marx, Grundrisse, 270.\n\n<sup>105</sup> Ibid. 295, 297. Like most passages in the Grundrisse, this passage must be read from the retroactive standpoint of the dialectic of abstract and concrete labour. See, in addition, Arthur, The New Dialectic and Marx’s Capital, 42.\n\n<sup>106</sup> Unlike ‘concrete labour’, ‘abstract labour’ and ‘necessary labour’, ‘surplus-labour’ will be written with a hyphen in order to reflect the unity of the original German. The same holds for ‘surplus-labourtime’ (as against ‘necessary labour-time’ [notwendige Arbeitszeit]). In the Grundrisse, Marx often uses the term ‘surplus-time’ [Surpluszeit] synonymously with surplus-labour-time.\n\n120","previous_page":119,"next_page":121}