Socialism In America

[ellipsis]

moved to learning.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Hello
I am trying to read Marx's works and i have questions

what does marx mean by
1) abstract/concrete labor
2) socially necessary labor time?

thx

Socially necessary labor time is the amount of labor needed under prevailing conditions to produce something. So if there are manufactured pots that dominate the market and it takes X amount of labor time with those tools to complete, then that labor time is added to the value of that pot - if you hand-make pots, it may take 5 times as much time, but the general value of that pot is not five times the value of the industrially produced pots. There are exceptions in real life where people pay more for the novelty of artisan goods, but this is sort of a marginal niche of capitalist economies, an exception to the rule and not mainly how value is reached in capitalism.

Not as sure about abstract/concrete labor - I can't remember out of context, but I think abstract labor has something to do with alienation. Someone else can fill that one in.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Concrete Labor: labor that is actual (spinning, hammering, looming, etc).Use-value comes out of this.

Abstract Labor: labor generalized (Mass Production. "Through abstract labor, commodities lose their qualitative characteristics and become quantitatively commensurable,…" i.e- A price on the stock market).

[Lanky Wanker]

I wanted to answer this one! *sad face*

[Jimmie Higgins]

I wanted to answer this one! *sad face*Do it anyway. Maybe your description is better, maybe you can give an example that's more clarifying, maybe it's just practice for you.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Do it anyway. Maybe your description is better, maybe you can give an example that's more clarifying, maybe it's just practice for you.

I agree, you should always answer something even if another person already beat you to the punch.In the least case it will serve as practice and even better it might give a more informative definition.