Re-examining Marx’s Concept of Abstract Labour

As early as the 1930s, the Soviet economist David Rosenberg pointed out: “It is wrong to regard abstract labour merely as the physiological expenditure of labour-power.” The physiological interpretation deviates from the fundamental principles of historical materialism and tends to naturalise abstract labour. In Marx’s texts, there is no fixed usage for abstract labour; for example, the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844* speaks of “abstract spiritual labour,” the *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy. Part One* of “abstract general labour,” and *Capital* of “abstract human labour.” “Human” is not “an abstract attribute of the isolated individual” but “social” humanity; hence the essential determination of abstract labour lies within social relations. In this sense, using “abstract” to characterise the ontological nature of labour under capitalism is consistent with both the texts and logic. Moreover, when Marx discusses abstract labour, it is often accompanied by qualifiers such as “common,” “universal,” and “undifferentiated”; therefore, it is necessary to interpret this concept holistically in conjunction with these expressions rather than in isolation.

早在20世纪30年代，苏联经济学家卢森贝就指出：“把抽象劳动看成只是劳动力的生理消耗是不对的。”生理学解释背离了历史唯物主义的基本原则，存在把抽象劳动自然科学化的倾向。关于抽象劳动，马克思文本中没有一个固定用法，如《1844年经济学哲学手稿》的“抽象的精神劳动”、《政治经济学批判。第一分册》的“抽象一般的劳动”、《资本论》的“抽象的人类劳动”。“人类”不是“单个人所固有的抽象物”，而是“社会的”人类，因而抽象劳动的本质规定存在于社会关系之中。在此意义上，用“抽象”概括资本主义劳动的存在论性质合乎文本和逻辑。此外，马克思谈到抽象劳动还伴随诸如“共同的”“普遍的”“无差别的”等定语，因此有必要结合这些表述而非孤立地对这一概念进行总体性阐释。

The Physiological Paradigm: The Epistemological Predicament of Abstract Labour

生理学范式：抽象劳动的认识论困境

To accurately grasp the “abstract” (abstrakte) nature of abstract labour, one must return to the context of the philosophical evolution of this concept. In the Aristotelian tradition, abstraction was initially defined as “a technical characteristic of the process of thinking” but lacked independence. According to Wolfgang Fritz Haug, in Platonism, abstraction gradually became independent as an ideal, universal existence separated from matter. Abstraction thus became a core category of epistemology, denoting a cognitive capacity. Kant’s “understanding’s abstraction” is the human capacity to conceptually determine the manifold of sensory intuition. In Hegel’s philosophy, abstraction signifies the simple determinacy of things; the process of thinking’s cognition of things is a dialectical movement from the abstract to the concrete. Feuerbach developed the negative sense of abstraction, arguing that the malady of rational metaphysics lies in opposing the conceptual categories abstracted from sensory existence to the essence of the human being.

要准确把握抽象劳动之“抽象”（abstrakte）性质，就必须回到这一概念的哲学变迁语境。在亚里士多德传统中，抽象最早被定义为“思维过程的技巧性特征”，但不具备独立性。按照豪格的说法，在柏拉图主义中，抽象逐渐独立出来成为理念性的、与质料分开的普遍性存在。抽象由此成为认识论的核心范畴，并表示一种认识能力。康德的“知性抽象”是人对感性杂多的思维规定能力。在黑格尔哲学中，抽象意味着事物简单的规定性，思维认识事物就是从抽象到具体的辩证过程。费尔巴哈发展出抽象的否定意义，认为理性形而上学的弊病是将本来从感性存在中抽象出的概念范畴与人的本质对立起来。

Understanding “abstraction” from an epistemological perspective leads to a naturalistic interpretation of abstract labour, namely the classic definition in *Capital*: “All labour is, on the one hand, the expenditure of human labour-power in the physiological sense; and, on the other hand, in its attribute of equal or abstract human labour, it forms the value of commodities.” Within this interpretive paradigm, concrete labour and abstract labour are further transformed into relations of individuality and commonality, particularity and universality, the individual and the general. Abstract labour is understood as the abstraction from concrete, particular, individually-stamped sensory labour, mentally refined in physiology as the expenditure of human physical and mental energy, which, when congealed in commodities, forms value. From the perspective of natural-scientific thinking, although this abstract labour cannot be directly intuited, its objectivity can be grasped through “the power of abstraction.”

从认识论理解“抽象”导致的是对抽象劳动的自然主义阐释，即《资本论》的经典定义：“一切劳动，一方面是人类劳动力在生理学意义上的耗费；就相同的或抽象的人类劳动这个属性来说，它形成商品价值。”在这种解释范式中，具体劳动和抽象劳动进一步转变为个性与共性、特殊与普遍、个别与一般的关系。抽象劳动被理解为对具体的、特殊的、打上个体烙印的感性劳动的抽象，在生理学上被思维提炼为人的体力和脑力的耗费，凝结于商品之中形成价值。从自然科学思维看，这种抽象劳动虽无法被直观到，但能通过“抽象力”来把握其客观性。

Seen this way, does Marx himself not become a proponent of naturalism? The key to breaking the physiological interpretive paradigm lies in Chapter One of Volume I of *Capital*, “The Fetishism of Commodities and the Secret Thereof.” The reason commodities possess value is that human labour is “congealed” within them, but this itself is “a later scientific discovery” and is of epoch-making significance. The “discovery” Marx speaks of is embodied in the concept, referring to the mind’s abstraction from history that has already become reality; the “scientific” discovery, meanwhile, delimits the scope of this cognition, namely a set of natural sciences based on instrumental rationality. Marx regards this as merely the “method of proceeding backwards from the result,” that is, the scientific analysis of forms of human life “proceeds post festum, that is, it starts from the completed results of the process of development.”

这样看来，马克思本人不就成了自然主义的拥趸吗？破解生理学解释范式的密钥就在《资本论》第一卷“商品的拜物教性质及其秘密”章。商品之所以具有价值，是因为其中“凝结”着人类劳动，但这本身是“后来的科学发现”，并且具有划时代意义。马克思所说的“发现”体现在概念之中，是指人的思维对已经成为现实的历史进行的抽象；而“科学上”的发现，正是给这种认识限定了范围，即一套建立在工具理性基础上的自然科学。马克思认为这只是“从后思索法”，即对人类生活形式的科学分析“是从事后开始的，就是说，是从发展过程的完成的结果开始的”。

However, “science” as a dimension of value evaluation is precisely the result of the dominance of “scientific thinking” as a disciplinary category. This means that the physiological connotation of abstract labour requires clarification through historical materialism, thereby securing a legitimate place for it within the critique of political economy. Marx critically inherited the epistemological concept of “abstraction,” i.e., “the way in which the mind grasps the concrete and reproduces it as a mental concrete,” and through this “scientifically correct method” revealed the essence of the labour category as a theoretical reflection of capitalist relations of production. The physiological connotation is precisely a product of the capitalist commodity economy, expressed through the “abstract cognition” of natural science, but at the same time it leads to the trans-historicisation of abstract labour. It is precisely by starting from the category of the “post festum” that wage labour comes to be seen as an eternal and unchanging form of production. As for physiological expenditure, its essence lies in calculating the quantitative expenditure of human labour through the methods of biological science and technology, ultimately using abstract physical time as the standard of measurement. Conversely, Marx does not understand life from the perspective of natural science; he holds that “time is the abstract form of sensory perception,” and the labour process is the passing of human sensory life-time. But life-time, in the calculation of commodity exchange-value, is abstracted into physical time that dissolves individual differences and becomes purely numerical. Humanity has not from time immemorial used physical time to guide life; in China’s agrarian society, natural solar terms and seasons served as reference. The insertion of physical time into people’s lives is the product of a specific historical movement.

然而，作为价值评价维度的“科学”，正是作为学科门类的“科学思维”取得统治地位的结果。这意味着，抽象劳动的生理学内涵需要得到历史唯物主义的澄明，进而为其在政治经济学批判中留下合理的位置。马克思批判性地继承了认识论的“抽象”概念，即“思维用来掌握具体、把它当作一个精神上的具体再现出来的方式”，通过这一“科学上正确的方法”揭示劳动范畴作为资本主义生产关系理论反映的本质。生理学内涵恰是资本主义商品经济的产物，以自然科学的“抽象认识”表达出来，但同时造成抽象劳动的超历史化。正是从“事后”的范畴出发，雇佣劳动才会被看作永恒不变的生产形式。而生理学的消耗，其本质是通过生物科学技术的方式来计算人类劳动在量上的消耗，最终以抽象的物理时间作为度量标准。相反，马克思并不从自然科学理解生命，而认为“时间是感性知觉的抽象形式”，劳动过程则是人的感性生命时间的消逝。但生命时间在商品交换价值的计算中被抽象为消解个性差异和纯粹数字化的物理时间。人类并非自古以来就采用物理时间来指导生活，在中国农耕社会是以自然的节气、时令作为参考。物理时间之设置入人们的生活是一定历史运动的产物。

Value Objectivity: The Ontological Critique of Abstract Labour

价值对象性：抽象劳动的存在论批判

Through Marx’s transformation, the “abstract” of abstract labour moves from epistemology into the domain of ontology. At this level, abstract labour is not the conceptual abstraction of concrete labour grasped within natural-scientific thinking, but rather refers to the abstract activity that “sublates the sensuous objective relations and existence.” In other words, Marx’s critique of political economy of abstract labour and his ontological critique of self-consciousness possess an inner unity. Hegel’s philosophy replaces real movement with the movement of conceptual categories, and replaces the active subject that continuously sublates sensuous objectivity with self-consciousness. Marx, through sensuous objective activity, sublates both Feuerbach’s sensuous intuition and Hegel’s rational subject. Under this double critique, abstract labour cannot be interpreted as something that exists in every epoch, always the same, but rather as the result of human sensuous activity. In the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, Marx already clearly understands human objective existence from the perspective of human objective activity. Sensuous objective activity is the subjectivity of the human being’s objective essential powers, while “abstract” labour signifies the sublation of sensuous existence, objective activity, and human essential powers (human individuality, capacities, life-manifestations, etc.). This sublation is simultaneously the process by which the abstract subject (the abstract labour that creates value) returns to itself after negating sensuous objective relations.

经过马克思的改造，抽象劳动之“抽象”便从认识论进入存在论领域。在此层面，抽象劳动并非自然科学思维中把握的具体劳动的概念抽象，而是指“扬弃了感性的对象性关系和存在”的抽象活动。换言之，马克思对抽象劳动的政治经济学批判与对自我意识的存在论批判具有内在统一性。黑格尔哲学用概念范畴的运动代替现实的运动，用自我意识代替不断扬弃感性对象性的活动主体。马克思通过感性的对象性活动扬弃费尔巴哈的感性直观与黑格尔的理性主体。在双重批判下，抽象劳动必然不能被解释为存在于每个时代、始终如一的东西，而是人类的感性活动之结果。在《1844年经济学哲学手稿》中，马克思已明确从人的对象性活动理解人的对象性存在。感性的对象性活动是人的对象性本质力量的主体性，而“抽象的”劳动意味着对感性存在、对象性活动和人的本质力量（人的个性、能力和生命表现等）的扬弃。这一扬弃同时是抽象主体（创造价值的抽象劳动）在否定感性对象性关系之后返回自身的过程。

This interpretation is not a humanist return in the exposition of Marx’s theory of labour. In *Capital*, Marx does not abandon the important concept of “objectivity.” A commodity possesses value because human abstract labour is objectified within it, but the “value objectivity” of the commodity is not sensuous objectivity; it is a “phantom-like objectivity.” “Phantom-like objectivity” is a real objective existence that has become independent from sensuous existence, and is therefore a “purely imaginary objectivity” or “abstract objectivity.” In contrast, Marx calls the objectivity of the product created by concrete labour “use-objectivity,” “palpably rough objectivity,” or “dead objectivity.” This is precisely the philosophical expression of “economic discourse.” “Imaginary objectivity” is by no means something subjectively fantasised by individuals; on the contrary, a commodity becomes an object of exchange not because value is a sensuous object (a real entity) independent of people and perceptible to them, but because value is confirmed in the process of exchange as something independent of the commodity-thing itself, yet truly existing within people’s social intercourse and social consensus. Thus, use-objectivity and value-objectivity from the dimension of the critique of political economy are seamlessly unified with sensuous objectivity and rational objectivity (or consciousness-objectivity) from the ontological dimension.

这种解释并非马克思劳动理论阐释的人本主义返回。在《资本论》中，马克思也未放弃“对象性”这一重要概念。一个商品之所以具有价值，是因为有人类的抽象劳动对象化在其中，但商品的“价值对象性”并不是感性对象性，而是一种“幽灵般的对象性”。“幽灵般的对象性”是从感性存在中独立出来却真实的客观存在，因此是“纯粹的想象的对象性”或“抽象的对象性”。与之相对，马克思将具体劳动创造的产品的对象性称为“使用对象性”“可感觉的粗糙对象性”“死的对象性”。这正是“经济话语”的哲学表达。“想象的对象性”绝非个人主观臆想的东西；恰恰相反，商品成为交换对象并非因为价值是独立于人、为人所感知的感性对象（实存），而是因为价值在交换过程中被人们确认为独立于商品物本身、但真实存在于人的社会交往与社会共识之中。由此，政治经济学批判维度的使用对象性和价值对象性，便毫无违和地与存在论维度的感性对象性和理性对象性（或意识对象性）统一起来。

The sublation of human’s objective-activity [1]1 “Objective-activity” (对象性活动) is a key term in Marx’s early writings, particularly the *Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844*, referring to human sensuous, practical activity directed at an object. by abstract labour is transformed, in the form of value, into the determination of human existence by socially necessary labour-time. It is precisely because labour is abstracted (averaged) that it can “encounter” natural science in a historically coincidental form—that is, through the physicalization of labour-time, achieving precise control over the labour process and the exploitation of surplus value. From the perspective of temporality, the “abstract” character of abstract labour is manifested not only in the quantification of individual labour-time, but more covertly in the “rationalization” of the labour process by socially necessary labour-time. Socially necessary labour-time is a supersensible objective existence; this social temporality, which cannot be grasped through the senses, becomes an invisible tool for manipulating people. Socially necessary labour-time here appears as a covert, structured social power, because it “forcibly forces its way through, like a law of nature regulating things, just as the law of gravity forces its way through when a house falls on one’s head.” [2]2 Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Chapter 1, Section 3, on the law of value as a regulative natural law. Not only are labourers regulated by it, but the entire bourgeoisie, constrained by the capitalist mode of production, is no exception. Hence Marx regards labour-time as the measure of the magnitude of value as the secret hidden behind the movement of the relative value of commodities.

抽象劳动对人的对象性活动的扬弃，在价值形式上转变为社会必要劳动时间对人的存在的规定。正因为劳动的抽象化（平均化），它才能与自然科学以历史巧合的形式“遭遇”，即通过劳动时间的物理化实现对劳动过程的精准控制和剩余价值的剥削。从时间性看，抽象劳动之“抽象”不但表现在个体劳动时间被计量化，更隐秘地体现在社会必要劳动时间对劳动过程的“合理化”。社会必要劳动时间是超感性的客观存在，这种无法通过感官把握的社会性时间成为操控人的无形工具。社会必要劳动时间在此表现为一种隐秘的、结构化的社会权力，因为它“作为起调节作用的自然规律强制地为自己开辟道路，就像房屋倒在人的头上时重力定律强制地为自己开辟道路一样”。不仅劳动者受其规制，受资本主义生产方式制约的整个资产阶级也无一例外。所以马克思把作为价值量的尺度的劳动时间看作隐藏在商品相对价值的运动背后的秘密。

The Abstraction of Labour: The Social Determination of Abstract Labour

劳动的抽象化：抽象劳动的社会规定性

Marx holds that the ground of value-objectivity lies in the social exchange of commodities. “Value-objectivity can only be manifested in the social relation between commodity and commodity,” so “in the value-objectivity of the commodity body there is not a single atom of natural matter.” [3]3 Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Chapter 1, Section 3. In short, abstract labour is a social category, not a natural one. In non-capitalist societies, the social character of individual labour also exists, but its products do not necessarily possess value. When labour-power universally becomes a commodity, the entire social production is based on the separation of private labour and social labour. The “abstract” of abstract labour, from its Latin etymology (abstrahere), contains the meaning of “separation” (Trennung), referring to the historical process of the separation of the labourer from objective conditions (means of production) and subjective conditions (ethical relations). Under this premise, abstract labour becomes the foundation of value. In fact, after the exchange process is completed, value-objectivity becomes an independent existence that sublates sensuous objectivity; not only is the commodity-thing itself sublated, but its production process and exchange activity also occupy a mediating position, and wage-labour is from the outset posited as abstract labour devoid of sensuous objectivity. This abstract labour, based on a naturalistic epistemology, is defined as the expenditure of human physical and mental energy, and the commodity naturally becomes its objectified form. This also means that human sensuous existence and objective relations are concealed within the value-form of the commodity—that is, through the connection between things in commodity exchange, the social relations between people are obscured.

马克思认为价值对象性的根据存在于商品的社会交换中。“价值对象性只能在商品同商品的社会关系中表现出来”，所以“在商品体的价值对象性中连一个自然物质原子也没有”。质言之，抽象劳动是一个社会范畴而非自然范畴。非资本主义社会中也存在这种个人劳动的社会性质，但其劳动产品并不一定具有价值。当劳动力普遍成为商品，整个社会生产就以私人劳动与社会劳动的分离为基础。抽象劳动之“抽象”，其拉丁语词源（abstrahere）包含“分离”（Trennung）之义，意指劳动者在历史中与客观条件（生产资料）和主观条件（伦理关系）的分离过程。在这种前提下，抽象劳动才成为价值的基石。实际上，价值对象性在交换过程结束之后便成为扬弃感性对象性的独立存在，不仅商品物本身被扬弃，其生产过程和交换活动也处在中介的位置，雇佣劳动一开始就被设定为非感性对象性的抽象劳动。这种抽象劳动依据自然主义的认识论被定义为人的体力和脑力的耗费，商品自然就成为其对象化形式。这也意味着人的感性存在和对象性关系被遮蔽在商品的价值形式中，即通过商品交换的物与物之间的联系掩盖了人与人的社会关系。

The very object of Marx’s critique is the naturalistic interpretation derived from this epistemology. Labour, as human sensuous objective-activity, is a life-activity carried out by humans every day, an affirmation of the essential powers of the human being. When capital becomes the subject and the absolute command of the labour process, every labour activity is reduced to abstract labour devoid of sensuous objectivity, degraded to the expenditure of physical and mental energy as physiological functions indistinguishable from animals. In analysing the value-form, Marx reveals the inverted character of modern labour, namely its negativity and positivity. Negativity refers to the negation of sensuous labour, i.e., “labour that abstracts away all concrete forms and useful properties of real labour.” [4]4 Marx, *Capital*, Vol. 1, Chapter 1, Section 2. This is relative to human value and meaning, referring to the negation of the sensuous objectivity of labour; abstract labour obscures human individuality, particularity, and freedom. Positivity refers to abstract labour “reducing all real labour to the common character of human labour as such, to the expenditure of human labour-power.” [5]5 Ibid. This is in the sense of its commodity form, meaning that individual labour achieves a leap from the particular to the universal, thereby acquiring social determination. Thus, the analysis of abstract labour in *Capital* achieves a unity of scientific analysis and value critique.

马克思批判的对象恰恰是这种认识论导出的自然主义解释。劳动作为人的感性的对象性活动，是人类每天都在进行的生命活动，是对人的本质力量的一种肯定。当资本作为主体成为劳动过程的绝对命令时，每一种劳动活动都沦为无感性对象性的抽象劳动，都被降格为与动物无个性差别的生理机能在体力和智力上的消耗。在分析价值形式时，马克思揭示出现代劳动的颠倒性质即消极性和积极性。消极性是对于感性劳动的否定性，即“抽象去了实在劳动的一切具体形式和有用性质的劳动”。这是相对于人的价值和意义而言，指对劳动的感性对象性的否定，抽象劳动遮蔽的是人的个性、特点和自由。积极性指抽象劳动“把一切实在劳动化为它们共有的人类劳动的性质，化为人类劳动力的耗费”。这是就其商品形式的意义而言，意味着个体劳动实现了从特殊到普遍的跃升，从而获得社会规定性。可见，《资本论》中对抽象劳动的分析实现了科学分析与价值批判的统一。

From the perspective of existential theory, “reducing” differentiated labour to undifferentiated human labour is a negation and abstraction of the human being, but Marx points out that “this is an abstraction that is carried out every day in the social production process.” [6]6 Marx, *A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy*, Introduction. Therefore, the abstraction of labour is a real abstraction, not merely a mental abstraction of particular labour by people; this will lead to the historical process of the abstraction of labour being obscured within economic categories. Without understanding this, it is easy to inflate abstract labour into a category applicable to all socio-economic formations. The American economist Paul Sweezy confuses the two: “Abstract labour equals ‘labour in general’; it is what is common to all human productive activity.” [7]7 Paul Sweezy, *The Theory of Capitalist Development* (1942), Chapter 3. Labour in general and abstract labour have an essential difference: the former is a mental abstraction of the universalization of labour, while the latter expresses its social-ontological root, i.e., the abstraction of real labour itself. Therefore, abstract labour becoming the subject of modern social development has historical conditions, and the attribution of the substance and source of commodity value to abstract labour can only find its answer within the movement of capitalism.

从生存论视角看，把有差异的劳动“简化”成无差别的人类劳动是一种对人的否定和抽象，但马克思指出“这是社会生产过程中每天都在进行的抽象”。所以，劳动的抽象化是一种真实的抽象，而不单是人对特殊劳动的思维抽象，这将导致劳动在历史中的抽象化过程被遮蔽于经济学范畴之中。不了解这一点，就很容易把抽象劳动放大为适用于一切社会经济形态的范畴。美国经济学家保罗·斯威奇就混淆了两者：“抽象劳动等于‘劳动一般’；它就是一切人类生产活动所共有的东西。”劳动一般和抽象劳动有着本质的差别，前者是对劳动普遍化的思维抽象，后者表达的是其社会存在论根源，即现实劳动的抽象化本身。因此，抽象劳动成为现代社会发展的主体是有历史条件的，而把商品价值的实体和源泉赋予抽象劳动，也必须在资本主义的运动过程中才能找到答案。

Online editor: Paul

网络编辑：保罗