This paper contains an interesting definition by Marx of the division of labor as 'labor of severed body parts'. You could call it anatomic reductionism?
> > *"No Exchange without Likeness"* > For Marx, commodity production depends both on the division of the > laborer's body and on a kind of artful bodybuilding that I have argued > resembles the kinds of photographic montage produced in the mid-nineteenth > century. As Marx writes, commodities are "merely a number of parts fitted > together" (Capital 474). The work of commodity fetishism is, to a large > extent, the work of composing bodies and body parts into the seductive and > smooth contours of attractive merchandise—the work of making a commodity > body capable of casting "wooing glances" at consumers (204). The "body of > the commodity" is a composition of two apparently heterogeneous groups of > objects—natural materials and laboring bodies: "The physical bodies of > commodities are combinations of two elements, the material provided by > nature, and labour" (133). Marx defines this labor as an objectified form > of the laborer's body, but in the form of severed body parts: a > "productive expenditure of human brains, muscles, nerves, [and] hands" > (134). While the performance of labor seems to divide the body of the > worker into dis posable parts, the division of labor performs a primary > dismemberment in preparation for this "productive expenditure" of body > parts: > [The division of labor] converts the worker into a crippled monstrosity by > furthering his particular skill as in a forcing-house, through the > suppression of a whole world of productive drives and inclinations... Not > only is the specialized work distributed among the different individuals, > but the individual himself is divided up, and transformed into the > automatic motor of a detail operation .. . [It] is developed in > manufacture, which mutilates the worker, turning him into a fragment of > himself. (481-82) The division of labor makes men into "monsters" in order > to collect them and their embodied labor more efficiently. It at once > "cripples" a body by transform ing a whole body into a single part and > multiplies the uses of an individual body by dividing it up into parts, > each of which can be used for specialization. While the division of labor > seems to mimic the operations of synecdoche, in which a whole body is > reduced to a single and representative part (the worker as a "hand," for > example), Marx stresses how the division of labor makes it impossible for > a body so divided to be represented at all. Parts can only refer to parts, > because "the individual himself is divided up." That is, the productive > divisions of manufac ture seem to make the referential divisions of > synecdoche impossible. But as fragments of individual laboring bodies are > passed "from hand to hand" (Capital 455) in the process of production, they > become inseparable and indistinguishable from the parts of the commodity > being assembled: "[A] 11 these membra disjecta come together for the first > time in the hand that binds them into one mechanical whole" (462).20 > Blurring the distinction between embodied commodities and commodified > bodies—between components that look like body parts and body parts that > look like components—Marx figures production as a form of artistic and > mechanical labor, an artful composition of the "membra disjecta" of labor. > Turning imperfect monsters into perfect products becomes the aesthetic > labor of commodity fetishism. --pp.131,32 > On Sun, Sep 20, 2020 at 05:22 PM, Louis Proyect wrote: > > On 9/20/20 11:11 AM, wideangle wrote: > >> Photography is my thing. >> >> https://www.jstor.org/stable/23128732 >> >> > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#1788): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/1788 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/76971647/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
