I read Rubin a little differently than you. The market does make the
abstraction, just as Rubin says, but it does so without counting each
hour of concrete labor as the same amount of abstract labor.
I suspect we may be talking past each other so I will leave you have the
last word. I do appreciate your intervention in discussion.
Michael Nuwer wrote:
<quote>
In Marx's theory of value, the transformation of concrete into abstract
labor is not a theoretical act of abstracting for the purpose of finding
a general unit of measurement. This transformation is a real social
event. The theoretical expression of this social event, namely the
social equalization of different forms of labor and not their
physiological equality, is the category of abstract labor. The neglect
of this positive, social nature of abstract labor has led to the
interpretation of abstract labor as a calculation of labor expenditures
in a physiological sense, namely a purely negative property of
abstracting from the specific forms of concrete labor.
Abstract labor appears and develops to the extent that exchange becomes
the social form of the process of production, thus transforming the
production process into commodity production. In the absence of exchange
as the social form of production, there can be no abstract labor.
<end>
I. I. Rubin
Essays on Marx's Theory of Value
Chapter Fourteen. Abstract Labor
http://www.marxists.org/archive/rubin/value/ch14.htm
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Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA
95929
530 898 5321
fax 530 898 5901
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