The Concept of Labor : Marx and His Critics SEAN

Marx conceives of labor as form-giving activity. This is criticized for presupposing a “productivist” model of labor which regards work that creates a material product — craft or industrial work — as the paradigm for all work (Habermas, Benton, Arendt). Many traditional kinds of work do not seem to fit this picture, and new “immaterial” forms of labor (computer work, service work, etc.) have developed in postindustrial society which, it is argued, necessitate a fundamental revision of Marx’s approach (Hardt and Negri). Marx’s theory, however, must be understood in the context of Hegel’s philosophy. In that light, the view that Marx has a “productivist” model of labor is mistaken. The concept of “immaterial” labor is unsound, and Marx’s ideas continue to provide an illuminating framework for understanding work in modern society. In the labour-process . . . man’s activity, with the help of the instruments of labour, effects an alteration, designed from the commencement, in the material worked upon. The process disappears in the product, the latter is a use-value, Nature’s material adapted by a change of form to the wants of man. Labour has incorporated itself with its subject: the former is materialized, the latter transformed. — Marx, 1961, 180 432 SCIENCE & SOCIETY MARX CONCEIVES OF LABOR AS “formative” activity, as activity through which human beings give form to materials and thus objectify themselves in the world. In his early work (1975, 324), he talks of labor as a process of “objectification.” This account is often taken to assume a “productivist” model of labor that regards work that creates a material product — industrial, craft or artistic work — as the paradigm for all work. It is much criticized on this basis. There are many kinds of work that do not seem to fit this picture, some with which Marx was familiar, others that have newly developed. In particular, with the use of computers and information technology and the growth of the service sector, it is argued, we are moving into a postindustrial stage. New “immaterial” forms of labor are coming to predominate (Hardt and Negri, 2005, 108–109). A new conception of labor is needed. My aim in this paper is to respond to these arguments. The standard accounts of Marx’s ideas in this area are fundamentally flawed, I will argue. The view that Marx has a purely “productivist” model of labor — common as it is — is mistaken. The idea that his theories are inapplicable to modern forms of work is based on a serious misunderstanding of his thought. Properly interpreted, Marx’s ideas still provide an illuminating framework for understanding the nature of work in the modern world. I. MARX’S CONCEPT OF LABOR There are two versions of the view that Marx has a “productivist” model of the labor process. Sometimes Marx is said to presuppose an industrial idea of labor. According to Hardt and Negri (2000, 255–256, 292; 2005, 140–142), for example, Marx’s account is based on the image of the industrial factory. Others, by contrast, assume that Marx’s concept of labor is based on the paradigm of craft work. According to Habermas (1987, 65–66), for example, Marx’s account “derives its plausibility from a romantically transfigured prototype of handicraft activity” like that of John Ruskin and William Morris. Likewise, with reference to the passage quoted at the start, Benton writes, “it is . . . clear that the intentional structure of the laborprocess is, for Marx, a transformative one. . . . It is plausible to suppose that Marx’s model is handicraft production of some sort. THE CONCEPT OF LABOR 433 Carpentry, for example, could be readily represented as having just such a . . . structure.”1 The productivist interpretation of Marx’s concept of labor is often treated as self-evident. Alternatively, as with Habermas and Benton, it is presented as a “plausible” reading of Marx’s language and imagery. These ways of interpreting Marx’s ideas are superficial and unsatisfactory. Marx’s theory of labor as “formative” activity is not self-evident, nor is it based upon an isolated metaphor which can be understood in terms of the associations it may plausibly seem to suggest. It is a central element of a systematic philosophical theory of the relation of human beings to nature in which the concept of labor plays a fundamental role. In some important respects this theory is never stated explicitly by Marx. Although he discusses the general character of labor and the labor-process in a number of places, he does not fully spell out his philosophical presuppositions (Marx, 1975; 1973; 1961; Marx and Engels, 1970). These are derived from Hegel. Hegelian assumptions underlie his thinking about labor, not only in his early writings where they are clearly evident, but throughout his work. For a valid understanding of Marx’s concept of labor, as I shall demonstrate, it is essential to see it in this Hegelian context.2 However, the critics I am discussing do not take this background into account. Either they appear to be unaware of it, or, like Habermas, they discount it. When Marx’s thought is restored to its proper context and interpreted in this light it becomes evident that the charge that he is in the grip of a “productivist” paradigm is misconceived and unjustified. On the contrary, it is rather these critics who see all labor in these terms and project them onto Marx. In particular, the theory that labor is a “formative activity” has a Hegelian origin. The concept of labor is central to Hegel’s philoso1 Benton (1989, 66) criticizes this as follows. “With some modifications, [this] representation might do for productive labor-processes in general. . . . However . . . Marx’s conceptualization is supposed to represent not just one broad type of human need-meeting interaction with nature, but, rather, a universal, ‘nature-imposed condition of human existence.’ Marx does, indeed, recognize such activities as felling timber, catching fish, extracting ore, and agriculture as labor-processes. But he constructs his general concept of the labor-process as if these diverse forms of human activity in relation to nature could be assimilated to it.” 2 The claim that Marx’s ideas, especially in his later work, have a Hegelian character remains controversial. I will not defend that claim directly here, except by showing that in the case of his concept of labor it is enormously illuminating to see his thought in its Hegelian context. 434 SCIENCE & SOCIETY phy. According to Hegel, labor is a distinctively human (“spiritual”) activity. Through it human beings satisfy their needs in a way that is fundamentally different from that of other animals. Non-human animals are purely natural creatures. They are driven by their immediate natural appetites and instincts, and they satisfy their needs immediately, by devouring what is directly present in their environment. The object is simply negated and annihilated in the process. Appetites arise again, and the process repeats itself. Natural life is sustained, but no development occurs. Human labor by contrast creates a mediated relation to our natural appetites and to surrounding nature. Work is not driven by immediate instinct. In doing it we do not simply devour and negate the object. On the contrary, gratification must be deferred while we labor to create a product for consumption only later. Through work, moreover, we fashion and shape the object, and give it a human form. We thus “duplicate” ourselves in the world. Through this process we establish a relation to the natural world and to our own natural desires that is mediated through work. We objectify ourselves in our product, and come to recognize our powers and abilities, embodied in the world. We develop as reflective, self-conscious beings. Moreover, Hegel maintains, relations with others are a necessary condition for these developments (1977, 118). Labor is not a purely instrumental activity to meet only individual needs; it is always and necessarily a social activity. It involves and sustains relations with others (Sayers, 2003; 2007). Different Kinds of Work These ideas are central to Hegel’s philosophy. They are taken over and developed by Marx. The view that labor is a “formative” activity is presented by Marx as a general account of labor. It is not the description of a specific type of work; it applies universally, to all forms of work. This is clear in the passage quoted at the outset and elsewhere. Likewise Hegel emphasizes the general scope of his account. For example, he writes: In empirical contexts, this giving of form may assume the most varied shapes. The field which I cultivate is thereby given form. As far as the inorganic realm is concerned, I do not always give it form directly. If, for example, I build a THE CONCEPT OF LABOR 435 windmill, I have not given form to the air, but I have constructed a form in order to utilize the air. . . . Even the fact that I conserve game may be regarded as a way of imparting form, for it is a mode of conduct calculated to preserve the object in question. The training of animals is, of course, a more direct way of giving them form, and I play a greater role in this process. (Hegel, 1991, §56A, 86.) Hegel here treats all these different kinds of work as “formative” activities in the sense that they are all ways of imparting form to matter. “Productivist” forms of work which create a material product, such as craft and manufacture, figure as particular kinds of labor, but it is quite clear that Hegel is not trying to assimilate all kinds of work to this model. On the contrary, he is emphasizing the great variety of forms that it may take. Its result need not be the creation of a material product, it may also be intended to conserve an object, to change the character of animals or people, to transform social relations, etc. The wider purpose of Hegel’s theory is to give a systematic account of the different forms of labor; and this is part of a still larger theme. One of Hegel’s most fruitful and suggestive ideas is that subject and object change and develop in relation to each other. He thus questions the enlightenment idea that a fixed and given subject faces a separate and distinct external world. As the activity of the subject develops, so the object to which the subject relates develops and changes too. This is the organizing principle of Hegel’s account of labor.3 Hegel conceives of different kinds of labor as different forms of relation of subject to object (nature).4 In characteristic fashion, moreover, the different forms of labor are arranged on an ascending scale according to the degree of mediation that they establish between subject and object (nature). Marx draws extensively on these ideas. They provide an indispensable key to understanding Marx’s account of labor, as I will now argue. 3 This is also the organizing theme in Hegel’s accounts of the development of “spirit” (1977; 1975; 1988). The first seeds of this account of labor appear very early in Hegel’s work. The idea is already present in a fragmentary early piece (1979). It is well worked out by the time of the Jena lectures of 1805 (Hegel, 1983). It is presented again in the Philosophy of Right of 1821 (1991, §§196–207, 231–139). This gives an account of labor similar to that in the Jena lectures. The Philosophy of Right was well known to Marx. The earlier accounts were not published at the time and would not have been available to him. 4 In all but Hegel’s earliest account (1979), this theory serves also as the basis for his account of social classes. 436 SCIENCE & SOCIETY Direct Appropriation The simplest form of work, involving the most immediate relation to nature, is direct appropriation from nature, as in hunting, fishing, or the gathering of plants, etc. In work of this kind, nature is taken as it is immediately given. This is the limiting case, still close to unmediated, natural appropriation in that it does not involve transformation of the object in itself. However, such work is a distinctively human rather than a purely natural and unmediated form of activity in that, in its human form, it is intentional, socially organized and usually involves the use of tools or weapons.5 Marx is well aware of the existence of labor of this kind. “All those things which labor merely separates from immediate connection with their environment, are subjects [i.e., objects] of labor spontaneously provided by nature. Such are fish which we catch and take from their element, water, timber which we fell in the virgin forest, and ores which we extract from their veins” (Marx, 1961, 178). Benton argues that this sort of labor does not fit into what he interprets to be Marx’s “productivist” picture: The conversion of the “subject [object] of labour” into a use-value cannot be adequately described as “Nature’s material adapted by a change of form to the wants of man.” This conversion is rather a matter of selecting, extracting and relocating elements of the natural environment so as to put them at the disposal of other practices (of production or consumption). These primary labour-processes, then, appropriate but do not transform. (Benton, 1989, 69.) Thus, according to Benton, Marx is led to “exaggerate their potentially transformative character, whilst under-theorizing or occluding the various respects in which they are subject to naturally given and/or relatively non-manipulable conditions and limits” (Benton, 1989, 73; see also Grundmann, 1991; Benton, 1992, 59ff). 5 Work of this kind is mentioned only briefly by Hegel (1997, §103, 179–180). According to both Hegel and Marx, this is the most unmediated form of relation of human beings to nature. Both writers associate it with a specific type of religious consciousness, “Nature Religion” (Naturreligion), in which this relation to nature and to natural contingency is expressed in the form of reverence for natural processes and awe of natural forces (Hegel, 1988, 225; Marx and Engels, 1970, 51). For further discussion, see Sayers. 2007. THE CONCEPT OF LABOR 437 It is simply not correct to suggest that Marx cannot accommodate “primary appropriation” in his account of the labor process. Contrary to Benton’s assertion, such labor does effect a transformation of the object. Appropriation is a kind of transformation; it is wrong to oppose these as though they were exclusive of each other. According to Marx, direct appropriation is “formative” activity in that it separates the object from nature. The object (or “subject” in Marx’s language) is thus changed and made useable: it is caught and killed, plucked, extracted, moved, etc. Labor is thereby embodied and objectified in it through a change of form. It might be objected that a mere change of place affects only the object’s “external” relations and does not alter the thing itself. This objection assumes that an object’s external relations are not part of its being. This general view is questioned by Hegelian and Marxist philosophy, which is often described as a philosophy of “internal relations” for this reason (Sayers, 1990; Ollman, 1971). In the context of economic life the fact that game or fish has been caught makes a great deal of difference: “a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.” In short Benton’s objections to the view that appropriation is a kind of transformation must be rejected.