David A.

Tomblin

Prompt #3: The Use and Value of Abstract Labour

In Capital, Marx searches for a common, unifying factor between commodities. He
claims that, in this inquiry, the use-value, exchange values, and natural properties of a
commodity cannot be included. The one factor that remains is the abstract labour that goes into
the object and creates either exchange-value or use-value. Marx also claims that the only feasible
way to measure abstract labour, and consequently, the only way to measure value, is through the
abstract notion of social labour-time.
The common factor is first hypothesized when Marx considers the equivalences in
exchange values of wholly different commodities (i.e. when he considers the exchange of corn
for iron): 1 quarter corn = x cwt. Iron. What does this equation tell us? It tells us that in two
different things there exists in equal quantities something common to both. (304) His claim
appears to be that if an amount of corn can be exchanged for an amount of iron, they must be
equivalent in some way. However, they are vastly different from each other in their physical and
natural properties, and therefore the common factor between the commodities cannot be among
those properties. The natural properties of a commodity are directly linked to its utility and usevalue, severing the potential for use-value to connect the two commodities: Such properties
claim our attention only in so far as they affect the utility of those commodities the exchange
of commodities is evidently an act characterized by a total abstraction from use-value. (305) If a
commoditys natural properties cannot be used as common factors between it and another
commodity, and these properties solely affect its use-value, it follows that the commoditys usevalue has been removed, even abstracted, from the equation entirely.
Marx introduces the theme of abstraction in his definition of a commodity: A
commodity is an object outside us, a thing that satisfies human wants of some sort or

David A. Tomblin

another. (303) By removing the person from the commodity, its usefulness to a single person
becomes meaningless, and its use-value irrelevant. This irrelevancy extends towards Marxs
search of a common factor between commodities in that use-value is non-transferrable: The
utility of a thing makes it a use-value it has no existence apart from that commodity. (303)
This exclusivity of use-value further abstracts it from Marxs commodity-to-commodity ratio
and equivalence of exchange-values.
It would appear at first that exchange-value is the missing link between commodities.
However, Marx describes exchange-value as a variable that is dependent upon an outside force
and not inherently present in any given commodity: an exchange-value that is inseparably
connected with, inherent in commodities, seems a contradiction in terms. (304) He explains this
observation by showing how exchange-value is fluid and how one commodity may have several
distinct exchange-values: A given commodity, e.g., a quarter of wheat is exchanged for x
blacking, y silk, or z gold, &c.in short, for other commodities in the most different
proportions. (304) Due to its inherently unstable nature, Marx concludes that the presence of
exchange-value is indicative of a separate entity within the commodity which creates the value:
Therefore exchange-value, generally, is only the mode of expression of something
contained in it, yet distinguishable from it. (304) This separate something, Marx claims, is
human labour.
In order for a commodity to enter the physical world, it must be created. In order for a
commodity to be created, labour of some sort must go into its creation. Therefore, an inherent
property that is shared between all commodities is the presence of human labour. However, the
humanity of this labour has already been partially abstracted from the commodity by Marxs
definition of the commodity being an object outside us, and is further abstracted by the

David A. Tomblin

irrelevance and abstraction of the commoditys use-value: Along with the useful qualities of the
products themselves, we put out of sight both the useful character of the various kinds of labour
embodied in them, and the concrete forms of that labour (305) It is at this point that Marx
names the common factor between commodities, the outside force which creates the
commoditys value: human labour in the abstract. (305)
Marx then goes on to further divide human labour, but in order to make this abstraction
something more tangible and easier to work with, he ascribes to it a quantitative value of labourtime: The quantity of labour, however, is measured by its duration, and labour-time in its turn
finds its standard in weeks, days, and hours. (306) More specifically, he describes labour in
terms of socially necessary units of time, abstracting the individual once more in favor of the
homogeneous human mass: The labour-time socially necessary is that required to produce an
article under the normal conditions of production, and with the average degree of skill and
intensity prevalent at the time. (306) This abstraction of self for the sake of a social being is
echoed when he begins to reconnect use-values with their commodities: In order to produce the
latter, he must not only produce use-values, but use-values for others, social use-values. (307)
Marx is now able to use this definition of labour-time as a more concrete unit to describe
labour in commodities: As values, all commodities are only definite masses of congealed
labour-time.(307) With the units of labour defined, he then goes on to divide labour itself into
valuable labour and useful labour. He argues that, though the precise nature of two kinds of
labour may be different, it is essentially the same abstract labour being put into either form:
qualitatively different productive activities, are each a productive expenditure and in this
sense are human labour. (310) From this he concludes that the same labour can create both
forms of value, it is only a matter of how labour affects each one: While, therefore, with

David A. Tomblin

reference to use-value, the labour contained in a commodity counts only qualitatively, with
reference to value it counts only quantitatively (311) To explain this, he revisits his example
of coats and linen, giving each assumed values of 10 yards linen = W and coat = 2W. The coat
has more labour-time quantitatively, but the two forms of useful labour are qualitatively
equivalent.
Marx takes a methodical, deductive approach to the bipolar nature of labour and
commodities as a whole. He first removes all but one factor from them, defines it as a complex,
abstract idea with concrete units, then shows how each of the factors first deemed irrelevant or
dependent is in fact an integral part of a commodity, and how it is linked to abstract human
labour. By taking a winding, complicated path towards each solution, Marx appears to be
demonstrating the complexity and inherent insanity of the capitalist system he is dissecting.