The Concept of Labor: Marx and His Critics

Abstract

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 in- dustrial 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 ap- proach (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 understand- ing 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