Necessity Of Labor Research Articles

Metaphor, Marx, Agamben and International Law: The Jamaican Quashee/ Quasheeba, the Necessity of Labour, and the Subjectivity of Emancipated Slaves

In the Grundrisse Karl Marx wrote of how what ‘was the living worker's activity becomes the activity of the machine’ and that ‘the appropriation of labor by capital confronts the worker in a coarsely sensuous form; capital absorbs labor into itself – “as though its body were by love possessed”’. Marx drew this metaphorical quotation from Goethe’s Faust literarily describing a poisoned swollen-bellied dying rat. The line mattered enough to Marx (and Engels) to be present too in the first volume of Capital. What work this metaphorization does and how it indirectly relates to Giorgio Agamben’s enigmatic notion of inoperativity (also translated as inactivity, or inoperativeness and referencing human potential as incorporating both the capacity to do and the capacity not to do) is the central task of this paper. The paper argues that the abstracted notion of the emancipated slave who is not inclined to work for money but only works as is necessary was proffered by Marx, and is also proffered by Agamben, as an exemplary metaphorical model for general emancipation. If this is true, it would place the material conditions necessary for both Marx’s and Agamben’s theorisations in the concrete context of the Jamaican Quashees of the 19th Century Caribbean, and neither in classical antiquity (a fact relevant to the charge, unfounded or not, of Agamben’s Eurocentrism), nor in biblical exegesis (a fact relevant to the charge, unfounded or not, of Agamben’s mysticism).

For a Dialectics of Nature and Need: Unity, Separation, and Alienation

ABSTRACTThis paper will argue for the pairing of the concept of need with dialectical and materialist conceptions of the nature-society relationship. A dialectical and materialist reading of the nature-society relation, in combination with a discussion of need, will allow for a conceptualization that sees the driver of real separation under capital accumulation. In doing so, this paper will make two main claims: first, that conceptions of unity and separation arising from dialectical thought are essential to an ecological analysis that sees both the universal and particular nature-society relationship; and second, that a recognition of “need” is important for materialist thought. Indeed, the necessity of labour contains within it an important fact of “need.” Through both a recognition of separation and unity in the nature-society relation, and the pairing of labour and need, we are able to read dialectical thought and materialism as powerful conceptual strategies in order to understand general and alienated forms of the nature-society relation.

MENUJU TANAH HARAPAN: KOLONISASI ORANG JAWA DI BENGKULU

The coming of the people from Java to Bengkulu was encouraged by the government policy of colonization and the necessity of labour in the Western enterprises. Besides for controlling and decreasing the population of Java, colonization was also intended to extend and open new agricultural areas out­side Java. The new settlers were generally peasant agriculturalists in their original ­districts. In Bengkulu they struggled to transform jungles and swamps into rice fields. They came in two phases. The first began from 1908 until 1919, and the second was after 1930. Those who came in the first phase were located in Rejang Lebong district around the company and the mining, while those of the second were located in the newly opened locations: Lubuk Mumpo ( Rejang-Lebong), Kemumu and Perbo (Lais). Unfortunately, not all of those new settlers could survive in the new areas. Some left the areas, others stayed with a hope that someday they would possess their own land and therefore would have a better life in the dream land of Bengkulu.

The Role of Art in History and the Art of the Future

AbstractThe main thesis of this paper is that art has an important role to play in the fulfillment of the promises of historical progress and that this progress is the necessary condition of the flourishing of the art of the future. We make progress in economic history because we improve the productivity of our labor by inventions and cooperation. Its aim is the liberation from the necessity of labor. However, the leisure time we thus gain has to be filled with meaningful activities. Here art has to play a central role.To show this I have to determine what art is. In my view, art is a close cousin of playing games. Arts and games have in fact a common ancestor: the feast. Both are executed freely according to self-invented rules. This explains why arts and games yield us extraordinary, quasi divine, pleasures.Therefore indulging in art and playing games allows us in the best possible way to fill our ever larger leisure time with meaningful activities. However, this role belongs to the art of the future, i.e. the art after the end of the history of art. I explain the features of this art and its role in my last chapter.

L'art dans l'histoire et l'art du futur

The main thesis of this paper is that art has an important role to play in the fulfillment of the promises of historical progress and that this progress is the necessary condition of the flourishing of the art of the future. We make progress in economic history because we improve the productivity of our labor by inventions and cooperation. Its aim is the liberation from the necessity of labor. However, the leisure time we thus gain has to be filled with meaningful activities. Here art has to play a central role. To show this the author has to determine what art is. In his view, art is a close cousin of playing games. Arts and games have in fact a common ancestor: the feast. Both are executed freely according to self-invented rules. This explains why arts and games yield us extraordinary, quasi divine, pleasures.

Rousseau’s ‘Sacred Right’ of Property and its Relevance to Issues of Economic Justice

“‘If we have a prince,’ said Pliny to Trajan, 'it is to save ourselves from having a master.’” (Rousseau, Second Discourse)In his Discourse on Political Economy, Rousseau directly challenges the liberal tradition concerning the relationship between politics and economics, and in so doing presents his own conception of justice. For Rousseau, the aim of the political order is human happiness. He argues that humans can only be happy when they can live in harmony with the essential elements of their nature, amour de soi, pitie, and free will. Civilization has placed man at war with himself both individually and collectively by creating the necessity of labor. As a result, men are forced to choose their individual well-being over both pity and freedom. They have become slaves in order to live. This should be an unnecessary choice. Rousseau wants to construct a political economy that will allow men to reclaim the natural harmony of their nature by controlling the necessity of labor. The key to creating this order is the “sacred” right of property. This right is categorically different than liberal natural right. In fact, it is, in some sense, its opposite. The natural right of property is created by the action of individuals based on the labor theory of value and the resulting conveyance of ownership independent of any sovereign law. The sacred right is granted by the Sovereign General Will (the will that is based on the wholeness of human nature) whose essence is to protect the right to life of all its members. It is not labor which creates property, but property which creates the opportunity and conditions of labor. By controlling the necessity of labor, man is freed from slavery to nature, and thereby freed from slavery to other men. For Rousseau, the just political economy is one based on the sacred right of property, because this is the only order which will allow humanity to reclaim the integrity of its nature and have the opportunity to develop as a moral being. My paper attempts to answer the following question: How is Rousseau’s analysis relevant to contemporary discussions of economic justice? The answer involves his discussion of the Aristotelian distinction between use value and exchange value, his view of morality based on sentiment rather than reason, and his attempt to reconcile freedom and equality through the creation of a political economy where labor is “…always necessary and never useless…”

Menuju Tanah Harapan: Kolonisasi Orang Jawa di Bengkulu

The coming of the people from Java to Bengkulu was encouraged by the government policy of colonization and the necessity of labour in the Western enterprises. Besides for controlling and decreasing the population of Java, colonization was also intended to extend and open new agricultural areas out­side Java. The new settlers were generally peasant agriculturalists in their original ­districts. In Bengkulu they struggled to transform jungles and swamps into rice fields. They came in two phases. The first began from 1908 until 1919, and the second was after 1930. Those who came in the first phase were located in Rejang Lebong district around the company and the mining, while those of the second were located in the newly opened locations: Lubuk Mumpo ( Rejang-Lebong), Kemumu and Perbo (Lais). Unfortunately, not all of those new settlers could survive in the new areas. Some left the areas, others stayed with a hope that someday they would possess their own land and therefore would have a better life in the dream land of Bengkulu.

Modernity and History

Does modernity still have a future? The news from the modern world suggests a negative answer. It is true, the project of modernity, in the fourth century after its inception, has still not been brought to its completion. Modern man has not yet succeeded in establishing himself as maître et possesseur de la nature. Nevertheless, he has elevated himself above his earthly existence by mastering the laws of space travel; the man in the moon, formerly a mythological figure, has now an American name. Modern man has not yet reached Utopia where the necessity of labor and the ease of leisure would be reconciled; in many regards, he is still bound to toil for his subsistence. But he has invented artificial intelligence and thus has found a humanoid substitute for an endless number of cumbersome tasks; work is transformed into computer games. Modern man has not yet become the Lord of his life, he continues to miss a complete control over infirmities, afflictions, and, finally, death. But he has fathomed the biochemical basis of life and acquired the skills to manipulate the forms of being; the breath of life is recorded as genetic code.