Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

While establishing their materialist position, Marx and Engels argued that one may distinguish humankind from other biological entities by consciousness, religion, or whatever else one chose, but humankind fundamentally distinguished itself from animals and other living organisms when it began to produce its means of life. Labor, they argued, is an eternal, naturally imposed condition of human life, common to all forms of society. Finally, Marx and Engels noted, while producing its means of life, humankind indirectly produces the material conditions for its ongoing existence. Two decades later, Marx again stressed labor's ontological nature and importance. In Capital , Marx distinguished labor “in general” from labor involved in “the valorization process.” The latter is a particular sociohistorical form of labor that produces commodities that are sold in the market and functions as the source of surplus value. Labor in general is the general form of labor through which materials from the natural world are appropriated and converted to products that directly or indirectly meet human needs and wants. Labor in general actualizes the fundamental interchange between humankind and nature through which humankind engages with nature, changes its understanding of nature, and influences its own character. More than 130 years of scholarship in the physical, biological, and social sciences ... log in or subscribe to read full text