Paul saked: What did you mean to write in this sentence " ... is directly
changes to other people ... " ?
_________________________________________
Paul, the sentence was not well constructed.
I mean, most of us do work which does not change the form of a lump of
stuff, but rather changes someone's mind, tickles someone's fancy, directly
meets their needs in some way, or we act as a component part of a labour
process which has such a service as the saleable outcome.
It seems to me that Marx found it convenient to explain his thought in
terms of human labour changing the form of a material thing, a good, which
then is outside of the worker in every way, and simply rests there, until
picked up by someone else who then enjoys the changed properties of the
object as a use-value. The whole idea of fetishism is then built on a
metaphor with religious fetishism, i.e. the belief in objects (such as a
statue of the Buddah) having human or spiritual powers.
In general it is those lumps of stuff which then become the objects of
commerce, commodity exchange. However, commerce can also take place without
any lumps of stuff changing ownership. Thus it is directly the will of the
community which becomes reified and made into a foreign, suprahuman thing.
It seems to me that we are getting closer to the truth of alienation here.
Andy
____________________________________
At 10:13 28/09/2000 -0700, you wrote:
>Andy,
>
>What did you mean to write in this sentence " . . . is directly changes to
>other people . . . " ? in"
>
>> Very few of us today see a tangible, material product of our labour, the
>> outcome of which is directly changes to other people and their social
>> relations. Psychology needs to look at this change which is a further
>> revealing of the essence of labour.
>
>I know what you're talking about but that sentence is important, especially
>since it is tied to the provocative statement concerning psychology's need
>and "the essence of labor."
>
>
>> ____________________________
>> [Leontev 2] "Of particularly great significance . . . the transition from
>a class society to communism."
>>
>
>Thanks for pointing back to this passage. It is very interesting to read
>this way of expressing alienation: "the inadequacy of that **sense** that
>gives objective significance to man, to his activity, to its products."
>
>> I don't know what Russian word is translated as "disintegration", but this
>> separation of the forms of labour is an essential part of the constitution
>> of consciousness and cognition.
>
>here I'm not sure what you mean by "forms of labor" ? physical and mental,
>in the first instance? if so this ties back to what you said earlier about
>the disappearance of even an indirect (primary extractive , mill and
>factory-based) relationship to the product of the our immediate social
>productive relations.
>
>>In the embryonic form in which there is no
>> social division of labour beyond the limited sphere of a kinship group,
>> cognition is surely limited and narrow. I question the idea that private
>> labour leads to labour losing objective significance. Surely it is equally
>> true that is loses its subjectivity?
>
>I think this is what is being said. I didn't read Marx as saying that our
>labour loses its "objective significance" but that the "**sense** that gives
>objective significance" to labour was "inadequate". What could this sense
>be? Sense of participation, ownership, in the collectivity in which social
>productive activity is carried out?
>
>>. On the
>> contrary, to the person who has lived only within the confines of kinship
>> relations, the trees and rocks have a human spirit, subjectivity, while to
>> who have grown up with private labour Nature is objective and spiritless??
>> Sure, for the non-worker, the theoretical attitude predominates over the
>> practical attitude.
>
>This also seems to me to point directly to the property relation. When you
>say "confines of kinship" I assume you are referring to non-market economic
>relations (living in NW California I always think of pre-contact NW coast
>indian tribes ranging from the Miwok and Pomo through the Tlingit, Haida,
>and Tsimshian), where the individual's access to the social product is
>mediated totally by concrete kinship relations. Of course those were
>non-state, stone tool, hunting and gathering societies. The variations of
>pre-industrial agricultural labor/property organization and kin-based
>peasant societies, that co-occur with various modes of production, (ie,
>tribute based, feudal, capitalist) often still preserve the "animistic"
>framework world view you describe. Property relations are basic. I wonder
>what studies have been conducted on the development of property concepts in
>children?
>
>Paul H. Dillon.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>> any thoughts?
>> Andy
>>
>> +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
>> | - Andy Blunden - Home Page - http://home.mira.net/~andy/index.htm - |
>> | All mysteries which lead theory to mysticism find their rational |
>> | solution in human practice and in the comprehension of this practice.|
>> +----------------------------------------------------------------------+
>>
>
**************************************************
* Andy Blunden, Teaching Space Consultant,
* and Manager of Videoconferencing Operations
* http://home.mira.net/~andy/
* University of Melbourne 9344 0312 (W) 9380 9435 (H)
**************************************************
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sun Oct 01 2000 - 01:01:01 PDT