anselm jappe - sohn-rethel and the origin of 'real abstraction
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historical materialism
i ßi ftwrxiu th ory
R LL Historical Ma terialism 21.1 2013)3-14 b r i l l .com/h ima
So h n-Reth el a n d th e O r i gi n o f Re a l A b stra c ti o n :
A Cri t ique of Pro duct io n o r a Cr i t ique of Ci rc ula t io n?*
Anselm Jappe
É c o l e d e s H a u t e s É tu d e s e n S c i e n c e s So c i a l e s, P a r i s a n d A c c a d e m i a d i B el l e A r ti d i F r o s i n o n e
a , ja p p e @ a c c a d e m i a b e l l ea i t i ,f r ,i t ;
A b s t r a c t
A lfr ed S o h n -R e th e l d i d n o t j u s t e l a b o r a t e a m a t e r i a l i s t t h e o r y o f k n o w l e d ge , h e a l s o i n t r o d u c e d
t h e te r m r e a l a b s tr a c t i o n i n t o M a r x i s t d e b a t e. Ho w e v er , h e l o c a t e s t h e o r i g i n o f c o m m o d i t y
a b s t r a c t i o n s o l e l y in t h e s p h e r e o f c i r c u l a t i o n , c o n c e i v i ng o f p r o d u c t i o n i tse lf as a m e r e m e ta b o l i sm
w i t h n a t u r e . T h i s c o n c e p t i o n , i n w h i c h t h e c r i t i q ue o f c a p i ta l i s m a i m s e xc l u si v el y a t d i s tr i b u t i o n ,
a n d w h i c h r e je c t s t h e M a r x i a n c o n c e p t o f a b s tr a c t l a b o u r , r e m a i n s w i d e sp r e a d . It i s o u r e x p r es s
i n t en t i o n h e r e t o u n d e r t a k e a c r i t i q ue o f su c h a c o n c e p t i o n fo r t h e b e ne fi t o f a c r i t i q ue o f t h e v er y
m o d e o f c a p i ta l i s t p r o d u c t i o n .
K eyw o rds
A lf red So h n-Ret h el , rea l ab st r act io n, c r i t ique o f va lue, Ro b er t K urz, ab st r act lab o ur , so c ia l o r ig in
o f k n o w l e dg e, r e l a t i o n s h i p b e t w e e n c o m m o d i ty p r o d u c t i o n a n d e xc h a n g e
Alfifed Soh n-Reth el h a s never b een a c entra l figure in Ma rxist deb a te - yet h e is
a n a b i d in g p r e se nc e w i th i n i t a n d m a n a g es fr o m t i m e to t i m e to a r o u se so m e
i nter est . Near l y ever yth i ng was odd i n the fa te of th i s Ger m an ph i l osopher ,
soc io lo gist a nd ec o no m ist: b o rn in 1899 in Par is, in th e 1920s h e was c lo se to
W a l t e r B e n j a m i n a n d t o T h e o d o r W. Adorno, to Siegfr ied Kracauer and Ernst
Bloch , But h e was never per m i t ted to jo i n M ax Hor khei m er s Inst i tute fo r S oc i a l
Resear ch . After f leeing Nazi Germ any, h e l ived for m any years in o b scur i ty
i n Engl and a nd i t was o nl y af ter 1970 th a t h e r etur ned to Ger m any wh er e h e
co ul d f i na l l y publ i sh h i s b o o ks, b egi n tea c h i ng a t uni ver si ty l evel, a nd a t tr a c t a
co ns i der a b l e fo l l owing am o ng the Ger m an New Left. He di ed i n 1990. Only two
o f h i s b o o k s h a v e b e en t r a n sl a t e d i n t o
English:
Intellectual
Labour
and Manual
abour ^
a n d
Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism. ̂
* Engl ish t ext estab l ish ed w ith t h e h e lp o f Jo h n McH ale,
1,
So h n-Reth el 1978a,
2,
So h n-Reth el 1978b,
© Koninklijkc Brill NV U id cn 2013 nOI: IO II63/I5692U6X-1234I283
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Not only was th e very late recep tion of his ideas odd Ûiefocus of this recep tion
was different from what Sohn-Rethel himself intended. From 1921, he worked
continually for seventy years on his great project: a materialist explanation
of the forms of knowledge and thinking. Historical materialism, which had
already hecome an orthodoxy in the first decades of the twentieth century,
investigated the material and economic origins of the contents of thought,
establishing links for examp le betwee n medieval philosoph y and feudal social
organisation, or between Enlightenment philosophy, the critique of religion,
and the interests of the rising bourgeoisie. Sohn-Rethel wanted to go further:
for him, even very formalist categories with apparently no content, such as
Imm anuel Kant s a pn on , which synthesises experience, can be deciphered as
an expression of th e co mmodity form. As he put it in 1937:
If you replace th e identical unity of money w ith the unity of self-consciousness ,
replace the synthetic function of money for exchange, society with the original
synthetic unity of appercep tion , its constitutive meaning for capitalist
production with pure intellect , capital itself with reason , the commodity world
with experience , and commodity exchange according to the laws of capitalist
production with the existence of things following laws , that
is
to
say
nature , you
are ahle to deduce from he analysis of capitalist reification Kant s whole theory of
knowledge, together with its necessary internal contradictions.^
Ever since the original separation between intellectual labour and manual
labour which brought class society into being, the separated intellect has
elaborated its abstract categories in order to organise production and exploit
the direct producers. he faculty of abstrac t think ing, of seizing what is common
to several objects w ithou t b eing visible in any of them , is not a given, a prius, a s
the idealistic conce ption of thou ght ha s always claimed, b ut is the result of th e
existence of
real
abstractions in the production and reproduction of human
life. What kind of real abstractions? In what is maybe the most convincing
part of his analysis, Sohn-Rethel shows that the origins of Greek thought,
of mathematics or of philosophy with its logical categories, as substance
or identity, are linked to the first coinage of money (in the seventh century
BC in Ionia) by means of which the experience of a non-empirical, but real
substan ce resistant to the alterations of time was introd uced into everyday life.
This discovery can be seen to have arisen from the m utual influence between
Sohn-Rethel and the British Marxist historian George Thomson, who in 1955
published
The First
Philosophers,
a
study of the Pre-Socratics.
3.
Zur kritischen Liquidierung des Apriorismus. Eine materialistische Untersuchun g , a paper
presented in 1937 to the Institute for Social Research, reprinted in Sohn-Rethel t978c, pp. 36ff.
4. Thomson 1955.
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Throughout history, the separate intellect and forms of exchange have
developed co-extensively.
s
abstract entities, both exc hange an d the intellect
appear
as
non-historical, with out origin, eternal, and
as
such rem ain im pervious
to criticism and to historical practice in particular. Both the exchange of
equiva lents and scientific know ledge are based on calculating reason which lies
above yet is applicable to every conten t. Marx s designation of logic as mo ney
of the spirit ̂ was m otivated by the fact th at in b oth cases there is the sam e
indifference to specific co nte nt. There exists a link between the logical form of
universality, i.e. the pure activity of thoug ht, and the social form of labour. The
social form of labo ur
rises
above real produ ctive activities
as
their comm on p oint
of reference: value (in th e form of mo ney) as the equ ivalent of the ab stract side
of all labour. Sohn-Rethel s analysis transcen ds orthod ox historical materialism
in the sen se that he do es not link the de velop m ent of intellectual categories to
the concrete side of labour, or to, say, technical advances, but to the social
side of labour which in commodity society is its abstract side represented by
money. Social, abstrac t labour serves to form the a uto no m ou s social bon d that
governs its own creators. Far from acknowledging the abstractification that
occurs in exchange as some innocent process comprising a mere technical
requirement inseparable from the circulation of goods within every kind of
society, Sohn-Rethel instead asserts that th e exchange ab straction con stitutes
the very heart of capitalist society, that it is historically specific an d has sp atial
and tem pora l characteristics all of
its
own.
Sohn-Rethel tried to show how over the last 2500 years the evolution of
philosophy and scientific thinking has always been the expression of the
development and dissemination of money and commodity exchange^ - for
instance, Galileo s concep tion of an ab stract and infinite m ove m ent in physics
5. Logic - th e money of the spirit, the speculative or mental value of man and nature - its
essence which has grovm totally indifferent to all real determinateness, and hence unreal - is
alienated thinking, and therefore thinking which abs tracts fi-om nature and from real man:
aésírací thinking. (Marx
1959,
p. 65; transla tion modified.)
6. There seems to be a contradiction betwe en S ohn-Rethel s putting abstraction at the core
of capitalist society and his tracing of abstraction back to some quite archaic situations, as in
early Greek society. Naturally, the first forms of mone y played a different role, and a ttribu tion of
value to products was only virtual . The exchange relations betwee n goods in a non-com mod ity
society (in fact, in a non-capitalist society) are not essentially regulated by the amount of labour
they represen t . Money and products that could be called com mo dities (essentially, production
exceeding need which the otherwise self-sufficient com mu nities exchange betwe en themselves)
exist only as exceptions, as niches in these societies. Even in the m ost developed forms of ancien t
societies, everyday social reprodu ction was not m ediated by mo ney. We could say that capitalism
in its m ode m form (beginning with the Renaissance) mea nt that mo ney and com mo dities, which
had already existed for more tha n two tho usan d years, had taken over , after a long prepara tion,
the whole reprod uction of society.
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was made possible by the contemporary transition from simple commodity
circulation to infinite capital accumulation.'' Sohn-Rethel's historical
analysis has been taken as a starting-point for some other inquiries, for
instance by the German historians Rudolf W alter Müller® and, mo re recently,
Eske Bockelmann.3 But, on the whole, it is not his attempt to elaborate a
materialist epistemology which prompts the ongoing debates about his
ideas. Poststructuralist (feminist, postcolonial) explorations of the origins of
intellectual categories in social practice hardly ever refer to Sohn-Rethel, but
point instead in other directions. Whenever Slavoj Zizek, Alberto Toscano,
Paolo Virno, Moishe Postone or Robert Kurz refer to Sohn-Rethel, it is always
in relation to the category of real abstraction - as had previously been the
case in the heated discussions about Sohn-Rethel's theory in Germany during
th e 1970s.
The German term
Realabstraktion
does not occur in Marx, even if this
con cep t - if no t the word - is presen t, and is absolutely crucial in his writings.
e gives a very good explanation of it in a passage from the first Germ an edition
oí
Capital unfortunately not reproduced in subseque nt editions:
In form III (which is the reciprocal second form, and is therefore contained in
it),
the linen appears on the other hand as the
general orm
of the Equivalent for
all other commodities. It is as if alongside and external to lions, tigers, rahbits,
and all other actual animals, which form when grouped together the various
kinds,
species, subspecies, families e tc. of the animal kingdom, there existed also
in addition the
animal
the individual incarnation of the entire animal kingdom.
Such a particular which contains w ithin itself all really present species of the sam e
entity is a universal (like
animal
god etc.). Just as linen consequently became
an individual Equivalent by the fact that one other commodity related itself to
it as form of appearance of
value,
that is the way linen becomes - as the form
of appearance of value common to all commodities - the universal
Equivalent
universal value-body, universal
materialization
of
abstract
human
labour.
The
specific labour materialized
in
it now thereby counts
as universalform ófrealization
of human labour, as universal tabour. °
Apart from a brief occurrence of the term of 'real abstraction' in the work of
Georg Sim mel, it was Sohn-Rethel who effectively introduced it into Marxist
deb ate. But his con ception of real abstraction is quite special and gave rise to a
7.
Sohn -Rethel 1990, p. 47.
8. Müller 1977.
9. Bockelmann 2004.
10. Marx 1976, p. 27.
u. Simmel
1989,
p. 57.
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great deal of discussion. Some of it is marked by the large am ount of confusion
which often surroun ds the actual term abstraction . But it also provides an
opportunity to gain some essential insights into the concept of abstraction
and its impo rtance for unde rstandin g both Marx s thoug ht and the na ture of
contemporary capitalism.
Sohn-Rethel s real abstraction s do not bea r essentially on logic or ideology
and should not be linked with Louis Althusser s theoretical practice . Logic,
ideology, science and so on remain
thought abstractions
for Sohn-Rethel.
What he stresses is their
origin
in real abstractions such as m oney and the
commodity.
It is even possible to discuss the origin of real abstraction without any
reference wha tsoever to Sohn-Rethel s epistemological concern. The qu estion
is: if capitalism is not just the personal domination of one social group over
other
groups,
bu t is also the m eans by wh ich that society as whole is governed
by abstractions such s m oney and the comm odity, where do these a bstractions
come from, where do they originate: in the production sphere (the sphere of
labour) or in the circulation sphe re, the sphere of exchange of the products of
labour, the market sphere?
Under capitalism, is it productive activity itself (labour) which is alienated,
or is it the act of selling and buying which transforms inno cen t products into
com modities, bearers of social alienation? This question is not as abstract
or as convoluted as it might seem, since an importan t issue depend s on it: in
wh ich sp here of social life do we have to interven e in orde r to heal the ravages
generated by social abstraction?
Sohn-Rethel locates the origins of commod ity abstraction in the exchange
sphere, in circulation, since production represents, in his eyes, a non-social
and supra-historical metabolism with nature. As he writes, within the very
act of exchange there indeed lies conc entrated a purely social relation, which
Marx underlines, as opposed to the relationship between man and nature
which takes place in all types of material use activity, be they activities of
con sum ption or of produ ction . ̂ Sohn-Rethel defines labour clearly as use
activity . Quite logically, he rejects Marx s con cep t o f abstra ct labour :
I think that the concept of abstract social labour, as far as it can be recognised in
commodity analysis, is a fetish concept bequeathed by the Hegelian heritage....
The fetish concept of abstract labour occupies exactly the place which should be
occupied by real abstraction generated by the act of exchange. It acknowledges
the fact of real abstraction, but explains it in the wrong terms. Consequently,
labour plays no constitutive role in the social synthesis m ediated by commodity
12. Sohn-Rethel
1990,
p. 17.
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exchange. In the functioning of the market, it is not abstract labour which
dom inates, but the abstraction from labour. ̂
This mean s that for Sohn-Rethel labour as such can never be alienated, since it
s always concrete labour. Alienation starts only wh en labour prod ucts en ter th e
sphere of exchange. Naturally, Sohn-Rethel is right in saying that abstraction
is a social phe nom eno n and does no t originate in man s relation to natu re as
such. But nothing justifies his conclusion that social abstraction exists
only
or even
mainly
as the result of exchange. Such a statement presupposes that
produc tion is a non-social sph ere. In this respect, Sohn-Rethel remains firmly
within the framework of traditional Marxist approaches for which industrial
production is neutral and pre-social, while it is class relations (exploitation)
which falsify the original character of production as a satisfaction of human
needs.
Sohn-Rethel says that the commodity form and the alienation caused
by it come into existence only in the moment when the products enter the
exchange sp here. According to Moishe Postone, Sohn-Rethel does no t analyse
the specificity of labo ur in capitalism as being socially con stituting but, rather,
posits two forms of social synthesis - one effected by mean s of exchange, and
one by means of labour. He argues that the sort of abstraction and form of
social synthesis entailed in the value form is not a labour abstraction but an
exchange abstraction . ** For Sohn-Rethel, labour does n ot seem to be affected
by the commodity form, and if social synthesis were to take place directly
in production, we would be in the presence of a classless society, a society
with out exploitation. Postone has shown in Time
Labor and So cial Dom ination
that, on the contrary, it is only in capitalism that social synthesis takes place
in the labour sphere itself which is governed by its own fetishistic and blind
autom atism, w hereas in pre-capitalist societies labour s the object of decisions
taken in othe r life sph eres. In capitalism, abstrac t labour has becom e the social
nexus, the aim of society, instead of being the means to obtain other aims.
Capitalism is not based only on exploitation - exploitation existed equally
in slavery or feudal societies. Capitalism is a society where labour no longer
serves to perpetuate social structures which managed to form themselves on
othe r bases (tradition, political domina tion, or, on the contrary, a com munity
of free individuals ), but where labour becom es au tonom ous and w here its
anonymous dynamics, not controlled by anybody, themselves become the
basis of social relationships.
13, Sohn-Rethel 1971, p. 70,
14, Postone 1993, pp, 177-8,
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Materialism 21.1 2013)3-14
9
Sohn-Rethel w rites:
The nexus of exchange is established by the network of exchange and by nothing
else.
It is my buying coat, not my wearing
it
which forms par t of the social nexus,
just as it is the selling, not the making of
it.
Therefore, to talk of the social nexus,
or, as we may call it, the social synthesis, we have to talk of exchange and not
ofuse. ̂
For Marx, abstrac t labour invests prod uc ts with th eir value-objectivity , i.e.
confers v lue on them . For Sohn-Rethel, exchange accom plishes this task which
is why he advocates the replacemen t of the M arxian con cept of com m odity
abstrac tion with th at of exchang e abstraction . Unlike Marx, Sohn-Rethel
does not deem labour to be the source and substance of the value form. He
attribute s th e substan ce an d form of value to two different factors:
Value, the magnitude of value and the form of value have different origins. Labour
confers value on them but only by in turn assuming - s the result of real exchange
abstraction - in its capacity
s
value creator, the status of abstract human labotir .
The value form boils down to real exchange abstraction
and the m agnitud e of value is determ ined by labour. ̂ He is at p ains to
stress tha t this sepa rate dedu ction of the value form in relation to exch ange
abstraction, real abstraction, and of the magnitude of v lue in relation to the
labour subsumed within it is crucial and m ust be upheld . ^ For him it represe nts
a decisive aspect of his own theory. The im porta nce of our analysis lies in the
fact that it allows us to distinguish clearly between the analysis of the form of
value and th e magn itude of value. The concept of value (not the mag nitude of
value) derives from the exc hange equ ation and not vice versa ; it is thus purely
social in origin. ̂ The la tter assertion is true but does not justify the former
since exch ange is no t the only form of sociality. However, for Sohn-Rethel only
the value form permits the determination of the magnitude of v lue because
it makes labour measurable by the same standard. Without real abstraction
through exchange, there is no equivalence in exchange . ̂
Sohn-Rethel s real merit is to have a rticula ted the w hole issue of real
abstraction. But the answer he gives cannot be accepted unconditionally. He
considers himself a Marxist, and p resents his epistemolog y as a kind of missing
15.
Sohn-R ethel 1978a, p. 29.
16. Sohn-Rethel 1990, p. 30.
17. Sohn-R ethel 1990, p. 31.
18. Sohn-R ethel t978c, p. 122.
19. Soh n-Re thel 1990, p. 3t.
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element in Marx's own theory. For him, the 'only' difference he has with the
master resides in the fact that he wants to replace the Marxian concept of
'comm odity abstraction' w ith tha t of 'exchange abstraction': for Sohn-Rethel,
it is not abstract labour tha t confers value on pro ducts, but their exchange. But
in doing
so,
he diverges from Marx on very central p oint. For Sohn-Rethel, the
exchange act is abstract because the exchangers have undertak en to ren ounce
temporarily the
use
of the produ cts. The origin of'abstrac tness' is therefore the
exchanger's 'abstracting' from the use they could m ake of the object in question,
and this 'abstracting' is a 'real physical act'. Sohn-Rethel's innovation lay in
his idea that mental abstraction derives from real action in space and time -
but this real action consists for him only in the temporal distance between
exchange act and use act. So, he provides a kind of psychological explanation
of exchange abstraction, and links it to the subjective motivations of the
exchangers - in a way that approximates the bourgeois economic theory of
marginalism, which is in total contra st to Marx's critique of political econom y.
Marx is absolutely clear in saying that the abstraction in the act of exchange
merely
accomplishes -
'realises', in Marx's terms - the abstraction created in
production. But many Marxists who touch on Sohn-Rethel are unwilling to
recognise that there is a problem in his reformulation of Marx's concept of
abstraction.
In Sohn-Rethelian terms, abstraction takes place only in exchange. On
the subject therefore of his own theory, he asserts that he 'differs fi-om Marx
only [ ] in the sense tha t Marx does no t pursu e the analysis of "commodity
abstraction" - which he had been the first to point out - down to its roots and
far-flung causes, wh ence th e rem aining obscurities concerning the relationship
between the form and substance of value as well as the hasty conflation of
value form and abstract labour".^" In a previous text, Sohn-Rethel described
these roots thus:
The analysis partially outlined here
will
serve to elucidate the roots of abstraction:
the unavoidable temporal separation between the act of exchange and tha t of
use.
It will also demonstrate that the abstraction which results from this separation
turns commodity exchange into an equalisation of commodities and specifically
fulfils very real and objective function of commodity exchange. This equalisation
is in turn the root of the notion of value which by
its
very na ture
is
abstract.^'
Robert Kurz has made the foUovving objection to this: 'Far from being the "act
of exchange" or the relation with the object
per
se the "activity" that creates
20. Sohn-Rethel 1990, p. 20.
21.
Sohn-Re thel 1978c, p. 123.
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abstraction
is,
at the initial stage, much ra ther tha t of the comm odity p roducers
in the process of production
itself
it is abstract in the social sense because of
the reduction of concrete labour to its materiality and the separation fVom its
social universality that takes place within this activity'.^^ In the final analysis,
Sohn-Rethel grasps abstraction in psychological term s: as a postpo nem ent of
satisfaction. His concept of real abstraction denotes both abstract activity that
'disregards' every use of the commodity, and the production of the abstract
objectivity of value. Kurz has this to say about it: 'When the vievvrpoint of the
totality, which can be understood only on the basis of a formal determination
of the productive content, disappears, and when the basis of abstraction
is placed within circulation as a separate sphere, then abstraction must be
achieved separately in finished products: as the opposition between the act
of exchange and the act of use in relation to the in anim ate produ ct. Thus Sohn-
Rethel's very ded uctio n of the abstractifying act sees him fall imm ediate prey
to the reified fetish - to its app earance to be ju st a thing - of the com mo dity
world insofar as he takes the consumer's relation to the product and not the
producers ' relation to one ano the r as the object of abstractification'.^^
Sohn-Rethel has an ontological vision of labour, as something identical to
productive activity, something that has existed always and everywhere. In
reality, in pre-modern societies there is no separation between what we call
'labour' and other activities such as ritual or play or community life. Each
activity is considered in its specificity, instead of them all being reduced
to one aspect: the time expended as 'labour'. So far, it is not only abstract
labour, but labour in general that exists in its developed form only in modern,
capitalist societies. Always so concerned to stress the historical characte r -
the genesis - of concepts, Sohn-Rethel nevertheless uses a concept of labour
which is non-historical and ever devoid of any problematic. In his assessment,
say, of prehistoric hunter-gathering as a form of 'labour' in today's sense, he
already falls into those false ontological categories laid by the 'abstract labour'
he dismisses.
A threefold 'infidelity' may thus be discerned in Sohn-Rethel with regard to
the Marxian analysis of the value form: he neglects, indeed rejects the concep t
of 'abstract labour* which for Marx constitutes the whole basis of exchange
abstraction; he identifies Marx's conceptual précis of the value form's
development with an historical outline in the belief that 'simple value form'
ever actually existed (an error that Engels, toge ther with very nearly the e ntire
body of orthodox Marxism, had previously fallen victim to); he replaces the
22. Kurz 1987, pp. 86- 7.
23 . Kurz 1987, p. 85.
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com mo dity abstraction dedu ced by Marx, who totally disregarded com mo dity
ow ners' behaviour - owners who have no othe r option but to adapt them selves
to the movements of value (the very locus of social fetishism) - by a theory
comprising psychological explanations for the actions and motivations of
comm odity exchangers.
A further aspect of abstract labour requires clarification: abstract labour
in Marx's sense has nothing do to with
immaterial
labour. In commodity
society, each labour is always
both
abstract and concrete. This is what Marx
called the 'twofold character of the labou r wh ich creates com modities. Every
specific labour, farming or car co nstruction, as well as clean ing services or the
development of a software package necessarily contains a concrete side: it
results in a good or a service meant to satisfy some need. On the other hand,
each material or immaterial activity is in Marx's own terms a 'productive
expenditure of human brains, nerves, and muscles' measured by time
regardless of the content of production. This is why, far from being innocent,
abstract labour is in fact highly destructive. But no one kind of labour can be
more abstract
than another, or develop into something 'more abstract'. In the
produc tion phase, labour does not start out as concrete, thereafter to b ecom e
abstract in circulation by virtue of its sale. Neither can it be said that labour
becomes 'more abstract' during the development of capitalism because of the
growing division of labour or of com pute risatio n. These a re com pletely different
levels of analysis. Naturally, there has been a real increase in the importance
of immaterial labour during the twentieth century, but this has nothing to do
with abstract labou r in the sense of the twofold charac ter of labour.
Each commodity has two sides, the use value created by concrete labour
and the value created by abstract labour, that is to say by the abstract side of
the sam e labour, or by the same labour considered from the p oint of view of
the mere qua ntity of time e xpend ed. But since this value is invisible and not
measurable, it represents itself in ano ther commod ity: in exchange value, and
especially in that particular exchange value that is
money.
So, money can be
called the main real abstraction: it gives a material form to that social fiction
tha t is value.
Manycontemporaryauthorsthink,justlike
Sohn-Rethel,
thatlabourbecome s
abstract only when its products get into the exchange sphere - the market.
Value, they say, is a social relation, it is not created by the single producer in
the labour sphere. Value does not enter into the pro duct
as,
for example, wood
enters into a piece of furniture. Naturally, this is true. But if we take Marx's
theory of abstract labour seriously, as does the 'critique of value' developed in
different forms by Moishe Postone or by Robert Kurz and the Germ an journ als
Krisis
and
Exit
we understand that in capitalist society production itself is
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A Jappe / Historical Materialism
21.1 2013)3-14
13
regulated by abstract labour: the co ncrete side of produc tion is subord inated
to value production, and each good or service enters the market already as a
value - even if this value, naturally, is always a social attributio n, a 'projection',
a 'real abstraction', not a material 'reality*. In production, labour is concrete
only when considered as a material process, but not for the produce rs as social
beings. The postmodern denial that commodities are already value in the act
of their production does not reject the term 'abstract labour' in the same way
tha t Sohn-Rethel does, but this denial arrives at the same conclusions: labour
in produc tion is a techn ical, neutral activity, and capitalism resides only in the
sphe re of exchange, circulation and distribution.
This debate might seem a rather philological or conceptual one, even a
kind of hair-splitting without any practical consequence. But nothing could
be further from the truth. If value is not determined, as Marx himself affirms,
by the quan tity of abstrac t labour which is always the ex pend iture of a certain
quantity of human energy but is determined instead by inter-subjective
convention in exchange, this would m ean tha t there is no limit to the growth of
value, and co nsequently no limit to the growth and con tinuation of capitalism.
This is why the refusal to admit that value has its origin in abstract labour
(a refusal pronounced explicitly or, more often, implicitly and in the absence
of any direct reference to Sohn-Rethel) is so widespread in contemporary
Marxism, which is nearly always engaged in denying the systemic character of
the crisis of capitalism and in denying the fact th at th e accu mulation of capital
has reached its internal limits - limits that are caused by the ever-increasing
use of technologies which do not create value, and as a consequence no
surplus value. The ever-growing disparity between ma terial wealth and value
cons titutes th e real cause of the contem porary crisis of capitalism.
Consideration of the foregoing may perhaps allow us better to appreciate
the topicality of Sohn-Rethel's thought: it resides in his limited yet real
contribution to the critical analysis of a world where commodity fetishism is
leading to social destruction and self-destruction. Indeed, by
937
Sohn-Rethel
was already expressing the idea that in commodity society, the rationality of
prod uction lies outside itself within a purely social sphere w here products have
an economic
'value'.^ *
The grovifth of independent thought represented a kind
of attempt to limit the damage caused by the independence of the economy
which nevertheless has the same origin as indepen den t thou ght. But the result
is always uncertain: 'The moment when production requires the theoretical
ratio in order to be feasible is the point at which the social relations between
24, 'Zur kritischen Liquidierung des Aphorismus, Eine materialistische Untersuchung', in
Sohn-R ethel 1978c, p, 4 0,
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14 A Jappe / Historical Materialism 21.1 2013)3-14
men that are indispensable to life became uncontrollable, a blind result of the
law of value s causalit/.^^ To ascertain w heth er the theoretical ratio is today
able to discover a path that may yet lead the way out of econo mic causality :
tha t is the question.
W hat is the impor tance of Sohn-Rethel s thou ght for today s social
critique? It was not our aim here to examine his materialist explanation of
epistemological categories, which could always serve as a good starting-point
for further analyses. We wanted to underline that he contributed to drawing
attention to the importance of the category of real abstraction for the
und erstand ing of the hidden core of capitalist society, but that his m erit - as to
this question - resides mainly in having
posed
the question. The answer must
be found elsewhere: that is to say, in the determination of the origin of real
abstraction in the commodity form of production on the basis of the twofold
natu re of labour.
References
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Marx, Karl 1959, Economie an d Philosophie Manu scripts 0/1844 Moscow: Progress P ublishers.
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C o p y r i g h t o f H i s t o r i c a l M a t e r i a l i s m i s t h e p r o p e r t y o f B r i l l A c a d e m i c P u b l i s h e r s a n d i t s
c o n t e n t m a y n o t b e c o p i e d o r e m a i l e d t o m u l t i p l e s i t e s o r p o s t e d t o a l i s t s e r v w i t h o u t t h e
c o p y r i g h t h o l d e r ' s e x p r e s s w r i t t e n p e r m i s s i o n . H o w e v e r , u s e r s m a y p r i n t , d o w n l o a d , o r e m a i l
a r t i c l e s f o r i n d i v i d u a l u s e .