Re: [OPE-L] Complex ... and the French edition of capital

From: Howard Engelskirchen (howarde@TWCNY.RR.COM)
Date: Tue Jun 12 2007 - 17:09:34 EDT


By adding up the hours of work done, you'd be abstacting from other human
activities, etc., but you would not be abstracting from the activity of
labor.  You would be counting hours of concrete labor.  Still, I agree with
your proposition because the totality of concrete labor is all there is to
constitute abstract labor.  Total concrete labor necessarily equals total
abstract labor.

Howard


----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Cockshott" <wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK>
To: <OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU>
Sent: Tuesday, June 12, 2007 4:12 PM
Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Complex ... and the French edition of capital


Michael
-------

You could do that, but then you would be ignoring abstraction altogether.


On Tue, Jun 12, 2007 at 12:05:04AM +0100, Paul Cockshott wrote:
>  Michael P
>
> What I meant was that it is hopeless to think that anyone could
> quantify the amount of abstract labor in an economy.
> ------------
> Paul C
>
> Why not just add up the number of people who work then multiply by
> the fraction of the year that they each work?
>



On the contrary I would be using abstraction, since I would by
adding up all the hours of work done, be abstracting from the concrete
form in which the work was done, and counting it only as human labour
in general --- in the abstract.


--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
michaelperelman.wordpress.com


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