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

From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK)
Date: Wed Jun 13 2007 - 04:52:46 EDT


Yes that is it:" Total concrete labor necessarily equals total
abstract labor."

This is part of the information destroying properties of the
operation of addition - you start out with lots of information
- hours worked in milling, hours worked in oil refining, hours worked in
shoemaking etc,
and end up with a single number - just hours worked. 

Information destruction and abstraction are closely related. They both
irreversible
logical operations.

-----Original Message-----
From: OPE-L [mailto:OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU] On Behalf Of Howard
Engelskirchen
Sent: 12 June 2007 22:10
To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU
Subject: Re: [OPE-L] Complex ... and the French edition of capital

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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