Labour

GUIDO STAROSTA

Sage Handbook of Marxism

Sage

Año: 2021; p. 118 - 134

this chapter will provide a comprehensive discussion of the notion of labour in Marxian social theory, with the aim of providing a systematic reconstruction of the ?unity of its many determinations? which appear scattered in Marx?s own writings. In order to do so, it will address the multiple dimensions and aspects associated with this essential concept, both as they were originally formulated by Marx and in some of the main subsequent debates outside and within Marxism to which the former gave rise. The guiding thread that will knit together the argument will be the discussion of a series of determinations of labour and examine the way in which they initially appeared in Marx?s early writings, and how their meaning evolved and crystallized into their definitive conceptualization in his mature works, such as the Grundrisse and Capital. Taking as point of departure the simplest determination of human labour as conscious life-activity, this chapter will probe further into the different more concrete determinations which comprise the material character of production and its changing historical modes of existence. Through this close scrutiny of the concept of labour, the chapter will make two fundamental points. In the first place, and substantively, it will bring out the centrality of the material determinations of human productive subjectivity for the comprehension of the content and historical trajectory of society. Secondly, and formally, it will show that it is possible to find an underlying ?systematic? unity which articulates those different determinations of the Marxian concept of labour into a ?concrete whole?.