Abstract labour: Against its nature and on its time

2010/05/28 by Werner Bonefeld · 1 voice · 1 citation
Social Sciences · #Political Economy and Marxism #Digital Economy and Work Transformation

paper · doi:10.1177/0309816810367769

openalex publication_date 2010/05/28 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/15

Abstract

Recent debates on abstract labour have highlighted Marx’s ambivalent conception of this important term. This article criticises current physiological definitions of the term, and against the background of earlier debates in Capital & Class, develops abstract labour as a specifically capitalist form of labour which entails a specific conception of social labour time—a time made abstract. The political implications of these rival accounts are formidable.

Citations

• Theses on the Philosophy of History

Cited by

• A crisis of measurability? Critiquing post-operaismo on labour, value and the basic income

Discussions

• I'm back on my abstract labour reading thing. I know that semiosis occurs here somewhere doi.org/10.1177/0309... [bsky, 1 points, 1 comments]

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