Marx writes about the relationship of process and product:
In the labour-process, therefore, man’s activity, with the help
of the instruments of labour, effects an alteration, designed from the
commencement, in the material worked upon. The process disappears in the
product, the latter is a use-value, Nature’s material adapted by a change
of form to the wants of man. Labour has incorporated itself with its subject:
the former is materialised, the latter transformed. That which in the labourer
appeared as movement, now appears in the product as a fixed quality without
motion. The blacksmith forges and the product is a forging.
Im Arbeitsprozess bewirkt also die Tätigkeit des Menschen durch das Arbeitsmittel eine von vornherein bezweckte Veränderung des Arbeitsgegenstandes. Der Prozess erlischt im Produkt. Sein Produkt ist ein Gebrauchswert, ein durch Formveränderung menschlichen Bedürfnissen angeeigneter Naturstoff. Die Arbeit hat sich mit ihrem Gengenstand verbunden. Sie ist vergegenständlicht, und der Gegenstand ist verarbeitet. Was auf seiten des Arbeiters in form der Unruhe erschien, erscheint nun als ruhende Eigenschaft, in der Form des Seins, auf seiten des Produkts. Er hat gesponnen und das Produkt ist ein Gespinst. (195)
Así, pues, en el proceso de trabajo la actividad del ser humano actúa a través del medio de trabajo una alteración previamente intencionada del objeto del trabajo. El proceso se apaga en el producto. su producto es un valor de uso, una materia natural adecuada a necesidades humanas mediante una alteración de forma. El trabajo se ha unido a su objeto. Lo que por el lado del trabajador se presentaba en la forma de la agitación aparece ahora, por el lado del producto, como propiedad quieta, en la forma del ser. El trabajador hiló, y el producto es un hilado. (196/197)
Observe the very free translation into english, changing the example from spinning to forging.
Here Marx writes about the dialectics betweent things and processes. Things are objectivations. Note, that this is not the same as reification, but objectivation seems to be a precondition for reification.
Think about examples closer to your everyday life, for example the realtionship between learning and exam.
Does not passing the exam mean that you have learned nothing (or not enough) ? Does passing the exam mean that you have learnt anything (or that you have learned enough)? When we fail in an exam we usualy think that we have not learned enough. We usualy consider the exam (a product) as a proxy to (the process of) learning.
Marx would probably say that an exam is a temporary cristalization of the learning process.
12/17/12
Consciousness and social existence
Marx writes about the relationship of physical work and consciousness:
But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality.
Was aber von vonrherein den schlechtesten Baumeister vor der besten Biene auzeichnet, ist, dass er die Zelle in seinem Kopf gebaut hat bevor er sie in Wachs baut. (193).
Pero lo que ya por anticipado dinstingue al peor arquitecto de la abjera mejor es que el arquitecto construye la celdilla en su cabeza antes de construirla con cera. (194)
Is it here the consciousness that determines the social existence? This seems to contradict what Marx writes in his earlier writings that the social existence determines the consciousness.
However, dialectics is fare more complicate than the verb "to determine" can make us believe. For Marx idea and world are inseparable. Social, material crisis can produce a pressure towards ideas and consciousness which again can change the world. By thinking or acting we change the world and ourselves which again changes what we think or do.
But what distinguishes the worst architect from the best of bees is this, that the architect raises his structure in imagination before he erects it in reality.
Was aber von vonrherein den schlechtesten Baumeister vor der besten Biene auzeichnet, ist, dass er die Zelle in seinem Kopf gebaut hat bevor er sie in Wachs baut. (193).
Pero lo que ya por anticipado dinstingue al peor arquitecto de la abjera mejor es que el arquitecto construye la celdilla en su cabeza antes de construirla con cera. (194)
Is it here the consciousness that determines the social existence? This seems to contradict what Marx writes in his earlier writings that the social existence determines the consciousness.
However, dialectics is fare more complicate than the verb "to determine" can make us believe. For Marx idea and world are inseparable. Social, material crisis can produce a pressure towards ideas and consciousness which again can change the world. By thinking or acting we change the world and ourselves which again changes what we think or do.
Nature and Labour
Max says about the relation of labour and the human nature:
By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway. We are not now dealing with those primitive instinctive forms of labour that remind us of the mere animal.
Indem er durch diese Bewegung auf die Natur ausser ihm wirkt und sie verändert, verändert er zugleich seine eigne Natur. Er entwickelt die in ihr schlummernden Potenzen und unterwirft das Spiel ihrer Kräfte seiner eignen Botmässigkeit. Wir haben es hir nicht mit den ersten tierartig instinktmässigen Formen der Arbeit zu tun. (192)
Mediante ese movimiento obra en la naturaleza externa a él y la altera, y así altera al mismo tiempo su propia naturaleza. Desarrolla las potencias que dormían en ella y somete a su propio dominio el funcionamiento de sus fuerzas. No nos interesan aquí las primeras fomras de trabajo, animalescamente instintivas. (193)
a) It seems like Marx is changing his argument. Instead of using bourgeois categories, here it seems he is using labour as timeless category.
b) However, labour also depends on the historical context, as labour changes nature (and human "inner" nature).
c) There are very different connotations in the word "labour" in Europe. Marx intellectually comes from a Lutheran tradition. The protestant tradition of England often has a more funcionalistic relation to work. And the catholic tradition is far from conceding labour the same moral role as in the german tradition. Think about german words like "Beruf" which links work to an almost divine mission in comparison to the english word "job" used also in the rest of the world to describe work which is done whithout deeper inner relationship to the work.
d) Although Marx, by insisting that work is somehow natural, he argues agains utopians like Fourier who think that work could be pure joy and pleasure, in his (Lutheran) tradition the idea of "joy of work" (Arbeitsfreude) is quite deep rooted. Huge parts of the struggle for un-alienated work can only be understood when supposing that work should and could be joyfull.
By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway. We are not now dealing with those primitive instinctive forms of labour that remind us of the mere animal.
Indem er durch diese Bewegung auf die Natur ausser ihm wirkt und sie verändert, verändert er zugleich seine eigne Natur. Er entwickelt die in ihr schlummernden Potenzen und unterwirft das Spiel ihrer Kräfte seiner eignen Botmässigkeit. Wir haben es hir nicht mit den ersten tierartig instinktmässigen Formen der Arbeit zu tun. (192)
Mediante ese movimiento obra en la naturaleza externa a él y la altera, y así altera al mismo tiempo su propia naturaleza. Desarrolla las potencias que dormían en ella y somete a su propio dominio el funcionamiento de sus fuerzas. No nos interesan aquí las primeras fomras de trabajo, animalescamente instintivas. (193)
a) It seems like Marx is changing his argument. Instead of using bourgeois categories, here it seems he is using labour as timeless category.
b) However, labour also depends on the historical context, as labour changes nature (and human "inner" nature).
c) There are very different connotations in the word "labour" in Europe. Marx intellectually comes from a Lutheran tradition. The protestant tradition of England often has a more funcionalistic relation to work. And the catholic tradition is far from conceding labour the same moral role as in the german tradition. Think about german words like "Beruf" which links work to an almost divine mission in comparison to the english word "job" used also in the rest of the world to describe work which is done whithout deeper inner relationship to the work.
d) Although Marx, by insisting that work is somehow natural, he argues agains utopians like Fourier who think that work could be pure joy and pleasure, in his (Lutheran) tradition the idea of "joy of work" (Arbeitsfreude) is quite deep rooted. Huge parts of the struggle for un-alienated work can only be understood when supposing that work should and could be joyfull.
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