M-C-M), through which all things, all commodities (C) are valued. It is through this relation that Marx solved the problem identified but not solved by Aristotle: how products came to be valued through means other than use.
The theory of labor is the basis of Marx’s Theory of Value; and as all things are products of labor (bundles of energy to be exchanged), labor/energy is Value itself, the essential nature of all things both physical and metaphysical. Marx did what he said: he took the upside-down philosophy of Mind/Spirit he found standing on its head in Hegel and put it back on its feet, by demonstrating how things physical and metaphysical are not only of the same essential nature but can transform one into the other. And he provided an answer to the question raised by Aristotle: how can objects be valued and exchanged for one another outside their definition of particular use? Marx did so by demonstrating how their character changes and value becomes defined through labor, the means of production, in the act of exchange.
This recognition serves then to provide us with a new foundational understanding: the creation or residue of each product is really an ‘unsubstantiated reality,’ a social substance of homogeneous labor that has been expended without ‘regard to the mode of expenditure.’ When viewed as “crystals of this social substance, common to them all, they are – Values;”52 that is, they are men – independently created identities – who find their personal development influenced by the world, as they then in turn create the world around them.
All things are, in other words, abstractions; and man is but what he is defined to be – a crystallized substance, or thing – at a particular moment. While at different times in history men and the mode of production may have served different masters (the church, the king, etc.), they are at this time serving no other purpose than of supporting this mode of production: the capitalist society.53 And in doing so, the laborer – whether a factory worker, an intellectual, an artist – is nothing more than an embodiment of alienated labor, a commodity, capable of being priced and sold. Moreover, the only way to change the way the world works is to change the means of production, the very means through which man thinks and acts, by placing man back together as a whole thinking and acting human being.
Implications for Working and/or Laboring
Marx’s own words thus provide us with the means for understanding why capitalism, as an economic framework or system, raises serious moral concern. This is because when men and women become alienated from their true selves and their environment, as becomes the case when capitalism allows for excessive accumulations of wealth generated by lack of regulation or monopolistic practices, they are not able to engage in the “work” that would reveal their true nature, generate their true identity, express their creative potential, or grow as an individual and contributing member of the community. Instead, they would be bound by the conditions of their existence which forced them to “labor” for another, helping the individual or corporation acquire capital. In other words, “laborers” are “obliged” – because of social conditions – to engage in a “process” that produces “value” for a wage, oftentimes in very dehumanizing and environmentally damaging conditions whether realized by the laborer or not.
Work, understood as such, is thus a natural relationship with one’s environment that produces qualitative improvements in one’s life insofar as the goods/products produced meet specific human need whether for subsistence or growth of character; labor, understood as such, is thus an unnatural relationship with one’s environment that does not align with human need but just produces quantities of things (goods or products) in mass for consumption whether needed or not, solely to
generate capital as previously described both
by Marx and by Debord. Through this understanding, a person could thus argue that there is dignity in work, but not in labor.
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