Holloway - Crack Capitalism.pdf - Libcom

and the point is not developed at all. This seems to be an accurate
reflection of the work of those who have tried to develop a
Marxist economics (rather than a critique of political economy).
Thus, for example, Ernest Mandel, in his highly influential
Marxist Economic Theory, makes no mention of the contrast
between abstract and useful labour: he does have a small section
on free labour and alienated labour (1962/1971: 172), but he
does not make the connection with abstraction and the point
does not play an important part in his argument. Similarly, Paul
Mattick, a council communist and constant critic of Leninism as
well as being one of the outstanding Marxist economists of the
last century, also has nothing to say about the two-fold nature
of labour.2 The tradition of Marxist economics is dominated
by a unitary and trans-historical concept of labour. This is not
surprising perhaps, for the very notion of a Marxist economics
implies the total subordination of concrete to abstract labour:
it is only to the extent that this subordination really takes place
that it is possible to speak of an economy bound by laws. The
very idea of a Marxist economics closes the category of labour
that Marx had opened.
We must look to those who have emphasised the importance
of understanding Marx's work not as political economy, but
as a critique of political economy, to find some mention of the
two-fold nature of labour. But, even here, something strange
happens: the two-fold nature of labour is treated as being just
onefold, as referring exclusively to abstract labour. Here the field
is led, as we have seen, by 1.1. Rubin, who published his Essays
on Marx's Theory of Value in the Soviet Union in the early 1920s
and who later disappeared in Stalin's purges. Rubin insists that
'Marx attached decisive importance to the difference between
concrete and abstract labour' (192811973: 131) and devotes a
whole chapter to abstract labour: the chapter is devoted not to
the two-fold nature of labour, but to abstract labour. He assumes
that concrete labour is effectively subordinated to abstract labour
and does not understand the relation as an antagonistic one.
In recent years, other authors have followed the same path as
Rubin in emphasising the two-fold nature of labour and then
focusing exclusively on abstract labour. Derek Sayer, in his book
Marx's Method, does devote a section to useful labourlabstract
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