CRACK CAPITALISM

turn to some other activity. The social weaving of activities
takes place, then, not on the basis of the concrete characteristics
of the activities but on the basis of abstraction from those
characteristics, on the basis of all the different activities being
treated as homogeneous, abstract labour. The social cohesion is
achieved through treating all activities, all our particular doings,
as homogeneous, quantifiable, measurable and interchangeable
labour. The socialisation of labour is at the same time the homogenisation
of labour, unlike in previous societies.!
This has important consequences for the meaning of social
cohesion. There is a much tighter integration between a person's
particular activities and the society as a whole. Whether I
produce cars or cakes or do nothing at all is the result of the
movement of money (the market) over which I have no control
at all. The blind connection flings people from one sort of
activity to another: from making cars to assembling computers
to making hamburgers. The establishment of social cohesion
through abstraction also means that the social connections are
unlimited in space and time. Whereas in a feudal society, the
social connections are established within a limited space, the
mediation of exchange means that there is no limit at all. My
cake (if it is frozen) can be consumed in China or Germany,
tomorrow or in three weeks' time. A fall in the labour time that
is necessary to produce a car in China will throw car workers
in the United States into unemployment.
Social cohesion, then, is qualitatively different from that
which existed in pre-capitalist societies. It covers the whole
planet, it determines the contents of people's activity much more
thoroughly and it exists as an external force independent of any
conscious control. We can mark this difference by saying that
social cohesion exists in capitalism as a social synthesis or a
totality in a way that is not the case in non-capitalist societies.
Abstract labour constitutes a totality that is independent of
conscious determination. It has its own logic, its own laws of
development: the logic of capital, with its laws that operate
behind the backs of the producers. I bake cakes, but if I take
more than the socially necessary labour time required to bake
those cakes, then I will not be able to sell my cakes (at a price
that reflects my labour). How do I know whether I have met the
142