Labor

Conscious and purposive social practical activity unique to mankind, the process of intercourse of matter, energy and information between man and nature regulated and controlled by man through his own actions by using his physical and mental faculties, the conditions of existence and mode of being of man, as well as the basis of the existence and development of society. Marx pointed out that so far as labor forms use-values, i.e., as useful labor, it is therefore a necessary condition, independent of all forms of society, for the existence of the human race; it is an eternal nature-imposed necessity which mediates the metabolism between man and nature, and thus human life.

Marx and Engels’ concept of labor was put forth on the basis of critically assimilating Hegelian philosophy. Hegel held that labor is the mediator of the opposition and unity of subject and object, and made the famous assertion that “labor is the essence of man”. But as Marx pointed out in his Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844, “the only labor Hegel knows and recognizes is abstract mental labor.” In Marx and Engels, labor has a philosophical-ontological significance, and it is an overarching category related to the self-realization and self-emancipation of man as well as social development.

Labor is unique to man and is the ground for man to become man. Against “God created man” and Darwin’s theory of evolution, Marx and Engels put forth the “labor theory of creation”, holding that labor is the active and creative activity of man as a subject. Labor made man learn to make and use tools, furthering the division of labor between hands and feet, the emergence of language, and the evolution of the brain and organism. Engels pointed out that labor is the prime basic condition for all human existence, and this to such an extent that, in a sense, we have to say that labor created man himself. He also said that, in the proper sense, human “labor begins with the making of tools”, so that the fundamental difference between man and animals is that man can fabricate the means of production; moreover, labor is the everlasting Nature-imposed condition of human existence. Marx pointed out: “The labor-process, resolved as above into its simple and abstract factors, is purposive activity with a view to the production of use-values, appropriation of natural substances to human requirements; it is the general condition for effecting exchange of matter [metabolism] between man and Nature; it is the everlasting Nature-imposed condition of human existence.” Moreover, the condition of labor determines the basic image of man. So long we know the situation in which man is engaged in productive labor, we also know the basic image of man. Marx and Engels pointed out that as individuals express their life, so they are. What they are, therefore, coincides with their production, both with what they produce and with how they produce. The nature of individuals thus depends on the material conditions determining their production.

Labor is the process of metabolism between man and nature, and the active and dynamic reshaping of nature by man. Marx said that labor is at first a process between man and nature, a process by which man mediates, regulates and controls the metabolism with nature through his own actions. He confronts the natural materials as a force of nature. He sets in motion the natural forces that belong to his own body, his arms and legs, head and hands, in order to appropriate the natural materials in a form useful for his own life. While acting upon external nature and changing it, he also changes his own nature. He develops the potentialities slumbering within his nature, and subordinates the play of its powers to his command. Here, as a natural force, man actively gives play to his subjective agency, applies his intrinsic life-forces to objective objects, and creates products appropriate to human existence to satisfy his own needs and those of society. This shows that labor is a material activity in which man can dynamically change the objective world. Moreover, in the labor-process, the relations of men with each other, and with society become ever closer, and social relations ever richer. “It is just in his work upon the objective world, therefore, that man really proves himself to be a species-being. This production is his active species-life.” Thus, on the one hand, labor elevates man from nature and evolves him from the animals, thus embodying the essence of man; on the other hand, through labor, man constantly achieves his socialization, thus attaining self-enrichment, self-perfection and self-development.

Labor is not only the fundamental driving force of the creation, enrichment, and development of man, but also the fundamental presupposition and basis for the formation of the history of society. Marx pointed out that the entire so-called history of the world is nothing but the creation of man through human labor, nothing but the emergence of nature for man. Labor creates man and human society. Without labor, there would be no existence and development of human society.

Marx held that there are three factors in the labor-process: laborers, objects of labor and instruments of labor, and that the mutual influence and interaction of these three moments promotes the development of man and human society. Moreover, it also makes human labor manifest itself as a historical process, and has a social and historical nature. The human labor-process has undergone changes from manual to mechanical, from individual to socialized, and from simple to compound labor. Labor in capitalism, like labor in slavery and feudalism, is a labor in which the laborer is subject to exploitation and oppression. This is because they are established on the basis of private property in the means of production. This determines the contradictory and antagonistic relation between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. Fundamentally speaking, only at a certain height of development of labor and its fruits can their antagonistic nature be abolished, i.e., only in the communist society can the exploited and oppressed situation of the worker be truly eliminated. Engels held that in the future ideal society, productive labor, instead of being a means of subjugating men, will become a means of their emancipation, by offering each individual the opportunity to develop all his faculties, physical and mental, in all directions and exercise them to the full—in which, therefore, productive labor will become a pleasure instead of being a burden.

The standpoint of labor is the primary and basic standpoint of the materialist conception of history. The history of mankind is the history of the emancipation and development of labor, and only from the standpoint of labor can we truly understand the emergence and development of human society. Therefore, the history of the development of labor is the key to understanding the whole history of development of society.