Key Arguments

• Ancient contempt and modern glorification of labor both focus on the laborer’s subjective condition (painful effort or productivity), missing the worldly properties of the products.
• In Marx, labor’s productivity is measured by surplus for reproducing the life process, not by the qualities of the things produced.
• If the thing-character is ignored, the labor/work distinction collapses into a mere difference of degree.
• Concrete example: a perishable bread versus a durable table demonstrates that durability/‘length of stay’ in the world is the decisive criterion.

Source Quotes

The contempt for labor in ancient theory and its glorification in modern theory both take their bearing from the subjective attitude or activity of the laborer, mistrusting his painful effort or praising his productivity. The subjectivity of the approach may be more obvious in the distinction between easy and hard work, but we saw that at least in the case of Marx—who, as the greatest of modern labor theorists, necessarily provides a kind of touchstone in these discussions—labor’s productivity is measured and gauged against the requirements of the life process for its own reproduction; it resides in the potential surplus inherent in human labor power, not in the quality or character of the things it produces. Similarly, Greek opinion, which ranked painters higher than sculptors, certainly did not rest upon a higher regard for paintings.

Similarly, Greek opinion, which ranked painters higher than sculptors, certainly did not rest upon a higher regard for paintings. It seems that the distinction between labor and work, which our theorists have so obstinately neglected and our languages so stubbornly preserved, indeed becomes merely a difference in degree if the worldly character of the produced thing—its location, function, and length of stay in the world—is not taken into account. The distinction between a bread, whose “life expectancy” in the world is hardly more than a day, and a table, which may easily survive generations of men, is certainly much more obvious and decisive than the difference between a baker and a carpenter.

It seems that the distinction between labor and work, which our theorists have so obstinately neglected and our languages so stubbornly preserved, indeed becomes merely a difference in degree if the worldly character of the produced thing—its location, function, and length of stay in the world—is not taken into account. The distinction between a bread, whose “life expectancy” in the world is hardly more than a day, and a table, which may easily survive generations of men, is certainly much more obvious and decisive than the difference between a baker and a carpenter. The curious discrepancy between language and theory which we noted at the outset therefore turns out to be a discrepancy between the world-oriented, “objective” language we speak and the man-oriented, subjective theories we use in our attempts at understanding.

Key Concepts

• labor’s productivity is measured and gauged against the requirements of the life process for its own reproduction; it resides in the potential surplus inherent in human labor power, not in the quality or character of the things it produces.
• the distinction between labor and work, which our theorists have so obstinately neglected and our languages so stubbornly preserved, indeed becomes merely a difference in degree if the worldly character of the produced thing—its location, function, and length of stay in the world—is not taken into account.
• The distinction between a bread, whose “life expectancy” in the world is hardly more than a day, and a table, which may easily survive generations of men, is certainly much more obvious and decisive than the difference between a baker and a carpenter.

Context

12 THE THING-CHARACTER OF THE WORLD (lines 1926–1984): Re-orienting the labor/work distinction from subjective attitudes to the worldly durability and function of products.