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Abstract labour and concrete labour refer to a distinction made by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. It refers to the difference between human labour in general as economically valuable time, and human labour as a particular activity that has a specific useful effect. *As economically valuable time, human labour is spent to add value to products or assets (thereby conserving their capital value, and/or transferring value from inputs to outputs). In this sense, labour is an activity which creates/maintains economic value pure and simple, which could be realized as a sum of money once labour's product is sold or acquired by a buyer. The value-creating ability of labour is most clearly visible when all labour is stopped. If all labour is withdrawn, the value of the capital assets worked with will normally deteriorate, and in the end, if labour is permanently withdrawn, nothing will be left except a ghost town situation. *As a useful activity of a particular kind, human labour can have a useful effect in producing particular tangible products which are used by others, or by the producers themselves. In this sense, labour is an activity which creates use-values, i.e. tangible products, results or effects which can be used or consumed. The creation of use-values is highlighted, when goods and services of poor quality are created, which are not supplied on time and mainly useless to the consumer. Labour must be applied to produce usable products, regardless of how much they are sold for, otherwise there are no use-values. If labour produces useless products or results, it is simply a waste of labour-time. So, Marx argues that human work is both (1) an activity which, by its useful effect, helps to create particular kinds of products, and (2) in an economic sense a ''value-forming'' activity that, if it is productively applied, can help create more value than there was before. If an employer hires labour, the employer thinks both about the value that the labour can add within his business, and about how useful the labour service will be for his business operations. That is, the right kind of work not only needs to get done, but it needs to get done in a way that it helps the employer to make money. If the labour adds no value, then the employer makes no money from it, and the labour will be only an expense to him. == Origin == Marx first advanced this distinction in ''A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy'' (1859) and it is discussed in more detail in chapter 1 of Capital, where Marx writes: The origin of the distinction between abstract and concrete labour can be traced back to Marx's 1857 Grundrisse manuscript,〔 *Roman Rosdolsky, ''The Making of Marx's 'Capital'.''〕 in which he already distinguished between "particular labour" and "general labour", contrasting communal production with production for exchange.〔Karl Marx, ''Grundrisse'', Pelican edition 1973, pp. 171-172.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Abstract labour and concrete labour」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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