Ted Winslow wrote: > How would this idea of "useful, concrete" labor in communism take account of > Marx's claim that communism, in his sense, replaces "the detail-worker of > to-day" with "the fully developed individual"?
> "modern industry, indeed, compels society, under penalty of death, to replace > the detail-worker of to-day, grappled by life-long repetition of one and the > same trivial operation, and thus reduced to the mere fragment of a man, by > the fully developed individual, fit for a variety of labours, ready to face > any change of production, and to whom the different social functions he > performs, are but so many modes of giving free scope to his own natural and > acquired powers." < I don't like quibbling about the meaning of quotes (especially since to truly understand them, you have to put them in context, including Marx's methods, his intellectual forebears, the history of the British industrial revolution, the state of his carbuncles at the time of his writing, etc.) But it's quite clear that a "fully developed individual" can do different bits of "useful, concrete" labor at different points in time. The full-developed individual isn't tied to a specific task the way the detailed worker in the manufacturing division of labor, but still does concrete labors. -- Jim Devine / "In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite." -- Paul Dirac. Social science is in the middle.... and usually in a muddle. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
