Ted wrote:
If "labour time" in capitalism means something "essentially
different" from labour time in an ideal community ...
Since all prior forms of labour are essentially different from the
form actualized in an ideal community...
labor in the ideal community isn't completely (is that what
"essentially" means?) different from all prior forms or from labor
under capitalism. It's definitely different, but there are some shared
characterists. There is a tranhistorical "essence" to labor, as in
Marx's CAPITAL, vol. 1, chapter 7, section 1.
If labor involves the creation of use-values, what makes labor under
ideal conditions different is that one of the use-values is the
pleasure received by the worker. The distinction between work and play
has been abolished. (BTW, this is not totally utopian: many
professional and craft workers mix play and work, as do the
capitalists. Even many blue- and white- and pink-collar workers mix
play and work, though often the play is seen as hurting the capitalist
bottom line.)
--
Jim Devine / "Because things are the way they are, things will not
stay the way they are." -- Bertolt Brecht
