Here is more elaboration of human essence in 
labor in the abstract, human species-being.

For Marx, labor is human creative essence.
Making is essentially human ( as is making out;
smile)

Of course human leisure, play, recreation
 is of
species-being , and human essence , too.
In this sense, "philosophy of football" 
is not an improper usage.

CB

^^^^^^

The Labour-Process and the Process of 
Producing Surplus-Value

THE LABOUR-PROCESS OR THE PRODUCTION 
OF USE-VALUES

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch07.htm

We pre-suppose labour in a form that stamps 
it as exclusively human. A spider conducts 
operations that resemble those of a weaver, 
and a bee puts to shame many an architect in 
the construction of her cells. But what 
distinguishes the worst architect from the 
best of bees is this, that the architect
 raises his structure in imagination before 
he erects it in reality. At the end of every
 labour-process, we get a result that already
 existed in the imagination of the labourer at
 its commencement. He not only effects a change 
of form in the material on which he works, but 
he also realises a purpose of his own that gives \
the law to his modus operandi, and to which he 
must subordinate his will. And this subordination 
is no mere momentary act. Besides the exertion 
of the bodily organs, the process demands that,
 during the whole operation, the workman’s will
be steadily in consonance with his purpose. This 
means close attention. The less he is attracted 
by the nature of the work, and the mode in which 
it is carried on, and the less, therefore, he enjoys 
it as something which gives play to his bodily and 
mental powers, the more close his attention is forced to be. 

The elementary factors of the labour-process are 1,
 the personal activity of man, i.e., work itself, 2,
 the subject of that work, and 3, its instruments. 




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