Activity

But if the capitalist builds upon this distinctive quality and potential of human labor power, it is also this quality, by its very indeterminacy, which places before him his greatest challenge and problem. The coin of labor has its obverse side: in purchasing labor power that can do much, he is at…

It is important to take note of the historical character of this phenomenon. While the purchase and sale of labor power has existed from antiquity,* a substantial class of wage-workers did not begin to form in Europe until the fourteenth century, and did not become numerically significant until the…

Finally, the human capacity to perform work, which Marx called “labor power,” must not be confused with the power of any nonhuman agency, whether natural or man made. Human labor, whether directly exercised or stored in such products as tools, machinery, or domesticated animals, represents the sole…

[...] Recognizing that there are very few “eternal” or “inevitable” features of human social organization in an abstract sense, such an analysis would proceed by way of an understanding of the historical evolution which produced modern social forms. And most important, such an analysis must not sim…

[...] Since the discontents of youth, intellectuals, feminists, ghetto populations, etc., were produced not by the “breakdown” of capitalism but by capitalism functioning at the top of its form, so to speak, working at its most rapid and energetic pace, the focus of rebellion was now somewhat diffe…