Abstrac Labor, Mediation and Historical Knowledge

Abstract

The nature of abstract labor in Marx's work has been widely discussed since the publication of Volume I of Capital. Its centrality in explaining value and the exploitation of wage labor establishes it not only as a central dimension of capitalism but also as a dimension with significant potential for interpreting social relations in other modes of production. In this regard, this paper aims to discuss, from some current theoretical contributions, the potential of abstract labor as an articulating category—among other possible and coexisting ones—of historiographical knowledge. To this end, after an introduction that presents the foundations of the problem, we will conduct a brief historical review of the forms that labor took in precapitalist social formations to compare them with capitalist forms. Finally, we will propose some theoretical consequences of this review, namely, that abstract labor constitutes an interpretative pathway for the change and transformation of social relations of production in different social formations.