Marx’s “economy of time” has two moments, inadequately distinguished by Marx himself. First, labor-time may serve the function of an equivalent. Ex ante, this equivalent serves to apportion social labor-time, while it simultaneously serves ex post to apportion the social product among the individuals who contributed to its creation.[1] The second moment is of greater significance, however. The economy of time is a general principle involving the relationship between the realm of necessity and realm of freedom: the social labor-time necessary to create the social product adequate to satisfy various needs of the members of society should be minimized. Human emancipation from labor is the focus of attention here. Labor-time should be economized since labor-power is not a mere “factor of production.” Here Marx reaches beyond political economy, let alone economics.[2]

These two moments are clearly related. As an equivalent, labor-time must be appropriated such that it satisfies the general principle of emancipation from labor (and not emancipation of labor, as the ideologies of socialist planning now hold). Lex parsimoniae thus extends to prehistory as well. The twofold character of the economy of time consequently reflects the twofold character of labor, the crux of Marx’s theory of value. Marx’s concept of labor already points at its dissolution, as well as at the ideological character of any theory of value that is predicated upon economization in general, where labor-power is interchangeable with any other “factor of production,” and where factor substitution is ipso facto indifferent to human emancipation.

Footnotes

1. See, e.g., K. Marx, Capital, Vol. I, New York: International Publishers, 1967, pp. 78-79.

2. See, e.g., K. Marx, Grundrisse, Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1973, pp. 172-173.