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Abstract labour and concrete labour refer to a distinction made by Karl Marx in his critique of political economy. It refers to the difference between human labour in general as economically valuable worktime versus human labour as a particular activity that has a specific useful effect within the (capitalist) mode of production .
Postone examines the fact that abstract labor is not (concrete) labor in general but has a unique social dimension that cannot be derived from (concrete) labor as such: it mediates a new, quasi-objective form of social interdependence. Abstract labor is a historically specific mediating function; it is the content or 'substance' of value. Labor ...
"Abstract" labor refers to a characteristic of commodity-producing labor that is shared by all different kinds of heterogeneous (concrete) types of labor. That is, the concept abstracts from the particular characteristics of all of the labor and is akin to average labor.
The simplest definition of socially necessary labour time is the amount of labour time performed by a worker of average skill and productivity, working with tools of the average productive potential, to produce a given commodity. This is an "average unit labour-cost", measured in working hours.
Human labor becomes dominated by the economic exchange of the products of that labor, and labor itself becomes a tradeable abstract value (see Abstract labour and concrete labour). The result of the difficulties in explaining economic value and its sources is that value becomes something of a mystery, and that how the attribution of value ...
Under capitalism, according to Marx, the productive powers of labour appear as the creative power of capital. Indeed, "labour power at work" becomes a component of capital, it functions as working capital. Work becomes just work, workers become an abstract labour force, and the control over work becomes mainly a management prerogative.
Holloway defines "abstract labour" as labour which is subordinated exclusively to the demands of the market. The real determinant of society is hidden behind the state and the economy: it is the way in which our everyday activity is organised, the subordination of our doing to the dictates of abstract labour, that is, of value, money, profit ...
In order from concrete to abstract, land < labour < capital. The difference between interest and profit disappears; capital is nothing without labour , without movement. — Friedrich Engels, Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy, Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, 1843