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1. With regard to the 'mental-labour-factor' we must always take into consideration the differing quality of mental-labour. Mental-labour can be more or less clever, more or less comlex, intelligent, etc., and likewise the 'physical-labour-factor' is determined by a lesser or greater physical strength. Moreover, the quality of mental-factor is basically not measurable directly, but we can indirect measurement of the results of mental-lalour; physical strength on the other hand, is directly measurable by the methods of physics.
2. All human labour requires the worker to work spontaneously of his own accord, and furthermore that 'mental-labour' and 'physical-lablour' must always interact co-operatively. In other words: mental-labour and physical-labour exist simultaneously and are inseparably bound to one another in the processes of the creation or production of value. The mental-labour-factor performs the ordering and controlling functions, while the physical-labour-factor carries out the realisation or the materialisation. In this way the unity of human labour appears in practice out of both factors. The mental-labour-factor is always dependent on the physical-labour-factor for its realisation in work. If, for example, we observe several people sitting motionless, it is absolutely impossible to judge whether each one is thinking, or whether the thoughts of one are more or less directly or indirectly favourable to the production of value. Therefore each person must combine the work of his mental-labour with some activity of his body (speaking, writing, gesticulating, etc.) whereby the measure of the physical-labour, of course, play no role in the principle. Only in this way can mental-labour be realised.
First through this co-operation of physical-labour and mental-labour does it become possible in objective reality for mental-labour to change into something measurable and capable of being assessed. If, on the other hand, mental-labour is never actualised through physical-labour, then it remains quite uncertain for other people whether the mental-labour can be achieved. The process of mental-labour actualised through physical-labour is the quantification of the mental-labour. Without this realisation or materialisation, it cannot be recognised or even measured.
Whether a person has accomplished any mental-labour at all is exclusively to be judged by the physical realisation or concretisation of his mental-labour. Only the realisation of his mental-labour can be taken as achievement and assessment of his mental-labour. In effect, it is of complete indifference whether there has been any thought or not, if mental-labour is in no way expressed and realised.
On the other hand, physical-labour without the co-operation of mental-labour is impossible; pure physical.labour does not exist for human beings. Machines move without any intelligence of their own. The movements, and here especially the goal-directed movements of a human being, are, however, dependent on the ordering and controlling functions of his brain. Even in mechanical, machine-like or the heaviest labour a worker may manage with less mental-labour but never entirely without the co-operation of his thought and controlling center. That differentiates man from a machine.
The basic facts explained above now enable us to hold the view that human labour contains two different labour factors. One arises from the sphere of the understanding and takes effect predominantly in a creative way in the development of production techniques as well as in human welfare. This factor we call the 'creative factor'(S). The other has its origin in the physical and is stimulated and controlled by the understanding; this physical-labour factor effects the creation or production of value without being able to be creatively active itself. we will designate this the 'productive factor'(P). In all labour both factors operate together, whereby their propotional relation to the whole work is quite variable. For the work of a human being this means that normally with an increased proportion of mental-labour he performs less physical-labour, and vice versa, with an increase in physical-labour he is able to achieve less mentally. Naturally there can be human beings who, as well as having a high degree of mental ability, are equipped with a like degree of physical ability, but their simultaneous full employment is in practice impossible. If such a human being nevertheless tried to do this he would be playing with his life, without being able to reckon with a sure success for such gigantic efforts.
As human beings individually have different degrees of mental as well as physical abilities at their disposal, there will be an individual relation of creative factor to productive factor in a certain piece of work for every human being. The same task can be mastered by different people with different methods and results, and conversely it is also probable that a certain person will solve differnent tasks in different ways and with differing success.
The uniformity of all human beings and their special abilities is unattainable, and therefore neither to be desired nor to be forced. Each human being possesses at the same time above-average and below-average qualities and abilities and in this he is like the colourful world which is developing incessantly and multifariously. In her there are many differnt possibilities, tasks and work which are only waiting to be discovered, created and mastered by human beings.
In a correctly ordered and functioning society every person should be able to find a place of employment which is suited to his personal abilities. Where this is not the case the social order concerned must be regarded as being in need of improvement.
In human labour, conceived as a creative, productive process for the advantage of society and her production techniques, there are, naturally, besides the creative and productive factors explained above, their opposites, that is a counter-creative factor (-S) and a counter-productive factor (-P). It is also to be noted that the creative factor and counter-creative factor cannot exist or not exist simultaneously; the same is true of the productive and counter-productive factor. To facilitate the understanding of this, the following diagram serves as an illustation:-
Figure 1: The relationship between creative factor and counter-creative facter.
Thus in the practice of human labour the following four combinations are possible:
1. S + P:
This combination is the most effective form of human labour
in the production of value. Only this form is the object of
study in the economic sciences.
2. S + -P:
This conbination is, it is true, potentially creative, as,
for example, in sport, however, it can produce no economic
value.
3. -S + P:
This conbination is, as in theft, potentially productive,
because things change place and receive altered and possibly
improved chances of use, but such labour makes no
contribution to the economic creation of value in human
society.
4. -S + -P:
Wars, for example, are possibly politically meaningful, but
in a purely economic sense all labour for and in wars is
capable only destroying human prosperity and well-being. Especially the direct labour in war only annihilates human
beings together with their prosperity and values and can
neither increase nor create value and human prosperity.
The three last-mentioned conbinations (2,3, & 4) are, it is true, also forms of human labour, but viewed economically, they cannot create or produce value: therefore only the first-mentioned form of labour, which is capable at the same time of creating and producing value, is the object of economic research, and thereby also the object of my work.
The character of the two basic factors of human labour can be determined more closely through a series of elementary qualities. These are, with regard to the creative factor: The 'capability for spontaneousness', 'teachableness', 'enlargeability', 'elicitableness', 'storeability', and 'transferability'. the productive factor is completely characterised by the two last mentioned qualities, that is by storeability and transferaility.
These characteristics should now be explained:
1. Capability for Spontaneousness
To this Mao Tse-tung says: "The countless appearances of the objective exteral world are - by means of the five sense organs, the sight, hearing, smell, taste and touch, - reflected in the human brain, which is, in the first place, sensual knowledge. If the material of this sensual knowledge accumulates, a leap takes place in which sensual knowledge is transformed into rational knowledge, that is into thought. "(18)
The thoughts of human beings cannot arise without the existence of the objective, external world, and they are dependent on their environment. On the other hand, there are thoughts which, as fantasies far-removed from reality, have few points of contact with the actual, external world. Correct thoughts, however, must orientate themselves with relation to the objective environment and be realisable in this environment.
The subjective, inner world of human thinking is so determined by the objective, external world that its influences in the perceiving subject at a certain point of quantitative accumulation change qualitatively into new knowledge. This 'leap' from the quantity of sensual perception to the quality of thought knowledge to the spontaneousnesss to which human thinking is capable, and it is, at the same time, the origin of the spontaneity in labour. This spontaneousness is, however, only attainable when the fundamental influence of the objective external world reach that measure which is necessary for the leap of change into new knowledge. Therefore we may only speak of a 'capability for spontaneousness' when we characterise the creative factor, which is only a latent but not a constantly existing capability for spontaneousness creativity, and not simply 'spontaneousness'.
This capability for spontaneousness exist in different stages which completely depend on the environment of human beings. When the capability for spontaneousness occurs at a lower stage, then it appears only as a primitive, instinctually-driven, experimentally-proceeding form behaviour. This one can frequently observe in primitive human beings and in children. As in these conditions, only a little knowledge can be gained and stored, and as the means and methods for passing it on are lacking, each individual must begin anew to arrive at new knowledge and collect it from his own sensual experience.
When the capability for spontaneousness occurs at a high stage, then it appears at such a high level of research as it is to be observed in humanity today, and especially in their research laboratories. Modern scientists can survey more collected knowledge than ever before, and systematically, with rational methods, create new production knowledge and techniques in order to ensure the prosperity and development of human society.
The quantitative leap into the quality of new knowledge is accomplished
spontaneously in one's thought, but not every human being, in the presence
of a certain situation, must necessarily spontaneously realise the same
possible knowledge. This explains also how scientist under the effect of
the capability for spontaneousness in his thought is able to arrive at a
new invention. There were before, as well as in the time of James Watt,
very many people who had seen water boiling and steam rising from it, but
only he could create spontaneously from the observation at hand the
necessary new knowledge which led to the construction of the steam engine.
2. Teachableness
In the labour of human being the creative factor has the quality of being able to pass on its contents, and indeed also to a great many people. The quality of the creative factor does not diminish through the passing on of its contents. Knowledge is like an invisible crystal which, created by the creative factor of human labour, can be infinitely often newly taught.
"All genuine knowledge originates in direct experience."(19)
This knowledge loses nothing of its quality through being taught or passed on.
3. Enlargeability
As the success of the creative factor of the labour of a human being, viz. his knowledge, is communicable and teachable, the quality of knowledge can in this way be increased. When, for example, a person during many years of work invents and builds a machine, then he can teach other people how this machine works, and how it is to be built. These other people use the direct knowledge of the single inventor many times as indirect knowledge; one can also say: one's indirect knowledge is the quantitative extension of others' direct knowledge. This means as a consequence that the passing on of experience and knowledge effects the quantitative increase of these.
But a qualitative extension or enlargement of the creative factor is also possible, and indeed basically in two direction:
A) the inner extension of quality.
Let us take again the example of the inventor whose engine was perhaps at the beginning still imperfect. In practice, in the testing and the use, the engine will be constantly improved, until it functions perfectly. Such improvement labour then serves the extension of the quality of that knowledge which relates to the original knowledge from the creative labour of a person, without which a further improvement would not be possible, and
B) the outer extension of quality.
A new machine can further stimulate other knowledge in different
fields, whose results - in contrast to the extension of inner quality
- do not only relate to the original invention. Modern aeroplane
safety techniques, for example, airport buildings or navigation systems
are such new knowledge, which is the external extension of quality of
the original invention viz. the aeroplane. Such new knowledge dose not
directly contribute to the extension of quality of the aeroplane, but
first becomes possible and necessary through the invention of the
aeroplane.
The thought of a human being are frequently stimulated by things or processes in his environment to be creatively active, imitatively or by analogy, in the solving of certain problems. It is characteristic of this process that each human being has develops his own associations. Mathematical formulae are thus fixed facts which influence everyone differently and which can awaken different associations in each person.
An apple fell from a tree, and only Isaac Newton came upon the idea that all bodies attract each other.
The creative factor of human labour is alone completely characterised by the above-stated qualities. They are, further, the criteria differentiating human from animal or machine work. Theoretically, a success of the creative factor of labour thus continues forever in human society; unless, through an almost unimaginable catastrophe, the records, memories and other forms of access to the cognizance of this success are taken from humanity. Otherwise, however, this success can be preserved, passed on and improved continuously by human beings.
Storeability in the sphere of the creative factor is the so-called ability
to remember. This is the essential precondition for the capability for
spontaneousness. Without this capability to remember the facts of the
objective, external world, the head of a human being would be of no more
value than wood or stone. All things and facts about human society would
be unthinkable without the ability to remember. The storeability in both
the creative and the productive factors together is the capacity to be
able to store the results of actualised or materialised labour. The labour
itself is also stored in these results. In our world things and objects
still retain a part of their value as long as they are not completely used
up or destroyed. It must, however, once again be made clear that
storeability can only relate to the results of actualised labour and not
to the labour itself. Labour and time together first create labour
quantities, that is actualised labour; if one allows time to pass without
work, then no results will be achieved, which alone are storeable.
This means that labour through the use of her results is transferable to other things or processes. If, for example, a worker builds a loom and actualises and stores labour with this, then this labour will first be transferable when cloth is woven on the loom, whereby it contributes to the satisfaction of human needs. Therefore the transferability of labour is necessarily dependent on the fact that it is first actualised or materialised and stored. First through these processes does labour become transferable. This means - as before with storeability - that the labour of a human being cannot, without actualisation or storage, be directly transferable.
Both of the last-mentioned qualities relate to the two fundamental factors of human labour, the creative factor and the productive factor.
The insight into the nature of these six characteristics of the two fundamental factors of human labour allows us to understand completely that all elements of knowledge are invisisible crystals of human labour and originate predominantly in the creative factor. In the practice of all labour for the creation and the production of value, humans gain experience which, collected, developed and improved leads to the successes which are then available to humans as knowledge. Thus, in the course of history, knowledge becomes refined, deepened, extended and perfected step by step. This is the form of the development of human labour, like that of the development of society in the history of humanity. Because these fundamental factors have not been dealt with by former labour-value theoreticians, their labour-value theories are consequently unable to explain correctly the facts of economics or its development, and furthermore, predictions concerning the continuing path of economic development cannot be truly derived.
