Hegel's Notion of Abstract Labor in the Elements of the Philosophy of Right

In this essay, I examine Hegel’s conception of abstract labour in the "Elements of the Philosophy of Right", and also try to trace its embryonic formulation in the Jena writings. My analysis moves from § 198 of the "Elements of the Philosophy of Right" and focuses on the concept of “entire necessity” which Hegel sees at work within the modern economic system, which he defines as a system of all-round interdependence. This “entire necessity” demands that labour establishes itself according to mechanical modes. As a consequence, what Hegel called “variety” in the "System of Ethical Life", that is the world of qualities, has to be excluded from productive labour. The exclusion of variety coincides, however, with the reduction of concrete labour to abstract labour, labour "ganz quantitativ". But if labour becomes abstract, it can be easily replaced by the machine. The machine is external thinghood, which relies upon the principle of “quantity”, and is capable of being self-acting. It reproduces, therefore, on the “objective”/naturalistic level the structure of abstract labour. In the last part of the essay, I examine the consequences of the emergence of abstract labour on subjectivity.