Absolute Value and the Concept of Human Rights

2017

INTRODUCTION

This book develops a theory of the reasons for people to format the concepts of absolute value and human rights and of the meaning of the two concepts.

The concept of absolute value was put forward first some 190 years ago by David Ricardo in his book On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation.¹ However, no one has explained clearly what absolute value is and if there exists absolute value at all since the publication of the book.

In order to answer the above questions, this book postulates the concepts of multi-moment activities; absolute abstract labour and relative abstract labour; absolute abstract labour power and relative abstract labour power. It adopts terms already in widespread usage, such as labour, collective labour, individual labour, concrete labour, abstract labour, division of labour, and so on, but with the author’s own definitions.

Above all, it introduces the term ‘moment’ as another unit for the measurement of the quantity of abstract labour embodied in concrete labour.

My answer to the question of what is absolute value is that the absolute value of commodities refers to the phenomena that a community as a whole regulates that the same kind of commodities of the same quantity contain the same quantity of value, consequently, can be sold at the same price, no matter what method by which it is produced and carried to the same market at the same time. Therefore, the idea of absolute value is only a thinking moment for people to go through when they plan their economic activities.

By explaining clearly what absolute abstract labour is, what absolute value is, what relative abstract labour is, what relative value is, how absolute value is expressed, i.e. the relation between absolute value and relative value, and how to measure absolute value, we will surely have a better understanding of the reasons why there exists the distinction of average income between different communities; why the same quantity of a sort of commodity, say one ton of wheat, have the same price in the same market, no matter how different the methods or tools used by the producers and no matter how much time the producers used in producing them; why the distinction of average income between different communities can be compared and expressed by the same measurement (currency), such as American dollars or British sterling, etc.; why the real gross national product of a nation can increase much faster than the increase of the number in the labour force in the sense of the number of working population or the total working hours of the nation; why there has been inflation; or whether it is wise to practise the policy of welfare state; whether it is necessary to increase the minimum wage according to the increase of efficiency in productivity; the significance of making use of new technology in the economy, etc. By getting to know the entity and measurement of absolute value, we may articulate macro-economics and micro-economics much better, the gap between which has been being widened since the beginning of the twentieth century. And in the new light of the theory of absolute value, the relevant economists may put forward some better ideas to the politicians who are deciding the economic policies of their communities to deal with the issues of the world banking crisis, especially the one which began in the year of 2007, the social security, government investment, public ownership of property, state-run enterprise, privatisation, interest rates, inflation, recession, international competition, unification of the district economy, unification of the global economy, etc., in the circumstances that both the domestic economical intercourse and international economical intercourse have to be carried out through the medium of money. What is more, the defects of the theory of extra-value postulated by Karl Marx could be exposed further in the new light of the theory of absolute value. And some new theories about the quantity of money issue/money supply for a steady development of economics can be advanced on the foundation of the theory of absolute value.

The concept of human rights was articulated some 380 years ago by Hugo Grotius in his book The Rights of War and Peace.¹ Why, then, is it that the concept of human rights has become increasingly prominent since the beginning of last century, especially after World War Two, when it is clear that human history began many thousands of years ago? The question is: what circumstances or conditions in modernity have brought to the fore the growing concern about human rights as a fundamentally important issue in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries?

In order to answer the above question, this book tries to explain the relationship between the concept of human rights and the hierarchies of social life; ownership of labour-power; ownership of the marriage right; ownership of the living body of the human being; and ownership of the person.

One of the objects of this book is to present the author’s own standpoint on the nature of the concept of human rights; that is, a philosophical concept utilised and given institutional effect by a community as a whole so as to establish and maintain practices that enhance and protect human equality within a liberal-democratic society, such as the individual ownership of the person, the individual ownership of the living body of human beings, the individual ownership of the marriage right; the individual ownership of labour-power; and the partial social-ownership of labour-power.

This thesis also postulates and defends the following claims: (1) human labour can be defined as multi-moment human activities with the characteristic of social compulsion and with a quantitative determinateness; (2) labour power can be defined as the quantitative determinateness of human labour; (3) concrete labour is human labour observed from the aspect of the relationship between human labour and the objects and environment of human labour; (4) abstract labour is human labour observed from the aspect of the relationship between labour and its subjects, that is, between labour and the process of logical thinking, reasoning, or the mental functioning of human beings; (5) the philosophical term ‘moment’ can be used as the unit for the quantification of the self-confining by the labourer in performing an instance of concrete labour, to measure the abstract labour embodied in the concrete labour; (6) the division of labour is the existent form of collective labour; (7) in order to constrain each member of a community to undertake a certain quantity of labour and to determine and regulate the activities of all the members of the community in producing and consuming products and services, each community as a whole has to establish the institutions of ownership of products, ownership of services, ownership of natural resources, ownership of labour power, ownership of the living body of human beings, ownership of the marriage right, ownership of the person, and the related social hierarchies; (8) it is the existent forms of ownership of the person and social hierarchies, and not the existent forms of ownership of the means of production, which determine the social nature of a society; (9) the concept of human rights is a philosophical concept articulated, institutionalised, and put into practice to enable a community as a whole to establish and maintain human equality, individual ownership of the person and of the living body of human beings, individual ownership of the marriage right, and the individual ownership and partial social-ownership of labour power; in other words, to enable the community to establish and maintain a liberal-democratic society.

I believe that the publication of this thesis will mark a new milestone in the history of the development of economic thoughts, following An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, The Principles of Political Economy and Taxation by David Ricardo, and Capital by Karl Marx.

This thesis also bears a strong interdisciplinary feature. It involves quite a few major disciplines of social sciences and humanities, such as philosophy, economics, anthropology, sociology, political science, etc. In turn, the publication of this thesis will insert and exert influence on the further development of these disciplines.

CHAPTER 1

LABOUR

Section 1: Current Connotation of the Word Labour

The word labour has been being a basic concept in economics since Adam Smith said, the annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes, and which consists always either in the immediate produce of that labour, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations, in the beginning of his book An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.²

The word labour is currently used in three senses: firstly, to refer to all forms of work; secondly, to refer to persons working under orders or in the employment of others; and thirdly, to refer to labour-power, that is, the human capacity to do work and perform services.

In many currently popular encyclopaedias, the first and second uses of the word labour are clearly acknowledged;³ but the third use of the word labour, that is, labour in the sense of labour-power, is neither acknowledged nor explained clearly. In the New Encyclopaedia Britannica, the meaning of human capacity is mingled with the sense of human activities.⁴ In the Chambers Encyclopaedia, the use of the word labour in the sense of human capacities is totally ignored.⁵

However, the three senses of the word labour are all used, and can be identified according to the context, in many well-known economics and sociology textbooks, such as The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by John Maynard Keynes.⁶ But, the third sense of the word labour, i.e. labour-power, is expressed in different terms in different economics and sociology textbooks by different authors. In the university textbook Economics by David Begg et al, labour-power is identified as ‘human capital’.⁷ In the very popular textbook An introduction to Positive Economics by Richard G. Lipsey, the meaning of labour-power is defined as ‘human resources’.⁸ In Economics by Paul A. Samuelson, the connotation of labour-power is expressed as ‘labour quality’ and ‘service’ in different circumstances.⁹ In Anti-Samuelson by Marc Linder, it is called ‘labour power’; but his use of this term is limited to ‘the capacity to produce’ the means of subsistence and the means of production.¹⁰

The same word labour is used in three different senses because the connotations of the above three senses are intimately related. Without a labourer, human labour could not be done; without a labourer, no labour-power could be acquired; without the performance of labour, no one could be considered as having acquired labour-power; without the performance of labour, no one could be considered to be a labourer; without labour-power, no labour could be carried out; without labour-power, no labourer could be considered to be a labourer any more.

Nevertheless, the three senses which correspond currently to the word labour refer to three different connotations, though there are close relations among them. It is very important to distinguish these different senses. Actually, following Karl Marx, many economists, philosophers and sociologists have dealt with the above three different connotations as different factors in their works.

However, the usage of the word labour does not equate with the scientific definition of it. We have to point out the essence, or the genus, and the specific differentia, or the essential characteristics of it, if we would like to define a term or a noun scientifically, according to the rules of definition in logic and from the aspect of ontology.

It shows that we are at the low level of knowing something rationally or at the stage of describing something, but not at the high level of knowing something rationally or at the level of defining something, if we can only illustrate the existing forms or instances of a word or a connotation like labour, or human rights, or water, or light, etc., according to the rules of definition in logic¹¹ and from the aspect of ontology.¹²

For instance, human beings have been knowing light from the beginning of their history. However, human beings have got to know scientifically and rationally what is light only after James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879), the British scientist pointed out that light was some sort of electromagnetic wave.

It is the same on the instance of knowing what is water. Human beings have been knowing water since the beginning of their history. In their daily life, human beings have been describing what is water by illustrating river water, spring water, rain water, sea water, etc. The ancient Chinese people even got the perfectly abstract idea about water at least four thousand years ago, because there was the character ‘water’ in the inscriptions on bones and tortoise shells of the Shang Dynasty, which ruled the central part of China from 16th to 11th century B. C. I believe that the ancestors of other nations in the world were the same. Human beings did not know that water is the chemical compound of hydrogen and oxygen, or hydrogen and oxygen were the essence and genus of water, or vice versa, water was the existing form of hydrogen and oxygen, until 19th century. It is in 19th century that human beings got a scientific definition of water by pointing out the specific differentia and genus of water, and got to know water at the high level of rationality, from the aspect of logic.

What is more, it is only the concepts being defined in the way of pointing out their genus and specific differentia that have relatively important significance in the history of development of science. Of course, the concepts being described or defined in the way of illustrating their existing forms are certainly necessary in the daily life of human beings and in the process of knowing, and even in the history of development of science, because they are the starting point of scientific research. However, the concepts being described or defined in the way of illustrating their existing forms cannot have important position in the history of development of science, because they are only the concepts and words when people cannot tell the difference or relationship between one thing and the other things.

It is only the concepts being defined in the way of pointing out their genus and specific differentia that can provide scientific grounds for human beings to make use of the relevant things or materials or relationships, etc., or to know them further, because it is only the concepts being defined in the way of pointing out their genus and specific differentia that can tell scientifically the essential distinction and relationship between one thing and the other things.

For instance, it is being based on the tenet that water is the chemical compound of hydrogen and oxygen that people can use water to produce hydrogen and oxygen. The fact that today’s human beings can make use of laser in many fields is directly linked with the definition put forward by James Clerk Maxwell that light was some sort of electromagnetic wave.

What, then, should be the definition of labour firstly in the sense of all forms of work?

Section 2: The Current Definitions of Labour

It is commonly accepted that a human being is an animal. However, people also know that a human being is a special kind of animal, superior to the other species of animals. What made human beings surpass the other species in the animal kingdom hundreds of thousands of years ago? What keeps human beings superior to the other animals now?

There have been thousands of answers to the above question. For instance, some writers hold that human beings are significantly different because they can do labour; others that human beings have a spirit or a spiritual life. Some believe that human beings prospered because they could think; others credit human beings with distinctive forms of social life. Some believe that human beings have the ability to ratiocinate; according to others, to premeditate. Some say that human beings, unlike other animals, can transcend their primordial instincts and drives. Some appreciate that human beings could make tools; others that human beings developed the capacity to master languages. Many people claim that what makes human beings surpass other species of animals is that human beings could adopt religions, or human beings could enjoy arts, and so on and so forth. Some even have tried to expound reasons why human beings could surpass the other animals from the aspect of morphology, such as that human beings have a larger brain, or have hands, etc.

Aristotle was attracted to the above kind of definition, as can be gleaned from the following: ‘ being a mortal living being capable of receiving knowledge in the case of man’;¹³ and ‘in all animals other than man there is no thinking or calculation but only imagination.’¹⁴

However, these characteristics mentioned by Aristotle, such as receiving knowledge, thinking and calculation, are just the spiritual, physical and biological bases for it to be possible to perform a given kind of action. It is through the intentions and actions of human beings and their effects on the object that we realise that human beings are superior to the other animals. Aristotle did not explain clearly the differing characteristics of the activities of human beings and those of the other animals, though he did point out that ‘man deprived of perception and mind is reduced to the condition of a plant; deprived of mind alone he is turned into a brute; deprived of irrationality but retaining mind, he becomes like god.’¹⁵ Aristotle’s words intimate the viewpoint that human beings could perform special sorts of activities; that is, activities under the guidance of mind. But, what are the general characteristics of the activities under the guidance of mind? He did not give an answer.

What is more, the perspective from which many scholars raised the relevant questions and observed is not proper, because that the key issue or point is not the difference between human beings and the other animal from the aspect of philosophy. There are infinite answers to the question, if we raise the question from the perspective of what is the most important difference between human beings and the other animal. Anthropologists can offer thousands of answers of theirs. Anatomists can offer thousands of answers of theirs. Philosophers can offer thousands of answers of theirs. Priests, monks and imams can offer thousands of answers of theirs. My viewpoints is that the point is what made human beings surpass the other animals and what has been keeping human beings surpass the other animals till now. Only by raising question from this perspective can we find a sole and unanimous answer.

Charles Darwin, with his theory of natural selection and biological evolution, only solved the problem of where humans come from, telling us that man’s ancestors must have evolved from ancient apes. But he did not explicate the specific reasons that made human beings eclipse the other animals.¹⁶

One comparatively influential opinion on what made human beings surpass the other animals has existed since Friedrich Engels remarked, in his book Dialectics of Nature: ‘what do we look for more as the characteristic difference between the troupe of monkeys and human society? Labour.’¹⁷

However, he did not point out the specific differentia of human activities. Correspondingly, though he did elucidate many important and essential concrete forms of labour, such as the use of fire, the domestication of livestock and poultry, agriculture, textile, metallurgy, the making of pottery, navigation, commercial exchange, handicraft industry, arts, scientific research, etc.,¹⁸ he did not point out the nature, or essence, or genus, or specific differentia, or essential characteristics of labour. He said only that ‘labour begins with the making of tools’.¹⁹ But the making of tools is only a concrete form of labour. According to the rules of definition in logic, it is not a scientific definition of a term if we only enumerate the concrete forms of a term, but not point out the essence, or genus, or specific differentia, or essential characteristics of the term, though it can help people in understanding the term by just enumerating the concrete forms of the term. When people can only enumerate the concrete forms of a term, it indicates that the people do not know the qualities of characteristics which distinguish it from other terms, from genus to which it belongs, as well as from the species which are coordinate with it.

Karl Marx tried to give a scientific definition of labour in Capital by giving the genus and specific differentia of it:

Labour is, in the first place, a process in which both man and Nature participate, and in which man of his own accord starts, regulates, and controls the material reactions between himself and Nature. He opposes himself to Nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion arms and legs, head and hands, the natural force of his body, in order to appropriate Nature’s productions in a form adapted to his own wants. By thus acting on the external world and changing it, he at the same time changes his own nature. He develops his slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to his sway.²⁰

However, the activities of the other animals also bear the same characteristics mentioned above by Marx. For instance, the pouncing on a small animal by a tiger is also a process in which both the tiger and its environment, including the small animal who is being preyed upon, participate. During the process of pursuing, capturing, killing and eating the prey, the tiger also has to initiate the reaction between himself and nature, that is the reactions between himself and the small animal. The tiger also has to oppose itself to nature as one of her own forces, setting in motion its sense organs and limbs, head and mouth, the natural forces of its body, in order to appropriate nature’s productions, i.e. the small animal, in a form adapted to his own wants. During the process of pursuit and pouncing, the tiger also develops its slumbering powers and compels them to act in obedience to its sway. The tiger also at the same time changes its own nature by thus acting on the external world and changing it. By killing and eating the small animal, the tiger can get rid of its hunger and become a satisfied tiger instead of a hungry one. As for the regulation and control of the material reaction between the tiger and nature, the activities of the tiger have also got these characteristics, otherwise the tiger could not succeed in capturing its prey.

In other words, Marx did not point out the specific differentia of labour properly, because the characteristics mentioned above by him as the specific differentia of labour are not unique for human labour.

It seems that Marx himself knew that there were some defects in his theory of labour. He once, in his early writings, tried to point out the similarities and difference between the characteristics of the human activities and those of the other animals:

The animal is immediately one with its life activity. It is not distinct from that activity; it is that activity. Man makes his life activity itself an object of his will and consciousness. He has conscious life activity. It is not a determination with which he directly merges. Conscious life activity directly distinguishes man from animal life activity. Only because of that is he a species-being. Or rather, he is a conscious being, i.e. his own life is an object for him, only because he is a species-being. Only because of that is his activity free activity…

The practical creation of an objective world, the fashioning of inorganic nature, is proof that man is a conscious species-being, i.e. a being which treats the species as its own essential being or itself as a species-being. It is true that animals also produce. They build nests and dwellings, like the bee, the beaver, the ant, etc. But they produce only their own immediate needs or those of their young; they produce one-sidedly, while man produces universally; they produce only when immediate physical need compels them to do so, while man produces even when he is free from physical need and truly produces only in freedom from such need; they produce only themselves, while man reproduces the whole of nature; their products belong immediately to their physical bodies, while man freely confronts his own product. Animals produce only according to the standards and needs of the species to which they belong, while man is capable of producing according to the standards of every species and of applying to each object its inherent standard; hence man also produces in according with the laws of beauty.

It is therefore in his fashioning of the objective that man really proves himself to be a species-being. Such production is his active species-life. Through it nature appears as his work and his reality. The object of labour is therefore the objectification of the species-life of man: for man reproduces himself not only intellectually, in his consciousness, but actively and actually, and he can therefore contemplate himself in a world he himself has created.²¹

However, all of the characteristics of human activities mentioned above by Marx are only the forms and expressions of the essence of human activities and the concrete characteristics of human activities, but not the specific differentia. It is a pity that Marx did not induce more general and more abstract characteristics of human activities from the comparatively concrete characteristics of human activities mentioned above. Marx should have gone further and attempted to find a universal word or a universal philosophical term to define and describe the specific characteristics of human activities, labour and production. He should have pointed out the essence and the specific and unique characteristics of labour, rather than making labour or human activities bear the characteristics of ‘universe’ or ‘freedom’. It is only by pointing out the essence, the genus, the specific differentia, the unique characteristics of labour and human activities that one can defines labour and human activities in a scientific way, that is in a way of giving the genus and specific differentia of the term.

From Marx’s words above, it seems that he did not have a clear idea about whether the concept of labour should subsume the concept of production or whether, on the contrary, the concept of production should subsume the concept of labour. He did not know which concept, production or labour, is the more universal or abstract. In addition, he tended to confuse all sorts of human activities as labour. He said in his early writings: ‘all human activity up to now has been labour, i.e. industry’.²² This shows that he not only intended to equate labour with industry, but also intended to equate labour with all sorts of human activities.

However, it is neither plausible nor helpful to classify all human activities as labour. There are other sorts of human activities alongside labour, such as amusement, recreational activities, consumption to meet the immediate physiological needs of the living bodies of active agents, the activities for reproduction of the human beings, etc. It is simply far-fetched to classify amusement, recreational activities, consumption, etc. as labour, in ordinary circumstances.

Marx also offered some other ideas in connection with the essence, specific characteristics, genus, specific differentia of labour in his early writings, such as:

my labour would be the free expression and hence the enjoyment of life. In the framework of private property it is the alienation of life since I work in order to live, in order to procure for myself the means of life. . . . Labour is only an expression of human activity within alienation, an expression of life as alienation of life.²³

Marx’s above words point out the specific differentia of neither human activity nor labour properly, therefore it is not right to think that Marx had given a scientific definition of either human activity or labour.

One of the reasons why Marx presented the above obscure and puzzling ideas or definitions of labour is that at that time he had not distinguished the nature and concept of labour from those of labour-power. This he did for the first time thirteen years later in his Grundrisse.²⁴

Since then, following Jevons, Alfred Marshall tried to define labour as ‘any exertion of mind or body undergone partly or wholly with a view to some good other than the pleasure derived directly from the work.’²⁵

Marshall’s definition fails, as it does not take account the distinction between the exertion of the mind and body of human beings and that of the other animals. Neither did he point out the characteristics of ‘some good’ as distinct from those of ‘pleasure’.

Many people working in other fields, such as politicians, journalists, even some encyclopaedia and dictionary editors, intend the application of the word ‘work’ to refer to ‘labour’ in the sense of human activities. But when they use the word ‘work’ to refer to the connotation of labour in the loose sense of human activities, what seems to be meant is merely ‘to make effects’, or ‘to do labour’,²⁶ or ‘the use of bodily or mental powers with the purpose of doing or making something’.²⁷ These definitions of the word ‘work’ either are tautologies of the word ‘labour’ itself or refer to more restricted connotations than the word ‘labour’ subsumes, but not the genus of the word ‘labour’. It is obviously not proper to define a word or a concept from the aspect of logic.

Certainly we might simply take human activities as the genus of the concept of labour, because it reflect correctly the facts. But it can not make us go further a step in defining the concept of labour, when we are not able to point out the specific differentia of human activities, i.e. not be able to point out the specific characteristics which distinguish human activities from those of the other animals, hence not be able to give a convincing definition of human activities.

If we are to take labour as the key factor for human beings to be able to surpass the other animals, we must give the word labour a broader connotation and more abstract definition. In order to redefine the concept of labour in a more satisfactory way, one needs to be able to distinguish the alternative forms of labour from labour itself in the general sense, that is, labour in an abstract sense.

It is not adequate to remain at the conceptually low level of claiming that labour is by definition ‘the activities of human beings’, or that only human beings can do labour. This is just tautology. These definitions are circular and uninformative.

Nor should we be satisfied with the notion that ‘labour begins with the making of tools’,²⁸ or ‘man is a primate who makes tools to set and regular pattern’, or ‘Man-the tool Maker’.²⁹ These notions are conceptually inadequate because the making of tools is only one concrete existent form of labour, although it is admittedly the most significant and most important concrete existent form of labour. Alongside tool-making, there are also other concrete existent forms of labour, such as the creation and use of languages, the use of fire, skill in the use of tools, domestication of livestock, various sorts of social activities, and so on. And the most important thing in defining a word and concept scientifically is to point out the genus and specific differentia of the word and concept, but not only enumerate its existent forms, as mentioned for many times above.

What, then, are the genus and specific differentia of the word and concept of labour?

My view is that labour is one of the existent forms of the multi-moment activities of human beings. To phrase this in another way, the essence or genus of labour is multi-moment activities. This is because the differentia, that is, the general characteristics of human activities is multi-moment.

What, then, is multi-moment activities. My answer is that the so-called multi-moment activities refer to the fact that human beings can confine and refine their own activities with much more factors.

Section 3: Multi-Moment Activities

We have to first tell the differences and distinctions between the characteristics of human activities and those of the other animals in detail, in order to make the readers understand the above two viewpoints or judgments better.

As we know, every animal, including human being, has to engage in certain activities on its own initiative, to get food, water, a sexual partner, etc., and to escape from dangerous situations and so on, in order to maintain its subsistence and assure the survival of its species. The above activities are said to be a common function of the activities of both human beings and the other animals.

However, the characteristics of the activities of human beings are quite different from those of the other animals’: i.e. the mode of human activities are quite different from that of the other animals’ in many circumstances. This difference between the characteristics of human activities and those of the other animals’ reflects the nature of human beings as distinct from that of the other animals.

The different modes of human activities and the other animals are shown in many aspects.

Firstly, in the activities of obtaining food and other essential living materials and in the process of avoiding natural enemies, the other animals, with the exception of a few primates, achieve their ends by totally depending on the strength of their own bodies. African lions pursue and kill herbivores with the physical strength of their own bodies. They can only make use of their environment as it is, i.e. they make use of the given environment as they find it. They cannot make use of the attributes of the objects, i.e. the relationship between the objects. For example, sheep can feed themselves only with grass and grain which is already growing there or left by human beings. They can never plant any grass or grain. African lions can feed themselves only with the herbivores already living there. They can never go to the trouble of domesticating livestock.

Many mammals and birds can make lairs or nests with hay, leaves or twigs. These sorts of activities involve two moments or two factors in one action, as they gather the above materials not for their own comfort, but for their descendants. Still this kind of activity involves many fewer determinative factors in one action than those of human beings. The most advanced animals in today’s world, other than the human being, are chimpanzees and gorillas. Gorillas often use stones, sticks, etc. as tools while engaged in the activity of obtaining food. But their use of tools involves only two moments, i.e. two determinative factors, in one action. One is the search for the tool, such as the suitable stone or stick as it is and as they find it. They might even change the shape of the stone or stick with the physical force of their own bodies. The other is keeping and using the stone or stick as a tool in achieving their ends, such as breaking hard nuts, and so on.

Unlike those of the other animals, the activities of human beings in obtaining food and other life-maintaining materials, while avoiding any dangerous circumstances, are much more complicated. In order to attain their final goal, human beings can make use of many characteristics and attributes of the objective world around them by making use of tools, machines, fuels, etc., apart from the physical force of their own bodies and the objectives around themselves.

However, what should be pointed out here is that in the process of assimilating more factors in their actions, human activities are regulated, limited, restricted and determined by many more factors. In other words, in the process of making use of many characteristics and attributes of the objective world around them, human activities involve many more factors than those of the other animals. For instance, in harvesting grain on a modern, technologically advanced farm in the United States, what the farmer does usually is drive a combine harvester. His action in harvesting involves not only the exertion of the physical force of his living body according to the regulations on how to drive the combine harvester, but also a technologically very complicated up-to-date combine harvester which is in good condition and the necessary fuel. The combine harvester and fuel in turn involve many more relevant factors and processes, such as the assembling of the combine harvester, the making of the various parts of the combine harvester, and so on. These involve in turn the production of the steel and the other relevant materials, which in turn involves almost the whole industrial system at large, such as electricity generation, computer manufacture, coal production, the transportation of the above necessary machines and the production of the vehicles necessary for their production, the building of the relevant roads and railways, and so on and so forth. Therefore, the effects on grain production brought about by the combine harvester driver are not only those of that particular driver’s exertion of the physical force of his own living body, but also those of the other relevant players and the attributes and characteristics of a lot of relevant materials, such as the hardness of steel, the elasticity of rubber tyres, the heat discharged from combusted fuel, etc.

Certainly, in the early stages of human history, the human activities involved in acquiring life-supporting materials and individual and communal defences were much simpler and involved far fewer factors. Still, their activities with regard to maintenance and defence were much more complicated than those of the other contemporaneous animals. It is little wonder, therefore, that many nineteenth- and twentieth-century archaeologists and historians have associated tool-making with the emergence and development of human life and labour, believing that the making of tools clearly involves more factors than just making use of stones or sticks as tools in the activities of obtaining food and common defence.

In the other category of activities, that is, in the activities involved in establishing and maintaining relations with their fellow animals among the same species or among the same community, those of human beings involve many more factors in a single action than those of the other animals.

For example, in the activities of procuring and maintaining a reciprocal sexual partnership, human beings restrict, confine and refine their activities with more factors. In the case of the other animals, such as the bodily characteristics of the different individuals in the same species, such as the body size, body colour, body strength, body dexterity, whether the body is in oestrus, etc., is the only factor or moment which determines the results of the activities. But in human beings, procuring and maintaining a sexual partner involves many more factors or moments besides the bodily characteristics. These extra factors include the sexual partner’s wealth, personality, social position, family relation, etc., especially the taboo against the sexual partnership of two individuals of close consanguinity, i.e. the taboo against incest. The taboo against incest is another key factor which encouraged human beings to break away from and transcend the mechanistically reductive animal Lebenswelt.³⁰

In establishing the membership of a community, in ants, bees, elephants, monkeys, even in gorillas and chimpanzees, the only factor involved is sexual, consanguinity and blood relationship. In human beings, besides the sexual and blood relationship, economic and political characteristics play a more decisive role. Human beings have a much more complex system of social hierarchies in a community, which never appears in any other animal species. In other words, the human characteristic of performing multi-moment activities is demonstrated by the way in which human beings establish many more relationships among themselves than any other animal. These relationships or factors, which determine and regulate the activities of each human individual, are another expression of the multi-moment activities engaged in by human beings.

Therefore, the qualitative difference between the activities of human beings and those of the other animals stems from the quantitative difference in the number of factors involved in regulating and determining their own activities. The difference in quality comes from the difference in quantity. The change in quality comes from the change in quantity.

This human process of self-confining by reference to the full range of their activities is what is commonly referred to by philosophers as rational choice. The activities confined by this process, which indicates an extensive and extendible sphere of human self-confining, might be called multi-moment activities, in order to be studied in more detail from the aspects of philosophy and economics, especially for labour, concrete labour and abstract labour to be measured scientifically in the future.

The word moment was used frequently by Hegel in his Phenomenology of Spirit to refer to the developing stages of spirit from consciousness to absolute knowing and in the reductive stages from absolute spirit to individual action. By using the word moment to delineate the different developing stages and existent forms of spirit, Hegel described the complex relationships among the different developing stages and existent forms of spirit. What is more, Hegel discovered in the Phenomenology of Spirit that many moments, whether a higher developing stage or the lowest developing stage, could actually be contained and involved in one form or one action.³¹

Human activity has by analogy similar characteristics to spirit as described by Hegel. The most obvious one is that one single action of human activity contains and expresses, i.e., is determined by, the many characteristics of the objective world surrounding human beings.³² It was this Hegelian insight which originally