Abstract

The question of the future of the labor activity is widely acknowledged to be of central importance to Marx's thought. However, an examination of his explicit commentary on the matter shows his thinking to be fragmentary and contradictory. Scholars, relying largely on Marx's meagre comment on the future of labor, tend also to conclude that his speculation on this issue is inadequate. ;In contrast, it is my contention that there is to be uncovered in Marx's work as a whole a coherent and rather extensive philosophy of labor, which, when properly reconstructed, points to a particular image of labor--from among the several conflicting images in Marx's futurological passages--under socialism. Specifically, it indicates that the underlying intent of Marx is to see labor transformed in the future into an activity that is itself a source of human fulfillment. Further, it suggests a set of guidelines which labor would have to meet in order to attain this goal. ;The principal elements of this labor philosophy are not, in fact, to be found in the occasional passages where Marx clearly takes up the future of labor. Rather, they are present in major theoretical components of his work. These are, primarily, his philosophical anthropology, his analysis of labor in capitalist production, and his recounting of the development of labor and the productive forces in history. And while Marx initiates his examination of labor in the early writings, it is argued here that the more complete depiction of labor in its specific forms and as a general concept, is to be found in Marx's mature works. ;With the reconstruction of Marx's labor philosophy, the centrality of the concept of labor in his system of thought clearly emerges. And while there are major deficiences in the labor philosophy, Marx's speculation has gone further in this area than that of any other thinker