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67

|70| Of my particular, bodily and mental skills and my possibilities of activity, I can alienate individual products and a use limited in time to another,1 because, by this limitation, they acquire an external relation to my totality and universality. Through the alienation of the whole of my time, as made concrete through work, and of the totality of my production, I would be making into another’s property the substantial element of these — my universal activity and actuality, my personality itself.

This is the same relation as above, in § 61, between the substance of a thing and its use; just as the latter is distinct from the former only insofar as it is limited, so too is the use of my powers distinct from the powers themselves, and hence from me, only insofar as it is quantitatively limited; – the totality of the manifestations of a power is the power itself, — of the accidents, the substance, — of the particularizations, the universal.

  1. Hegel’s Handexemplar. i.e., the use that another can make of it. ↩︎

DE ES

Comments

3 responses to “67”

  1. Hegel (Notes) Avatar
    Hegel (Notes)

    Relation of the absolute inner to its externality.
    By an other, i.e., the [use] that another can make of it.

  2. Eduard Gans (Additions) Avatar
    Eduard Gans (Additions)

    The distinction set forth here is that between a slave and present-day domestic servants or a day-laborer. The Athenian slave perhaps had lighter duties and more intellectual work than our servants generally have, but he was nevertheless a slave, because the entire compass of his activity had been alienated to his master.

  3. Hegel (Simple) Avatar
    Hegel (Simple)

    § 67: Work for others, but not your whole life

    I have abilities, of body and of mind. I can do carpentry, do sums or sing. May I leave these abilities to someone else?

    Yes, but only within limits.

    I can sell a single work, for example a table. I can hire out my working time, for example eight hours a day. That is allowed. For a limited part of my strength stands outside me. I stay myself in doing so.

    Where is the limit?

    It would be different if I gave away all my time and everything I ever make. Then I would give away all my activity. And with it, myself. I would become the property of someone else.

    A comparison:

    A slave in ancient Athens sometimes had easier and more intelligent work than a servant today. Still, he was a slave. For not one hour of his life belonged to him.

    It is as with a thing. Whoever has the whole use has the thing itself. Whoever has all my powers at his disposal has me at his disposal.

    Summary: I may sell single works and limited working time. I may not sell my whole life. Otherwise I myself would become goods for sale.

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