In»Capital« and other writings such as the »Economic and Philosophic Manuscriptsof 1844 (also known as the »Paris Manuscripts«), Marx defines »labour« as ahuman capacity which is characterised above all by foresight and planning. So,do animals really work?
The viewthat, according to Marx and Engels, non-human animals do not work is incorrect.Labour, in the sense of the transformation of external nature in order toproduce useful things which serve to satisfy needs, is not unique to humans.That is why in the first volume of his magnum opus, »Capital«,Marx canwrite without qualification that »a horse can work regularly for only 8 hours aday« (Capital, Vol.1, 1976,p. 341). Nevertheless, it is clear that the character of human labour doesdiffer significantly from that of animals.
In»Capital«, Marx distinguishes between »human labour« and its »first instinctiveforms« among the animals (Capital,Vol.1, 1976, p. 283). This distinction not only serves to draw our attention toclear differences between human and animal labour; it also recognises thatanimals do indeed work, albeit not in the same manner as humans. In the »ParisManuscripts«, Marx likewise states that »animals also produce« (MECW 3: 276).
For Marxand Engels, the difference between the character of human and animal labour isevident from several characteristics. The best known of these is »advanceplanning«, or the degree of consciousness involved in work. One example used byMarx in »Capital«to illustrate this distinction is his comparisonbetween the spider and the weaver. Modern scientific research shows thatspiders spin webs almost from birth, which indicates that they do so withoutconscious planning and implementation. The situation is obviously different forhuman weavers.
Marx’ssecond example is less convincing today. He argues that bees, through theirconstruction of honeycomb cells, put to shame many a human architect, but thatthey, unlike the architect, carry out their work without thinking and without aplan. Their now proven learning of construction skills, their making of repairsto hives in changing material conditions and locations, the variety of buildingtechniques and hive shapes, combined with evidence of thought processes, donot, of course, make bees into architectural geniuses like Vesnin, Melnikov orGaudí. But neither do they construct their homes based solely on a programmedscript called instinct.
Thus Engelsis right to emphasise »that it would not occur to us to dispute the ability ofanimals to act in a planned, premeditated fashion« (MECW 25: 460). Indeed,recent findings of behavioural research suggest that work in the animal kingdomis not entirely devoid of »foresight« and »planning«, although thesecharacteristics in animals do not reach a human quality.
Anothercharacteristic which distinguishes human from animal labour, as argued byEngels, is »the making of tools« (MECW 25: 457). However, since Engels’ time,behavioural research has shown that toolmaking is not unique to humans. Themaking of tools has been documented in some species of great apes, as well asin crows and ravens. There are even fish that not only use tools, but have alsobeen observed to engage in rudimentary tool production.
Perhaps thedecisive difference between the forms of labour carried out by humans andanimals, and one which retains its validity, is that a human »producesuniversally« (MECW 3: 276), whereas an animal does so »only in accordance withthe standard and the need of the species to which it belongs« (MECW 3: 277).
The factthat humans have achieved this »universality« cannot be attributed solely tobiological and anthropological characteristics. Labour is not merely thecapacity to transform nature in order to satisfy needs. It is also alwayssocial labour, that is, labour within certain historical and social relationsof production and distribution. But a division of labour also exists in theanimal kingdom: non-human animals collaborate in their work, sometimes evenacross species boundaries. In other words, there are clearly species- andgroup-specific forms of production and distribution among animals too.
However, itcannot be denied that humans »distinguish themselves from animals as soon asthey begin to produce their means of subsistence« (MECW 5: 31). This means thatthrough the way in which humans socially organise their labour, combininganthropological and biological characteristics with social abilities andrelationships, they make themselves different from animals through their socialpractice. But even though humans transform nature in a special,species-specific and social form to satisfy their own needs, they are not theonly animals who work.
Addendumfor English readers:
The problemof distinguishing between the different characters of human and animal labouris further complicated by linguistic differences between German and English.The translation of Capital into English and the conceptualisation and use ofthe German notion of »Arbeit« by Marx. First, the German term »Arbeit« can betranslated into English as »labour« or »work«. Second, Engels made a note inthe fourth edition of the English translation of »Capital« where he states that»work« refers to labour which creates use values. »Labour«, on the other hand,is used to denominate value-producing labour in the capitalist socialformation, i.e. productive labour that produces and allows the appropriation ofsurplus value by capital. In line with this distinction, animal labour, likenon-value-producing human labour, would have to be considered as »work«.However, third, despite Engels’ idea of distinguishing the use of the termsconceptually, this distinction is not (and probably cannot be) consistentlyapplied in the translation of »Capital«. This is particularly obvious in Marx’sdepiction of the labour process in chapter 7 of the English translation. In theabove text, we mainly employ the term »labour« because Marx makes use of it todenote the overall processes that members of a species carry out in relation toand to other members of the species.
