What's the difference between manual labor and mental labor?

China has long equated labor with manual labor.

What is labor? This question seems to be an economics ABC that is not worth exploring. However, through the analysis of the connotation and extension, origin and development of labor, we can find that it is not easy to define labor scientifically. Labor is the physical and mental consumption of people in order to create use value and meet material and spiritual needs. As the Modern Advanced English-Chinese Dictionary explains, labor is physical or mental labor. However, China has long equated labor with manual labor, and put mental labor in another "no labor" book. People may still remember a very popular slogan in the 1950s and 1960s: "Working people have knowledge, and intellectuals have labor." The subtext is that working people have no knowledge, so they should have knowledge (conversely, intellectuals do not belong to working people because they have knowledge), and intellectuals do not work, so they should be industrialized. This generalized policy reached its peak, that is, during the Cultural Revolution, a large number of intellectuals and educated youth went to the May 7th cadre school or the countryside to "work". Today, with the informationization of the national economy, the popular slogans and extremely "left" policies at that time seem ridiculous.

Different forms of social labor often have different emphases and characteristics.

In fact, from the evolutionary history of human labor, labor is constantly developing in a demand and production system, and different social labor forms often have different emphases and characteristics. Agricultural labor in agricultural society is mainly the labor of human physical strength acting on animals and plants with the help of natural forces. Basically, it is a combination of hands-on and brains, with manual labor as the main labor. Labor in industrial society is mainly manufacturing labor, which is manifested in the use of production tools to process primary products, and the social division of labor between hand and brain is becoming increasingly obvious. Labor in post-industrial society or information society is mainly service labor to produce intangible products (intangible use value). In product creation, manual labor is no longer in the central position, while management labor, science and technology labor, information labor and knowledge labor are becoming more and more important. At this time, those scientists who work hard and make outstanding contributions to society with profound knowledge are just laborers who can't farm and work.

Marx's definition of labor is only a generalization of industrial labor and agricultural labor, not a definition of all labor.

With the development of social labor, people's understanding of labor has also gone through a process of development. The definition of labor in different times bears the imprint of history, and the change of labor concept embodies the dialectical unity of historical progress and historical limitations. In ancient times, when food was the most important thing for the people, the physiocratic school only recognized agricultural labor as productive labor and mistakenly regarded industrial labor as unproductive labor. In a country where foreign trade brings a lot of real money to the country, the mercantilist school believes that only commercial trade activities, especially foreign trade activities, are productive labor to create national wealth. In the era of vigorous development of the industrial revolution, Adam Smith, who represents the interests of the emerging bourgeoisie, scientifically brought industrial and agricultural labor into the category of productive labor, but rudely dismissed service labor that was not fixed and materialized in tangible things as unproductive labor. 19th century, when the British cotton textile industry was relatively developed, Marx pointed out that labor is a process between man and nature, and it is a process in which man uses his own activities to cause, adjust and control the material transformation between man and nature. It is not difficult to see that this is not a definition of all labor, but only a summary of industrial labor and agricultural labor. He focused on the analysis of cotton textile industry, which made him have obvious manufacturing traces in the wording or definition of labor. For example, he said that socially necessary labor time is labor that "creates a certain use value", and labor products are articles with "static attributes" and "existing forms". The definition of this kind of labor is obviously abstract, which can not only cover agricultural labor and mining labor, but also cover service labor that provides scientific and technological services and production knowledge.

On the basis of summarizing the characteristics of agricultural labor, industrial labor and service labor, we should expand the extension of the concept of labor and redefine its connotation.

In my opinion, in order to reflect the objective reality that the contemporary social labor system is composed of three major industrial labor, we should expand the extension of the concept of labor and redefine its connotation on the basis of comprehensively summarizing the characteristics of agricultural labor, industrial labor and service labor. Referring to Marx's definition of labor, we can think that, in a broad sense, labor is a process between man and natural matter and humanistic matter, and it is a process in which man causes, regulates and controls the material transformation between man and natural matter and humanistic matter with his own activities. In other words, in order to possess an objective object in a form useful to one's own life, human beings can not only make the labor force act on and change the nature outside him, but also make the labor force act on and change the humanistic state outside him, forming an objective object in an immaterial form opposite to the natural object. Humanistic state refers to the material state composed of living and conscious natural objects such as human beings. Marx once pointed out that man's existence as a pure labor force is also a natural thing and a thing, but a living and conscious thing. Therefore, the humanistic state is not only a social state, but also a material state, which can be called "humanistic material", and it is different from the natural state and natural material. In this way, in addition to the industrial and agricultural labor characterized by changing the natural material form, there is also a kind of labor characterized by changing the human material form. It is a process between human beings, society and nature, and it is a process in which people use their own activities to cause, regulate and control the material transformation between people and transform the objective objects of immaterial forms. This process can be called service labor. Service labor itself does not create physical products, so it becomes a process of material transformation, because: (1) The process in which a server changes the physical and mental state of others through the movement of his limbs, head, hands and other natural forces to meet the needs of others is essentially an energy transfer between the server and the customer, and a material transformation process between people (regardless of self-service). (2) The labor force serving laborers often relies on the action of some material form of natural forces, which is the process of material transformation between man and nature. (3) Service workers put labor and natural forces into the labor process to provide some kind of output for the society, and the transformation from input to output is also a process of material transformation. (4) Output results-Although the service product is not in kind, it still belongs to a material state. Because matter can neither be created nor destroyed, it can only be transformed from one form to another, so the form of service products has changed in the process of material transformation.

The service work in the tertiary industry is also labor, which is the process of material transformation between human and humanistic materials caused, regulated and controlled by human activities. It is also labor for capitalists or private entrepreneurs to engage in the planning, decision-making, organization and control of enterprises as managers.

According to the concept of labor extended by modern society, we can draw three clear conclusions about how to define labor and labor income in socialist society:

First, in the primary and secondary industries, workers and farmers' labor and farming are labor, and it is a process in which people use their own activities to cause, adjust and control the material transformation between man and natural materials.

Second, in the tertiary industry, service jobs such as scientists, teachers, actors, doctors, lawyers, government administrators, drivers, telephone operators, financiers, tour guides, etc. are also labor, which is the process of material transformation and humanistic material transformation between people caused by people's own activities; Their income at the expense of providing science, education, culture, health, law, management, transportation, communication, finance and tourism services is labor income.

Third, the income earned by the owners, entrepreneurs, professional managers and managers of all means of production in the three major industries in modern society from their management work such as planning, decision-making, organization, control and intermediary services, which is mainly based on mental labor, is also labor income (however, the income they get from the ownership of means of production is not labor income). It is debatable to say that the management activities of capitalism or private enterprises "directing and supervising labor" have the duality of labor and exploitation, and it is debatable to replace economic judgment with moral judgment.