LABOUR-POWER ONCE MORE
Labour-Power Once More
PREFACE
This was my first attempt at getting one of my articles published. It
failed. The referees and editors at Radical Philosophy rejected it. It
was lost for many years. Then, in 2011, while sorting out some papers from old
box files not looked at in decades, I came across it. Indeed, there were three
copies of the article – at various stages in the writing process! One copy seemed
more advanced than others as it rectified problems and issues thrown up by the
other two copies. However, it was not the final copy: there were notes
in the margins regarding changes to be made.
Thus, what we have here is a reconstruction of this third copy that
includes the changes as suggested by the marginal comments. I do not expect to
find the final copy, but then I did not expect to find these three drafts 20
years after the article disappeared! It definitely won’t emerge on some old
floppy disk: the article was originally written on an Amstrad PCW 9512
dedicated word processor, with floppy disks smaller than the standard floppy
disks, and a daisywheel printer. These disks, along with my Amstrad PCW 9512
went to Newham’s Jenkins Lane Reuse and Recycling Centre 20 odd years ago. You
can still buy the Amstrad PCW 9512, with daisy-wheel printer, on e-Bay though!
I have decided to present this paper here as it has some material,
especially on the subjective aspect of labour-power, that does not appear
elsewhere in my work. In addition, for me it was a transitional article between
Rikowski (1990) and my later work on labour-power (Rikowski, 2000, 2002 and
2024). I hope readers find it useful.
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