Capitalism must preserve labor as profit source despite its potential abolition

Evidence

Even the most highly organized capitalism retains the social need for private appropriation and distribution of profit as the regulator of the economy. That is, it continues to link the realization of the general interest to that of particular vested interests. In doing so, it continues to face the conflict between the growing potential of pacifying the struggle for existence, and the need for intensifying this struggle; between the progressive “abolition of labor” and the need for preserving labor as the source of profit. The conflict perpetuates the inhuman existence of those who form the human base of the social pyramid—the outsiders and the poor, the unemployed and unemployable, the persecuted colored races, the inmates of prisons and mental institutions. — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man, 240

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘abolition of labor’ contra profit-preserving labor maps directly onto AI/automation debates about job preservation for consumption’s sake. — connects to: Full automation is incompatible with capitalist private exploitation of labor — Herbert Marcuse, One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the…, 197; Capitalism can preserve ‘irrational’ features like unfree labor rather than abolish them — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 590; Colonial unfree labor can sustain effective capitalism, not just free labor — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 597 (+8 more)
• SEED: Article angle: automation potential vs. the economic compulsion to preserve jobs — Marcuse’s contradiction as the structural core of modern AI discourse.

Broader Connections

• Capitalism can preserve ‘irrational’ features like unfree labor rather than abolish them #corroborates (0.85) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 590
• Labor is the commodity whose surplus value is expropriated and realized through market exchange #expands (0.78)
• Even free labor under capitalism is subject to economic compulsion to sell labor-power. #expands (0.75) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 599
• Colonial unfree labor can sustain effective capitalism, not just free labor #corroborates (0.72) — Hall, Stuart, Essential Essays, Volume 1, 597
• Wage labor is capitalism’s primary pillar and historical precondition. #qualifies (0.72)