Abstract: Karl Marx put forward a production paradigm to understand the concept of labor， and revealed the liberated normative connotation of labor by criticizing the theory of alienated labor and commodity fetishism. By means of a communicative paradigm， Habermas applied interaction instead of labor to explain the liberated normative connotation by distinguishing labor from interaction. In his recognition theory， Honneth pointed out that labor contains the liberated normative connotation， which should rely on the intersubjective struggle for recognition. Evolving from the production paradigm to the communicative paradigm and to the recognition paradigm， Habermas and Honneth offered new interpretations of Marxs theory of labor， which reflect their rational thinking of the status quo of capitalism. However， their onesided interpretations of the normative connotation deserve a careful reflection.

Key words: Karl Marx, Jürgen Habermas, Axel Honneth, theory of labor