RE: [OPE] Productive and unproductive labour in the financial sector

Well one can redefine things that way, but all this says is that if you assume from the outset that banking is productive that you can impute a value to the services that it provides. That does not answer the prior question of whether it is productive.

If one used this approach to the medieval economy one would have had a similar entry into the national accounts for the sale of Papal indulgences -- the pension scheme of the day.
The papal indulgences undoubtedly got spent on real labour resources : the building of St Peter's and the
saying of masses, but was this productive?
Is the building of modern temples to finance, and the activities of those saying masses to mamon in front of computer terminals any different/
If one assumes from the start that any expenditure is productive you have no problem, but if Smith and Marx were onto something with their distinction, one has got to go beyond inventing what are ultimately appologetic accounting conventions.
________________________________________
From: ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu [ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu] On Behalf Of Philip Dunn [hyl0morph@yahoo.co.uk]
Sent: Thursday, July 16, 2009 8:16 PM
To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list
Subject: RE: [OPE] Productive and unproductive labour in the financial sector

I don't see the problem. Those getting no interest are paying a
disguised charge calculated at the reference rate.

Bank workers are not paid out of "true" interest, but out of FISIM
revenue.

On Thu, 2009-07-16 at 11:28 +0100, Paul Cockshott wrote:
> But these are undefined numbers.
> Some depositors - those with current accounts for example get no interest,
> The rate paid by borrows is also a spectrum of values.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu [mailto:ope-bounces@lists.csuchico.edu] On Behalf Of Philip Dunn
> Sent: 16 July 2009 00:16
> To: Outline on Political Economy mailing list
> Subject: Re: [OPE] Productive and unproductive labour in the financial sector
>
> On Wed, 2009-07-15 at 22:54 +0100, Paul wrote:
>
> >
> > Did you write that wiki page Philip?
> No.
> > The argument there seems remarkably unpersuasive. It admits that banking
> > labour is not fully paid for out of charges for transactional services (
> > clearing cheques etc ) and that it is supported out of interest.
>
> Not quite. The difference between the interest the bank pays to
> depositors and the interest it receives from borrowers is sales revenue.
> A reference rate of interest, at which no FISIM revenue arises, is the
> rate at which income is transferred from borrowers to depositors. The
> difference between interest at the reference rate and interest at the
> rate a depositor receives is expenditure for the depositor. Similarly,
> the difference between interest at the rate a borrower pays and interest
> at the reference rate is expenditure for the borrower.
>
> The "true" interest rate is the reference rate.
>

_______________________________________________
ope mailing list
ope@lists.csuchico.edu
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope

The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401
_______________________________________________
ope mailing list
ope@lists.csuchico.edu
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope
Received on Fri Jul 17 04:49:44 2009