Paul C, I proposed a manner of dealing with roads in OPE-L4969 (19 Feb) Rakesh considered this acceptable...I think, from his response... does it not deal with part of your question? Paul B -----Original Message----- From: Paul Cockshott <paul@cockshott.com> To: ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu <ope-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu> Date: 02 March 2001 11:48 Subject: [OPE-L:5094] Re: productive and unproductive labor (again) >On Fri, 02 Mar 2001, you wrote: > >> >> ( A definition offered in the S/T book is: >> "Productive labor is the production labor >> employed in capitalist production sectors: >> agriculture, mining, construction, transportation >> and public utilities, manufacturing, and >> productive services (defined as all services >> except business services, legal services, and >> private households; see Table E.1 for a full >> listing of productive services). It excludes >> nonproduction labor (sales, etc.) employed in >> the production sectors such as trade or >> finance. Total productive labor is the sum >> of the production workers in each production sector. Total unproductive labor is the sum >> of nonproduction workers in the production >> sectors and all workers in the nonproduction >> sectors", p. 295). >> >This is essentially the definition that I have worked to in empirical >studies going back to the 1970's, recently however I have >come to doubt its correctness. It is predicated upon an assumption >that the social formation is a pure capitalist mode of production. >For social formations containing a combination of modes of >production this is not necessarily an adequate categorisation. > >It has peverse results such as workers in government direct >labour departments building roads being unproductive, when >the same work done by private contractors is productive. >Now clearly in the case of the private contractors, a profit >is earned and so either: > >1. The private contractors have been overpaid, or have under > performed in road quality. >2. They have paid their workers less >3. They have used less labour due to use of more machinery > or less wated time. > >Whilst the transfer to private contractors may result in an >increase in the social surplus product (cases 2,3) this >is not necessarily the case. > >In any case, the product, the road is a directly social >good not assuming the form of a commodity. To the extent >that a large part of the social product takes this form, as >it has at times in some European countries, it would appear >that the economy becomes increasingly unproductive. > >I think that we need two different concepts: > 1. socially productive > 2. productive for the capitalist class as a whole > >Labour productive for the capitalist class will be a subset >of the labour that is socially productive, but some categories >of socially productive labour may not be capitalistically >productive. > >-- >Paul Cockshott, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, Scotland >0141 330 3125 mobile:07946 476966 >paul@cockshott.com >http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/people/personal/wpc/ >http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/~wpc/reports/index.html > >
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