From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK)
Date: Tue Nov 04 2003 - 07:05:23 EST
Philip Dunn wrote: Hi Jerry > > Yes. it is certainly necessary to make the distinction between productive and > unproductive labour. But I look at all private sector labour as productive. > Whereever there is profit there is productive labour. So checkout workers in > the supermarket are productive, as are banking workers, lawyers, passenger > transport workers, etc. Also marketing and advertising expenses are genuine > productive costs and not to be paid for out of profit. I would regard the > whole waged workforce of a firm as productive too. Clearly, payment by stock > options would be an exception, I think. > > A lot of confusion over productive labour seems to be due to thinking that there > is a need for a physical use-value to be produced. You can if you want disregard the whole Smith/Marx theory of unproductive labour, but I think that Smith was getting at something real, and that Marx was trying to clarify what this was. Smith was concerned with the problem of capital accumulation and whether particular categories of labour contributed to this. Since in the end for capital to accumulate it must have some material substratum there has to be a connection between the accumulation of capital, with productive labour defined in connection with accumulation, and the production of physical commodities. What Smith was concerned with was the 'Wealth of Nations', the accumulation of capital on a national scale. This is the context in which the productivity of labour has to be judged: does it contribute to increasing the national wealth over time, or does it consume wealth that could be devoted to accumulation. This can not be ascertained by simply looking at whether money changes hands to purchase the labour. Instead one must look at the labour within the process of extended reproduction. > There does not seem to be > one in banking, say. But I would see the ordinary busines of banking as the > joint production of two services: providing willing lenders for borrowers and > reliable borrowers for lenders. Look at the accounts of the banks and see what portion of the wage bill is met out of bank charges. For the UK at least it is not enough to cover wages. The wages are met out of a portion of the interest payments charged. > > > Phil -- Paul Cockshott Dept Computing Science University of Glasgow 0141 330 3125
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