From: Jerry Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Fri Nov 10 2006 - 16:29:17 EST
> You didn't really answer my question, but never mind. Hi again Jurriaan: Sorry, I wasn't trying to avoid answering it. The wages of superintendence can be treated as a portion of profit: i.e. once surplus value has been transformed into profit (that is, once the commodity profit has been sold) a portion of it can be treated as revenues which are distributed to capitalists and their proxies (managers). These funds form the basis for the consumption and reproduction of the capitalist class and their proxies. Whether firms actually treat it this way from an accounting perspective is another matter. > The practical > impossibility of accurately splitting management tasks into productive and > non-productive functions applies to ALL forms of labour, insofar as (1) a > worker usually combines some productive and non-productive functions in > his work, and (2) everything depends on whether the results of the work > actually increase the value of capital assets or not. I don't see why it should apply to ALL forms of labour. While it is possible that the tasks of individual workers could be partially productive and partially unproductive (e.g. a worker at a fast food restaurant might spend part of the working day cooking and another part at the cash register), I don't think this can IN PRACTICE be said for all -- or even MOST -- forms of wage labour. Indeed, I think that a concrete analysis of the actual division of labor in contemporary capitalist social formations will show that it's rather EXCEPTIONAL: the overwhelmingly amount of wage-workers are either productive of surplus value or unproductive. The following is crucial: you can not treat the wages of superintendence as if it is just another form of labor -- indeed, you have admitted as much when you recognized the control function of managers and suggested splitting their labor time into time exercising control (unproductive function) and coordination (productive function). In solidarity, Jerry
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