Re: [OPE-L] Fred's argument about the deduction (retro)

From: Paul Cockshott (wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK)
Date: Fri Jan 18 2008 - 15:18:20 EST


>
> Evidently therefore he regarded the definition of PUPL as being
> determined BOTH by the nature of the output, AND by the social
> relations (if you like, the relevant property rights) within which it
> was created. Not just anything could be commodified, it depended
> contingently on technological, economic and social conditions. In this
> sense, both the use-value and the exchange-value of the
> labour remained important to the definition of PUPL.
>
> As a general norm, he argues that:
>
> "If we have a function which, although in and for itself unproductive,
> is nevertheless a necessary moment of [economic] reproduction, then
> when this is transformed, through a division of labour, from the
> secondary activity of many into the exclusive activity of a few, into
> their special business, this does not change the character of the
> function itself" (Capital Vol. 2, Penguin ed., p. 209).
>
> The point however is that changes in the division of labour might
> render labour PL, even although it was previously U,  or vice versa.
>
> -----------------------
I had taken him to be saying the opposite there, that the labour
remained unproductive even if special businesses sprang up to perform it.






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