[OPE] No rise is s/v? Kliman's empirical work on the falling rate of profit (correction)

I wrote:

The real point is not so much that Dr Kliman is inconsistent with Marx in
this respect, but that Marx never reached a definite and ambiguous
conclusion about the meaning of unproductive labour, except to say that the
concept refers both the the "useful effect" of the labour, and the social
relations of production within which it is performed.

That should be:

The real point is not so much that Dr Kliman is inconsistent with Marx in
this respect, but that Marx never reached a definite and UNAMBIGUOUS
conclusion about the meaning of unproductive labour, except to say that the
concept refers both the the "useful effect" of the labour, and the social
relations of production within which it is performed.

As I have argued before on OPE-L, I think, finally, that there is no
unbiased or "neutral" definition of productive labour possible, in other
words, how unproductive labour is defined cannot be a fully objective
judgement. The judgement itself is inherently political and subject to class
interests.

The best we can therefore do is to say that IF we look at the organization
and division of labour from such and such point of view, then "this labour
counts as unproductive and that labour counts as productive", and thus
whatever definition we have in mind depends on the nature of the problem we
try to solve, and the purpose we have in mind. In that sense, various
different definitions of productive and unproductive labour can be validly
applied.

The correct question to ask in that case is, "why, if this labour is
capitalistically unproductive, is it performed at all, in capitalist
society?". And the reason must be, that capitalist civilisation at a certain
stage was contingently unable, for whatever reason (technical, social,
political, legal, ideological, psychological...) to reconcile the use-value
of the labour with its exchange-value, in such a way that it could be
performed as labour producing a commodity containing surplus-value.

In other words, the reproduction of capital and the accumulation of capital
practically required forms of labour from which no surplus-value or profit
could be extracted. Or, to put it yet another way, the reproduction of
capital is never at any time fully compatible with whatever is necessary to
reproduce human society as a whole, and therefore necessitates various forms
of labour which, although they do not permit the extraction of surplus-value
and profit, and cannot be carried on with a profitable result, are
nevertheless indispensable.

However weird the reifications of commercial activity may become, what Marx
called "bourgeois society" is ultimately incapable of denying that it is
also a human society which asserts human needs which must be met, in spite
of, and regardless of, what commercial logic dictates. Or, as one
proletarian, who entertained very "dangerous" ideas, once forcefully put it
to me, in so many words, "I realise that I do not make money, but I am
human, and I will fight for my idea of human dignity to the death, because
it is my birthright".

The snag in the story of this proletarian was that this proletarian was in
practice not "indispensable". In fact, the very reason why this proletarian
did not make money was, because this proletarian was dispensed with,
abandoned, forsaken and despised for not making money. The ability of this
proletarian to make a life at all, was contingent on the ability to succeed
in asserting personal needs and persuading others of a right of exist, the
right to a life.

But that returns me to the viewpoint that I mooted to start off with, which
is that the very definition of productive labour is influenced by the
balance of power, and the ability of different classes and groups to assert
and realize their own idea of what is "productive" and what is not. That
ability may itself be objectively influenced by the clout one can have,
within the existing division of labour, but it also depends in some measure
on self-assertion. But as soon as we admit that, it is not predetermined
whether self-interest or the general interest will prevail, and thus how
"productive labour" is defined is ultimately and intrinsically a political
matter, about which no "neutral" viewpoint can exist.

Jurriaan

_______________________________________________
ope mailing list
ope@lists.csuchico.edu
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope
Received on Fri Oct 23 13:30:03 2009