---------- Forwarded Message ---------- Subject: Re: [OPE-L:5117] productive labour Date: Thu, 8 Mar 2001 11:04:07 +0000 From: Paul Cockshott <paul@cockshott.com> On Wed, 07 Mar 2001, you wrote: > I am surprised that Paul Cockshott would treat arms production as > unproductive labour, because it is a clear case of private commodity > production for profit, which stimulates the general process of social > reproduction, even though the final goods produced do not re-enter the > production process elsewhere. I think there is evidence that capitalist countries like the UK and the US which spend a relatively high proportion of their gnp on arms have a lower long term growth rate than other capitalist countries that spend a smaller proportion of GNP in that way. This The duke of Atholl maintains the only remaining private feudal army in Europe - the Atholl Highlanders. They and similar feudal retainers were the original target of Smiths polemic against unproductive labour. I do not believe that they would become productive were he to form them as a mercenary company 'Atholl Highland Soldiers Plc.', owned of course by his lordship, and then use the revenues of his estate to hire them to guard his castles. The juridical form of the labour can not transform something that is unproductive to something productive. "A man grows rich by employing a multitude of manufacturers: he grows poor by maintaining a multitude of menial servants. The labour of the latter, however, has its value, and deserves its reward as well as that of the former. But the labour of the manufacturer fixes and realizes itself in some particular subject or vendible commodity, which lasts for some time at least after that labour is past." This is true of the duke of Atholl, and it is true of a nation as a whole. If a nation maintains a large military establishment, a large part of its best engineers are involved not in the design and production of capital goods but in the production of machines which do not constitute capital. This slows down capital accumulation in those countries. The person hours spent on Trident submarines and aircraft carriers are hours not spent modernising the means of production. -- 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 ------------------------------------------------------- -- 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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