File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1997/marxism-thaxis.9707, message 27


Date: Wed, 23 Jul 1997 19:47:10 -0500
From: Yoshie Furuhashi <Furuhashi.1-AT-osu.edu>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: Info Revolution


James writes:
>A good question, that often gets the wrong answer. The example has
>already been raised of the feminist objection to the categorisation
>which confuses Marx's analytic category 'productive labour' with a
>moralistic denunciation of 'unproductive' domestic work - needless to
>say, Marx meant no such thing.
>
>The importance of the distinction has nothing to do with the usefulness
>of labour for mankind in general. Rather it characterises such labour as
>is productive of surplus value for capital. The importance of that
>distinction is that surplus value, arising out of exploitation, is the
>basis of new capital accumulation, and therefore of the reproduction of
>the capitalist social relation.
>
>Capital has a contradictory tendency both to expel labour from
>productive employment and to draw it in. Reducing costs makes immediate
>sense, but in the long run, only productive labour is a source of new
>value. The growth of unproductive labour (Marx uses the example of the
>growinbg numbers of domestic servants in his own day, we might refer to
>the growth of public sector workers) is indicative of a sclerotic trend
>in capitalist accumulation. No moral judgements of the workers involved
>follow, but their numerical growth does tell us something about the
>over-mature economies that have reduced the relative number of
>productive workers.
>
>On a small point about the productivity of domestic work: The feminist
>critique of the characterisation of domestic work as unproductive leadds
>to the political demand that such work be reckoned as a part of GDP -
>especially in third world countries. Doubtless this would produce some
>interesting statistics, but it would also obscure the facts about how
>productive a country was in value terms - which remain important for as
>long as we live under the market. More to the point, though, it seems an
>inadequate response to the penury of isolating domestic drudgery to
>'value' it morally, when in economic terms it has no recompense.

The distinction between a marxist category of unproductive labor and
moralistic denunciations of unproductive labor in common sense use is an
important one. But feminist works that I am aware of made a different
argument. Unproductive labor performed by women facilitates the
reproduction of labor power, thus though invisible, it is a factor in
making productive labor indeed productive.

Yoshie

p.s. If you don't mind, would you allow me to forward this to the
Marxism-Feminism list? It might start a new thread.




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