File spoon-archives/marxism-thaxis.archive/marxism-thaxis_1997/marxism-thaxis.9707, message 42


Date: Thu, 24 Jul 1997 19:38:43 +0100
From: Lew <Lew-AT-dialogues.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Re: Productive and Unproductive Labor


In article <970724123431_1828354547-AT-emout14.mail.aol.com>,
LeoCasey-AT-aol.com writes
 
>This discussion of productive and unproductive labor strikes me as incredibly
>Talmudic (or taxonomic, if you prefer scientific metaphors). Sure it is
>innane to treat intellectual labor -- whether it be the production of a song
>or a software program -- as unproductive. But the more important question,
>which Doug put, remains: of what importance is this distinction? If the point
>is merely that it must be worked through to maintain the integrity of some
>rather orthodox version of classical Marxism in a post-Fordist economy which
>increasingly challenges the categories of that system, then okay, admit it.
>But I'll be damned if I can see any relevance to questions of political
>import.

As I wrote earlier in this thread: The distinction is useful for
analysing the structure of capitalism. For instance, it sets theoretical
limits for the size of the state sector of the economy, since this must
be paid out of the surplus value arising from productive labour. In
Marx's theory of the state, the upkeep of the state derives from surplus
value.
-- 
Lew


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