Date: Fri, 25 Jul 1997 12:00:34 +0100
From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: M-TH: Musician's create surplus value?  Was: Info  Revolution


The question has been asked whether Marx's distinction between
productive and unporductive workers has any application. I think it has.
What follows is an excerpt from an article I wrote for Living Marxism
(April 97). The figures of industrial workers do not precisley match the
unproductive/productive distinction, but they are indicative:
----------------------

Is it true that jobs in industry are being replaced by service jobs--
even if these were 'symbolic analyst' jobs? Comparing the difference
between 1960 and 1990 illustrates the real trends behind the propaganda.



The absolute number of people working in industry globally has increased
from 247 million to 381 million. But the changes are different according
to which part of the world you are in.



In the developing countries, the poorest parts of the world, the
increase is largest, from 88 million to 192 million. But as these
countries contain a considerable part of the world's population, this
only represents a single percentage point increase in the industrial
workforce from nine to 10 per cent of the working population. So even
though these economies have increased the number of industrial workers
in the world by more than one hundred million, that change does not
represent a dynamic process of investment. Most people there are still
either working at subsistence farming, in the army or are dependants.



In 26 dynamic industrialising economies--mostly countries in the Far
East like Korea, Singapore and Malaysia--the increased proportion of
industrial workers is much greater, growing from just 17 per cent of
their working populations to 24 per cent in the 30 years to 1990. In
absolute numbers, though, the change is not as great as in the
developing world, being an increase of 21 million (12 million to 33
million). In other words, on a narrower basis of population, these
'Tiger Economies' have made a qualitative leap out of the developing
world to something like comparability with the industrialised West.



In the advanced capitalist countries, too, there has been an absolute
increase in the numbers of industrial workers, from 159 million to 189
million. But, here, unlike the rest of the world, there has been a
relative decrease in the proportion of the workforce in industry, from
35 per cent to 33 per cent. In other words, the numbers in industry have
increased over all, but not as much as employment in the service sector.



If we look at the changing workforce in the Group of Seven advanced
capitalist economies (USA, Japan, Germany, France, Italy, UK and Canada)
the picture is clearer. In these countries the proportion of the
workforce in industry dropped from 37 per cent in 1960 to 28 per cent in
1994. In the same period the proportion working in services rose from 46
per cent to 67 per cent. For the advanced capitalist countries, then, it
is true to say that industrial production has tended to give way to
services.



Even here, though, it does not follow that a move into the service
industries means a move up the wage scale, still less that work becomes
a game. Not everybody that works in services is designing Web pages. In
the USA the most rapidly growing employer is the supermarket chain Wal-
Mart. Between 1978 and 1996, its workforce grew from 21 000 to 628 000--
'one in every 200 civilian jobs' in America, according to a company
press release. In the same period the carworkers employed by Ford,
General Motors and Chrysler shrank in number from 667 000 to 398 000.
The main difference is in the pay. On the assembly line you earn $18.81
an hour. Wal-Mart pay $4.75. (D Barlett and J Steele, America: Who Stole
the Dream?, 1996, p22)



Even among the advanced nations, the picture is mixed. Japan's
industrial workforce grew from 13 million in 1960 to nearly 22 million
in 1994, an increase of 68 per cent. America's grew by a more modest 20
per cent, but remained the largest in the world at almost 30 million. In
the same period, though, Britain's industrial workforce dropped by
nearly half, to 6 million, while France and Italy lost around a fifth of
their industrial workers.



The overall picture of changing employment is quite different from a
simple growth of services. Only in three major countries, Britain, Italy
and France has there been an actual decline in the numbers working in
industry. Only here have service jobs replaced industrial jobs. Not
surprisingly, these are the three countries whose scholars write most
effectively on the transformation from industry to services: clearly one
of the services that they have provided for the rest of the world is an
economic theory derived from their own particular experiences. One of
the difficulties in understanding the modern economy is that most
economists are looking at the world through the prism of their own
narrow experiences.



What is more, the very features that are now flagged up as positive are
often more reflective of economic decay. The three countries that have
seen the biggest change from industry to services have also seen a
decline in their world standing. Most of these new jobs are less secure
and worse paid--McJobs. In that light the growth of the service sector
seems more like an attempt to stave off decline than the dynamic future
of work.



The other implication hidden within the figures is that the relationship
between the advanced countries and the rest of the world remains
parasitic. New value is being created through rapid industrialisation in
the Far East, and by the expansion of production in the developing
world. But the advanced nations are dedicating a growing proportion of
their resources to cultural life, or financial chicanery.



The picture is one of a new division of labour in the world, where more
and more of real production takes place outside of the West. The
advanced nations are using their monopoly over capital to exploit that
production, making money on loans, insurance and through portfolio
investment. Meanwhile, the real work is done outside of the City and
increasingly outside of the country.



When looking at the =A32.5bn profits of the record industry, creative as
the artists might be, it is the plastic and the aluminium where the
profits are made. George Michael and The Artist might think their
contracts onerous, but it is the humble labour of bauxite miners, Asian
oil workers and plant operatives that is filling EMI's coffers.


James Heartfield


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