Date: Wed, 1 May 1996 17:57:13 +0200
To: marxism-AT-jefferson.village.virginia.edu
From: m-14970-AT-mailbox.swipnet.se (Hugh Rodwell)
Subject: Re: Unproductive labor
Cc: jschwart-AT-freenet.columbus.oh.us, amst015-AT-cantva.canterbury.ac.nz


Justin on m2 helps us get closer to an answer by presenting a view removing
the production of value from commodities. He is wrong, but on this topic
that's not unusual and constitutes no crime.


>It seems to me that the productive/unproductive labor distinction is one
>of Marx's less inspired notions. I think it violates the core of his
>critique of Ricardo's theory of value. R argues that the value of each
>commodity was determined by the labor time required to produce it--this is
>a simplification, but not, I think, a damging one of the point I am trying
>to make. Marx objected in part that you couldn't think of value so
>atomistically. On R's account, a handmade Toyota would have far more
>valkue than an identical one that rolled off the assembly line. Marx
>insisted that value had to be construed in terms of socially necessary
>labor time, so that the extra hours that went into making the Toyota by
>hand, being socially unecxessary, failed to be embodied in the commodity.
>In fact, the satisfaction of the loony gal who made it aside, and from the
>point of view of the market, those hours were wasted.

Justin leaps too quickly from labour-time required to socially necessary
labour-time required. The value of any commodity (for both R & M) is
determined by the labour-time contained in it, period. No simplification.
However, the *price* and the sellability are affected by any number of
other factors, particularly the average rate of profit and the average
productivity in the branch of industry concerned (which depends on the
socially necessary labour-time). So the handmade Toyota would contain lots
more value, but it would be totally unsellable at a price reflecting that
value if an equivalent commodity could be had a thousand times cheaper
(even a fraction cheaper might be enough). A 'hand-made' sports car
assembled by unusually skilled craftsmen might on the other hand be able to
command a price reflecting its higher labour-time content - but this could
also be analysed as potentiated labour worth a lot more than average labour
in car production.



>This bears on the unproductive labor issue as follows. Given Marx's
>account of the nature of value, value is a notion defined rather
>abstractly at the level of the whole economy.

This is not so. Value is *defined* as the labour-time embodied in a
commodity. In a commodity-producing society, the only interesting
labour-time is socially necessary labour-time, so the value is *determined*
by what constitutes socially necessary labour-time in society as a whole.
Marx argues extremely vigorously against, say, Proudhon and others like him
who try to abstract away from the mediation of production and consumption
in capitalist/bourgeois society by the commodity and the value embedded in
it as an objective social process.


>We can identify low- and
>high value producing sectors of the economy a priori, because we know, or
>stipulate, that value is embodied labor, so a sector oif the economy that
>uses less labor must, other things being equal, produce less value so
>defined.

This is correct.


>What we cannot do, however, is trace to the individual worker the
>quantum of value she produces. We can ask only: what is the aggregate
>quantity of value in the economy and from what sectors does it come?

This is wrong. In principle, as labour is a quantifiable, material
activity, it is quite possible to trace this quantum of value back to the
individual worker. This becomes important once we ask the other (very
important) questions about aggregate quantity of value (the loot to be
divided among the capitalists and landlords and their hangers-on) and the
sectors producing it. Those sectors with the most workers producing the
most value are the ones providing most of the loot. Those sectors with the
highest degree of capital intensity are the ones siphoning off most of this
loot by way of  the operations of the average rate of profit (what I call
the value pump).



>But the notion of unproductive labor requires us to be able to distinguish
>between kinds of workers, say those in personnel (the clerk-typists, say)
>and those on the line within the same sector, and to say the latter
>produce value but the former do not. They are merely involved in its
>circulation or something like that. I do not see how Marx has the
>equipment to be able to do this without abandining his critique of Ricardo.

This can be cleared up by reading Capital II. The transformation of capital
>from commodity form to money form adds no value to the commodity. It
involves non-productive expenses ('faux frais'). As such, pure selling is
non-productive, as is keeping track of the money form (book-keeping).
Remember, all the time 'productive' is being used as meaning 'productive of
surplus value'. For more meat on the rather dry bones of Capital II, you
can read Theories of Surplus Value II where Marx deals in detail with
Ricardo's theories and their limitations.


>Of coursde Ricardo had no problem with this. The clerk-typists produce
>nothing that is sold, if their work is used internally, and have no
>product that embodies labor.

Correct. Neither did Marx have any problems with this.


>(Note the anomaly: the clerk-typists are
>temps, their services are the product that is sold and they do produce
>value for the temp service, but the C-Ts along aside them doing the samer
>work, etc. for the compant are unproductive.) But Marx cannot say this.

This is exactly the point of Marx's reference in TSV I to the
'non-productive' cook as a servant selling his or her labour in exchange
for revenue (the equivalent of the 'unproductive' company clerks) versus
the 'productive' cook as a wage-labourer selling his or her labour in
exchange for the hotel proprietor's variable capital (the equivalent of
'productive' temps). So in fact Marx not only *can* but *does* say this in
so many words.



>It seems to me that the company's C-T's labor is embodied, along with
>that of the line workers, in the aggregate value produced in that sector
>of the economy and indeed in the whole economy. Below the sectoral level
>Marx cannot go.

Not so. Obviously the labour-time of the clerk-typists is a cost, but (when
exchanged for company revenue rather than variable capital) it is not
productive of surplus value in relation to a commodity, and thus it is
non-productive of surplus value. It's a non-productive cost and in
principle is capable of being reduced to nothing (as in totally automated
book-keeping by way of bar codes, smart cash registers, etc).


>Therefore, the unproductive-production distinction was a
>mistake and should be abandoned by people who still thinkl that
>value-theoretic analysis is a useful approach to economics. (As folks may
>remember I am pretty much a skeptic about that, but here I am dealing
>with the logic of theory on its own terms.)

Conclusion: the distinction was no mistake, and should not be abandoned.
The logic of the theory on its own terms stands up fine.

Cheers,

Hugh





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