>Regarding Carl Dassbach's definition: > What is a telecommunications operator in a big room filled >with dividers and other telecommunications operators working the >night shift for a big catalog company? > A physical product was part of the definition. What is the >physical product? > -- Mary Schweitzer Answer - a worker. I never said anything about a physical product which, in my mind, suggests a distinction between productive and non-productive labor. All labor is productive (for owners) insofar as it generates more value then is returned to the laborer, i.e. needed to reproduce that labor power. It is immaterial what form this labor takes - e.g. assembly line work or service labor. The problem is that most labor processes today are socialized - as a result, surplus value is really the global outcome of the collective and socialized labor process and the contribution of individual workers can not be preciserly specified. So-called unproductive activtities, sales, supervision are in fact integral to the process of producing surplus value as a collective socialized activity. Let's not reproduce Senior "Last Hour." ----------------------------------------------------------------- Carl H.A. Dassbach E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Dept. of Social Sciences Phone: (906)487-2115 Michigan Technological University Fax: (906)487-2468 Houghton, MI 49931 USA
