Devine, James wrote: >this is a common mistake, i.e., that of assigning some sort of >normative meaning to value or surplus-value, when these are >normative only from the perspective of commodity-producing society >or capitalism (respectively). The attachment of normative meaning to >surplus-value occurs when people think of productive labor (i.e., >labor that produces surplus-value) as a good thing aside from being >good for capitalists.
You're right about how Marx used the concept, but many Marxists have taken the productive/nonproductive distinction very seriously. It completely distorted Soviet planning priorities, for example - it was much more important to produce machine tools than consumer goods (especially frivolous things like tampons). Doug
