I'm afraid that the whole discussion of unproductive labor in Marx is a cul-de-sac. Unproductive labor doesn't produce surplus-value directly. But that nice certainty goes away when "indirectly productive" labor (cf. Jim O'Connor) is introduced. It's also unclear what the theoretical use of unproductive labor is...
On 6/6/06, Walt Byars <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
From Ernest Mandel's introduction to the Penguin edition of Capital 2 "Productive labor, as labour expended in the realm of production of commodities, is all wage labor indispensible for that production process...even managers and stock clerks, insofar as the physical production of the commodity would be impossible without that labor. But wage labor which is indifferent to the specific use value of a commodity and is performed only to extort the maximum surplus value from the work force or to assure the defence of private property, labour linked to the particular social and juridicial forms of capitalist production (etc...) none of these is productive labor for capital" Why is this? He gives a cite to capital 1 but I couldn't understand Marx's argument. Why is only the labor PHYSICALLY necessary for the reproduction of a good factored into its value?
-- Jim Devine / "The crippling of individuals I consider the worst evil of capitalism. Our whole educational system suffers from this evil. An exaggerated competitive attitude is inculcated into the student, who is trained to worship acquisitive success as a preparation for his future career." -- Albert Einstein.
