On 6/7/06, paul phillips <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
it necessary to 'create' demand. That is, in order to realize surplus value as profits, they must augment demand through advertising, marketing, product design, etc. all of which employs unproductive (in a Marxist sence) labour that does not produce use value or surplus value but merely increases market value/price. But such labour must be paid out of the surplus value created in production.
It occurs to me that just as the worker cannot be reduced to mere labor power, the political economy cannot be explained entirely in the workings of the laws accumulation. There are two overarching dimensions to the political economy, domination and production. And it is crucial that production poses a threat to domination. Therefore waste is essential for preserving domination. It is a euphemism to call this waste "demand". It's purpose is not to facilitate an expanded production but to void the subversive potential of excess production that has *already* expanded. There is something Veblen-ish about this perspective and, in fact, the Veblenian, Stuart Chase wrote a book called "The Tragedy of Waste" (there should be a sequel, "The Farce of Waste"). To get an idea of what's happening, you have to set aside the building block view of capital accounting and consider the value of capital as the discounted present value of a projected future flow of revenues. The concept of "goodwill" is useful here. Goodwill is defined by Commons as the difference between the capitalization based on the present value of future revenues and the bricks-and-machines value of the "means of production". The role of unproductive labour from such a perspective is not to contribute to present production in anyway but to maintain the goodwill spread between the two kinds of capitalization. As such "goodwill ambassadors" these unproductive workers don't need to be employed by the capitalist firm, either directly or indirectly. They can write editorials for the Wall Street Journal or teach post-structuralist critical theory. -- Sandwichman
