raghu: > >What is the Marxist take on this new economy? Do most of the service > >sector jobs fall in the category of unproductive labor? After all > >security guards and cashiers do not create any use value. (Blackjack > >dealers arguably do create use value though of a dubious kind.) > >-raghu.
Louis Proyect wrote: > Didn't you mean to say that security guards and cashiers do not > produce surplus value? I myself find that distinction rather useless > since they are necessary to the realization of surplus value over the > entire productive sphere. guards and dealers definitely produce use-values; otherwise no-one would pay them. But, at least in Marxian political economy, they do not produce surplus-value. The guard simply preserves property rights, while the cashier transfers them. The worker who produces surplus-value -- who might be a service-worker, contrary to Adam Smith -- actually creates new property rights, which are held by the employer. Paul Phillips: >But Louis, isn't that the point. Unproductive labour must be paid out of > surplus value. As the ratio of unproductive to productive labour > increases, the rate of exploitation of productive labour must increase, no? -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
