Productive and Inproducyive Labor Wolf Resnick

7/27/2019 Productive and Inproducyive Labor Wolf Resnick

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Encyclopedia of Political Economy, Volume 2: L-Z

Productive and unproductive labor

The notion of productive-unproductive activities has been with political economy at least since the timeof the physiocrats and CLASSICAL POLITICAL ECONOMY. The revival of interest in politicaleconomy in the 1960s has seen a similar burgeoning of interest in this theme, not only among Marxists(see below), but also feminists (see DOMESTIC LABOR DEBATE) and even relatively conservativeclassical economists (see Bacon and Eltis 1976).

Definitions

Marxs definition of productive labor and hence its differences from unproductive labor seem clearenough: Productive labour is thereforein the system of capitalist produc-tionlabour whichproduces surplus value (Marx 18623:396). Despite Marxs sharp demarcationproductive labor

produces surplus value while unproductive does notMarxists and others have encountered difficultiesin using these categories for social analysis. Different concepts of productive/unproductive labor arose(in part because Marx too was sometimes inconsistent in his usage); see surveys in Resnick and Wolff(1987:13241) and Howard and King (1985:12832). Some defined the concepts in terms of the socialusefulness of the products; productive labor yielded useful products while unproductive did not. Othersmade productive that labor whose product took a commodity or monetized form. Still others focusedthe distinction in terms of whether the labor was performed in a capitalist (hence productive) versus anon-capitalist (unproductive) class structure. Nor does this exhaust the list of different definitions.

Proliferating and often incompatible definitions have pushed the entire demarcation to the margins ofmost political economy discourse. Yet Marxs productive/unproductive distinction remains important to

class analysis, to the identification of exploitation and its consequences, and to much of politicaleconomy. Discarding the distinction would incur significant costs in terms of foregone social analysis.Because the stakes are high, the question to pose is: can we retain Marxs distinction betweenproductive and unproductive labor, while recognizing the theoretical and political importance of theissues raised by the major alternative conceptualizations since Marx? The following examples try toanswer this question.

Productive labor

Consider a capitalist enterprise that produces and sells a security service (protecting property and/orpersons). The economic processes occurring in the enterprise include: (a) the purchase of labor powerfor an equivalent value wage; (b) a labor process of working to produce the security service (a

particular usevalue); (c) the enterprises sale of that produced service for a money equivalent; and (d) aclass process in which the worker labors for six hours producing, say, $75 worth of security (assumedequal to his or her value wage) and two additional or surplus hours producing $25 worth. This lattersurplus value is received by the enterprises Board of Directors, acting as the consumer of thepurchased labor power: The only productive worker is one whose labour=the productive consumptionof labour power (Marx 1867:1039).


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The concrete labor of producing security is also, in Marxian terms, productive labor, for it produces asurplus value ($25) embodied in the sold capitalist commodity (worth $100). Thus, the definition ofproductive labor does not depend upon (a) what a buyer does with that purchased commodity; or (b)

the revenue source out of which it is purchased. Nor does (c) the physical nature of the LABORPROCESS or its outputa good or, as in this example, the service of providing securitydeterminewhether or not the labor in question is productive (Rubin 1928:260; Marx 18623: 401). Rather, it alldepends on the context, especially the social relations of production.

This example of a capitalist firm, which specializes in the production and sale of security services canbe extended to include a myriad of other services and material products produced in and by capitalistenterprises. These include services such as doctoring, accounting, advertising, cleaning and childrearing, and products such as armaments, narcotics, luxury goods of all sorts, and entertainment. Eachof these different kinds of concrete labor and their respectively produced services and products mayinvolve productive labor, depending upon the specific set of economic processes specified in each case.

Unproductive labor

An example of unproductive labor illustrates this key conclusion. Consider a different enterprise,indeed any one not engaged in selling a security service as its business. We shall suppose that this newenterprise produces and sells automobiles. However, suppose as well that in this enterprise there alsooccurs the same labor process of working to produce a security service (the same use-value as in ourfirst example), but this time security is used to protect the automobile factory from theft and damage.Once again, the security worker sells labor power for the same wage (of $75), and works the same eighthours producing the same service.

Because this enterprise does not produce security services for exchange (for any equivalent value), thesecurity worker produces no value, surplus or otherwise. Although this worker performs the sameconcrete labor as in the first example, working the same number of hours and receiving the same wage,such labor is now classified as unproductive. While being unproductive of surplus value, the securityworker does instead secure a condition for others inside this enterprise, the automobile workers, toproduce surplus value. It is important to underscore that categorizing a particular labor as unproductivehas nothing to do with the relative importance of that labor. While automobile labor produces surplusvalue, security workers are also required to provide capitalists with, say, protection of their factories,offices, records and so on. Without such protection, the surplus value produced by the automobileworkers would be jeopardized.

The board of directors of the capitalist automobile corporation distributes a portion of the surplus valuerealized from automobile sales to purchase the unproductive labor power of these security workers.

Consistent with our examples, this portion is $75. Thus, the automobile enterprises productive laborproduces the surplus out of which unproductive labor is paid. Productive and unproductive laborersenable and sustain one another: each provides conditions of the others existence. The designationsproductive and unproductive refer to their locations within capitalist enterprises, according to theirdifferent relationships to the production and distribution of the surplus.

Other unproductive laborers located outside the enterprise may include those engaged in moneylendingand the buying and selling of commodities (merchanting). Suppose workers in banks or merchantenterprises receive wages to produce, respectively, financial or merchanting services resulting in theloan of money to or the purchase of commodities from the automobile capitalist. If these respective


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commodities in markets; its productive laborers would produce surplus value that the state enterprisesboard of directors would appropriate and distribute. In this case, the state enterprises automobile laborwould be classified as state (rather than private) productive labor. Likewise, any security workers hiredby such a state automobile enterprise would be state (rather than private) unproductive laborers. Thepoint is that whether labor is productive or not depends on the processes occurring in the producingenterprise (who produces surplus, who provides conditions of existence for such surplus production,

and so on). It does not depend on whether such an enterprise is located within the state or outside as aprivate entity (Marx 18623:157).

Small business

A final example considers a non-capitalist enterprise, in this case a self-employed individual business.He or she establishes an enterprise that produces and sells security services. Labor is performed andcommodities are sold, but these processes occur without any capitalist class process consuming thepurchased labor power of others and appropriating their produced surplus value. Instead, labor andcommodity exchange occur together with a different class process. Suppose this individual labors forsix hours producing $75 worth of security services which he/she sells and takes as his/her salary.Suppose, further, that this individual then works two additional hours producing $25 of additional

security services sold in the market. This yields a surplus value of $25 which the individual distributesto secure his self-employed business (hiring an accountant, lawyer, and so on). In this case, theindividual who produces this surplus also appropriates and distributes it. As Marx noted (18623:4078), this is not a capitalist class processwhere surplus is produced by some people and appropriatedand distributed by othersbut rather something else.

Growth and accumulation

A lively debate has begun as to how these notions of productive-unproductive labor may be applied tothe question of the profitability, growth and ACCUMULATION of capital over the past fifty years.Moseley (1991), for instance, argues that the deteriorating profit on capital is due mainly to an

increasing proportion of unproductive as against productive workers being employed in capitalistenterprises. Others, for instance Cullenberg (1994), argue that the question of profitability and growthis too complex to be reduced to a simple arithmetic ratio such as this. The debate is ongoing (seeFALLING RATE OF PROFIT TENDENCY).

Conclusion

Both productive and unproductive labor are employed by capital and receive a wage in exchange fortheir labor power. But whereas productive labor produces surplus value and is exploited by capitaldirectly, unproductive labor reproduces the conditions of existence for others to produce surplus valueand be exploited by capital. Unproductive workers may also indirectly reduce the TURNOVER TIME

OF CAPITAL, and hence indirectly promote surplus value. Marx reserved the categories of productiveand unproductive labor for capitalist and not for non-capitalist (self-employed, slave, feudal and stillother) arrangements. A considerable scope exists for utilizing these concepts for an analysis of thedynamics of modern capitalism.

See also:

advertising and the sales effort; circuit of social capital; class structures of households; economicsurplus; finance capital; labor and labor power; monetary theory of production; monopoly capitalism;research and development; surplus approach to development; surplus approach to political economy;


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use-value and exchange-value

Selected references

Bacon, R. and Eltis, W. (1976)Britains Economic Problem: Too Few Producers, London: Macmillan.

Cullenberg, Stephen (1994) Unproductive Labor and the Contradictory Movement of the Rate of

Profit: A Comment on Moseley,Review of Radical Political Economics 26 (2): 11121.Howard, M.C. and King, J.E. (1985) The Political Economy of Marx, London and New York:Longman.

Marx, K. (18623) Theories of Surplus Value, part 1, Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1969.

Marx, K. (1867)Das Kapital, published as Capital 1, New York: Penguin Books, 1990.

Moseley, Fred (1991) The Falling Rate of Profit in the Postwar United States Economy, London:Macmillan.

Resnick, S. and Wolff, R. (1987) Knowledge and Class, Chicago and London: University of ChicagoPress.

Rubin, I.I. (1928)Essays on Marxs Theory of Value, Detroit: Black and Red, 1972.

STEPHEN RESNICK

RICHARD D.WOLFF

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Productive and Inproducyive Labor Wolf Resnick