LBird
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robbo203 wrote: “But as Adam points out the usefulness of the unproductive/productive dichotomy is that it enables us to see that there are limits to the size that the unproductive sector can grow before the economy starts feeling the pinch.“.
Well, I’ve responded to ALB’s statement, but he hasn’t explained this theory of ‘limits’. I’ve given examples (as has marcos) which undermine this theory of ‘limits’, so perhaps you could give a explanation of why those examples are not relevant, in your opinion.
robbo203 wrote: “You are still missing the point LBird.“.
I disagree, but I’m prepared to have it explained to me why I am supposedly doing so, by ALB or you. If neither of you can do so, I’ll be inclined to think that it’s not me who’s ‘missing the point’.
robbo203 wrote: “I dont think it is necessary for workers to understand the ramification of the unproductive/productive dichotomy but it is useful in the same way that Marx’s labour theory of value or his materialist conception of history is useful. Workers can establish a socialist society without any familiarity with these theories at all but understanding them helps“.
If this is true, what’s the point of these concepts, theories and conceptions? Who do they benefit? What’s the point of a socialist party discussing issues that are (apparently) irrelevant to their interests? Especially in these times of extremely low class consciousness, haven’t socialist parties got better things to do? Like explaining in language that workers can understand, employing concepts, theories and conceptions that they understand.
This is actually ‘the point’ that you and ALB seem to be ‘missing’.
This issue about ‘unproductive/productive’ is just a microcosm of a far bigger problem, which is: just who are these discussions meant to develop? Workers or academics? Are we building for socialism or for bourgeois universities?
marcos wrote: “Roosevelt created the Civil Service and the state employed millions of workers to work for the state and most of the jobs belonged to the unproductive sector of the US capitalist economy.”
Good point, marcos.
So, surely the adherents of the ‘unproductive/productive’ dichotomy would have to argue that these millions of ‘unproductive’ workers at least hampered, and at worst hamstrung, the US capitalist economy.
But, without these millions, how would the US capitalist economy have expanded and have come to dominate all others?
It seems obvious that without these millions, the US would have collapsed. No bureaucracy, no economy.
I still don’t get the point of regarding these issues as just one of ‘productivity’ (or ‘unproductivity’), because capitalism is as much a political as an economic system, and if the political input of ‘unproductive jobs’ strengthens and develops a capitalist economy, it makes a nonsense of theoretically separating the two.
Of course, at some point any capitalist economy will go into recession, but this has more to do with the nature of the system, than with supposedly ‘unproductive’ labour.
ALB wrote: “productive-of-surplus-value labour … sets limits to … the state…”.
Then, surely, ‘unproductive-of-surplus-value labour’ undoes or extends those ‘limits’ to state activities?
Can you give an historical example of a state reaching those ‘limits’, as determined by ‘surplus value’?
Surely, prior to that supposed ‘limit’ being reached, the state would collapse due to political factors, rather than this ‘economic’ factor? For example, the Nazi state collapsed because of human activity (mainly the Red Army’s), rather than any issue about ‘un-‘ or ‘productive’ factors.
The more we discuss this, the more I’m becoming critical of the concept, whether Marx is invoked in its support or not.
Did Marx think that this distinction was vital for the building of communism? And if not, why bother? Who benefits from reading texts like Cope’s?
rodshaw wrote: “So in what sense is it important?“.
I agree with your question, rod, and also add “And who is it important for?”.
If, as you suggest, “theoretically a majority could establish socialism without having the first idea about any difference” [my bold], who needs to draw this distinction, and why?
Why does a minority need to draw a distinction between supposedly ‘unproductive’ and ‘productive’? Who are this minority writing for? What’s the political point of this distinction?
robbo203 wrote: “All these developments pose massive questions for how we conceptualise the process of capitalist exploitation. It is something we need to pay much closer attention to in our literature” [my bold]
I’d also add ‘who’ socialists are conceptualising for (is it for workers, or for academics?), and ‘why’ the conceptualising is done in such an alienating way (is it meant to keep workers out of the debate?).
To bring Marx into our critical focus, regarding translations, who is Capital written for, why is Capital so difficult to understand, and how can we in the 21st century make Capital answer the ‘who’ and ‘why’ questions?
It is something we need to pay much closer attention to. ‘Conceptualisation’ precedes activity. Marx argued for theory and practice, not for the other way around.
robbo203 wrote: “[Cope] is using the concept of unproductive labour in the sense that Marx used it…“.
In itself, this argument from authority doesn’t mean that the concept (or its title) is invulnerable to criticism. Perhaps Marx should be criticised.
Or, perhaps Cope or you (or both of youse) are misunderstanding Marx.
I’ve had a good run at this issue, and you’ve understood my point, so I’ll leave it at that, and let you decide just what your critical approach should be to Cope’s text. On the whole, I think I’m a lot closer to you than I am to Cope.
But… things are relative.
I’m uncontrollably compelled to write “just as ‘material’ is relative to humans“, though I’m already slapping my own wrist! 🙂
robbo203 wrote: “LBird I think you are making a bit of meal of this.”
Hmmm… I could translate this for other workers as meaning ‘There’s no room for a worker to question the concepts employed by academics, who know better‘… But I won’t.
I think that I’ve made my point to you – if you fail to question Cope’s concepts, you’ll end up either agreeing with him about them (which you might want to do), or you’ll misunderstand his argument, and waste your valuable time attacking a straw man.
Further, and specifically about ‘unproductive’, if you’re happy with the concept being employed by both sides, go ahead and write a critique of Cope’s text. Personally, I’d rip his theoretical framework to shreds, and probably ignore the thus pointless task of giving his text serious detailed attention.
As for ‘exploitation’, if you agree that all ‘productive labour’ in this society is a product of ‘exploitation’, what’s the payoff for the average worker to spend time discerning between your ‘unproductive’ and your ‘productive’?
I’m inclined to advise workers that the ‘angels on a pinhead’-type debates are alive and well in academia, and are irrelevant to workers. The ‘left-wing’ academics are about as accurate about the supposed ‘workings of capitalism’ as are the bourgeois economists! Whether the texts of Marx, Keynes or Hayek are invoked as ‘The Bible’.
And I’d tell them to focus on your final statement:
robbo203 wrote: “Exploitation is a class-wide and an economy-wide phenomenon . It is not confined to one section of the working class … or one part of the globe (the Global South) as people like Zac Cope maintain”
Well, except for the bit I’ve deleted! I’d insert “… (black, white, men, women, gay, straight, domestic, immigrant, etc.)”.
ALB wrote: “The distinction between the two types of labour has to be made whatever name is given to each.”
Yes, I’ve already made this suggestion, ALB, earlier on the thread.
And I’ve explained why ‘un-‘ isn’t a useful term, given that surely we’re writing to explain the world that workers live in, and surely it should be in terms that are easy to grasp, rather than those that are counter-intuitive.
I’m a great believer in the theory that bourgeois academics consciously write as obscurely as possible, to actually prevent workers understanding what is being written, and so thus being able to criticise it.
A lot of what passes for ‘learning’ in bourgeois society will disappear within a democratic socialist society, where any ‘learning’ would be entirely democratic, in its concepts, theories, methods and results. Marx thought that ‘science’ would be ‘revolutionised’, and I can’t imagine that not meaning ‘democratised’.
Matthew Culbert wrote: “They are not being told this by academic elites, but by their fellow workers.”
That’s not true, Matthew.
At best, it’s ‘by some of their fellow workers’.
That is, ‘by academic elites and some of their fellow workers’.
I’d argue that those ‘some fellow workers’ have been ideologically duped by the ‘academic elites’. As you know, Marx argued that ‘the ruling ideas in any society are the ideas of the ruling class’. So, we’d expect ‘some fellow workers’ to vote for Johnson, too. There are all kinds of mistakes being made by our fellow workers, at present.
As to your claim, there are clearly some other fellow workers who disagree with this use of ‘unproductive’ by the academic elite, like Cope. I’m one, and I think marcos also expressed his disagreement with this usage, earlier, but I’ll leave it to him to clarify his own position.
ALB wrote: “No judgement is implied on the importance or worth of either type of work … productive and unproductive labour“.
This encapsulates really well, the point I was making.
For the vast majority of workers, the judgement is implied by the prefix ‘un’.
They’re the ones working really hard for shit wages, being told by their academic betters, who really understand this sort of stuff, that they are unproductive.
Still, as long as the ‘class conscious’ elite understand our world, socialism will be along in a jiffy.
Hmmm… how long has Marx been dead? And how well has this ‘materialist analysis’ of the ‘objective facts’ fared in producing class consciousness in the masses? The unproductive masses, that is.
Thanks for your considered reply, robbo. I’m not ignoring the rest of your post, about the socio-historical specifics of the different ‘surpluses’ produced in different modes of production, but I don’t think that you’ve got to the core of the problem (which, to me, is the failure to question the ‘concepts’ being used by Cope and you).
robbo203 wrote: “You ask why then differentiate between ‘productive’ and supposedly ‘unproductive’? Marx actually talked of workers being “productive” in the sense that you probably have in mind – that is, productive of use values. But he also used the term productive in another more specific sense – productive of surplus value .”
If there are two ‘senses’ in which ‘productive’ is being used, why not give them different names? Worse, why give one of these ‘senses’ the apparently opposite meaning of ‘unproductive’? Why not call them ‘non-surplus-value-productive’ and ‘surplus-value-productive’, for example?
At least this mouthful would make it clear to any worker reading, who does this former type of work, that they are not ‘unproductive’, which carries moral overtones, and seems to suggest that these supposedly ‘unproductive’ workers are ‘wasters’ of some sort. It would be clearer to them that they are just as productive as any other worker who works hard, and the real issue is of ‘academics’ arguing over foggy terms, like ‘surplus value’, which they like to pretend are ‘objective’ concepts, which workers should have no place in determining, and so the academics can talk over the heads of those workers, as the academics are doing ‘objective science’, which doesn’t require the participation of workers themselves.
The reason that I think you should critically examine Cope’s concepts, is to compare them with your own, see if they are actually different, and if they are, to realise that any critique that you make without this examination would be pointless, because you’d be arguing at cross-purposes.
Further, it would make it obvious to any workers reading, that there are not actually any ‘objective’ terms, which everyone agrees upon (like ‘unproductive’ or ‘productive’), but that their own active, critical participation in any political debate about ‘production’ in their own society, is indispensable to that debate.
It’s my political opinion that whilst ‘academics’ think that they have access to a set of ‘objective’ concepts, and so they don’t need to consult workers about concepts, those academics will continue to discuss ‘capitalism’ without the active participation of workers. To put it bluntly, bourgeois academics will continue to talk out of their arses about something which they don’t understand – and so, not surprisingly, workers will continue to ignore those academics, who aren’t half as bright as they think that they are.
Let’s face it, as long as supposed ‘socialists’ are telling most poor, hard-working, struggling workers in ‘the West’ that they are ‘unproductive’, we shouldn’t be surprised when many of those workers prefer Trump and Johnson, to those ‘socialists’.
I should finish on a positive note, that I’m sympathetic to your criticism of Cope’s elitist ‘Global North Labour Aristocracy’ assumptions; it’s just that I’d widen your criticism to other similar targets (like ‘Scientific Socialism’, for example, which has similar elitist contempt for democratic controls on its activities, as do the likewise Leninist-inspired ‘labour aristocrat’ theorists). Lenin’s ‘theories’ were patronising bullshit then, and still are now.
marcos wrote: “Economical explotación is extraction of surplus value, therefore, if unproductive labor is exploited they also produce surplus value“.
I have to agree with marcos’ definition, here.
That is, there is an unbreakable link between ‘surplus value’ and ‘exploitation’. One can’t ‘exist’ without the other. It’s hard to think of ‘exploitation’ not producing ‘surplus value’ (surely that’s what makes it ‘exploitation’), and likewise think of ‘surplus value’ not being produced by ‘exploitation’ (otherwise, ‘surplus value’ could be produced by non-exploited labour, or, indeed, machines). Marx was talking about a parasitic social relationship, when he was writing Capital.
This can be put simply for workers. Marx regards the bourgeoisie as vampires, and the proletariat as their victims. In line with this metaphor, we can regard ‘exploitation’ as ‘biting of the neck with the purpose of drawing blood to sustain a vampire’, and ‘surplus value’ as ‘blood drawn by a neck-biting vampire in its compulsion to survive’.
robbo203 wrote: “If that is the case and if unproductive workers are exploited, would it not be better to say exploitation involves any that enables the extraction of an economic surplus. This would cover both the direct producers of surplus value and unproductive workers”
Yes, I agree with you here, robbo.
But then, if we follow your suggestion, why differentiate between ‘productive’ and supposedly ‘unproductive’?
If for any political purpose you required a distinction, why not ‘directly productive’ and ‘indirectly productive’, and lose the unhelpful category of ‘unproductive’, which labels many workers, who work hard all their lives, as seemingly morally tainted?
Again put simply, do you think that the Ford bosses could get along with only car workers (‘productive’) and have no-one to clean the shithouses in their mansions (‘unproductive’)?
And once this issue is settled, where does Cope stand on this ‘exploitative social relationship’? Does he personally clean the shithouses in his academy, or just simply label this work as ‘unproductive’? And pat those workers on the head?
Can the bosses survive with dirty bogs?
robbo203 wrote: “I am particularly concerned with his argument about unproductive labour and exploitation…“.
Again, given what you’ve written, we seem to agree upon the need for philosophical criticism of Cope’s work.
I’d advise you to define both your and his concepts, so that we have ‘robbo-unproductive-labour’ and ‘robbo-exploitation’, contrasted with ‘Cope-unproductive-labour’ and ‘Cope-exploitation’.
So, in your concern quoted above, which pairs of concepts are you using, his or yours, or do you consider Cope’s to be identical with yours?
It’d be very easy for any worker reading this, to assume that ‘unproductive labour’ and ‘exploitation’ are already fixed, objective, unchanging, non-dynamic terms, which can simply be ‘accepted as read’.
This would be a big mistake for any socialist to make.
We always lose arguments where we begin debates by accepting the ‘terms and conditions’ of our opponents’ making. Unsurprisingly enough.
From what you’ve replied, robbo, you seem to agree with the point I was making.
Which, as you say, leads us to Cope:
“Cope’s argument is that GDP based figures, which are measurable…“.
This is simply the same problem, as saying “Cope’s argument is that Ghost-based figures, which are measurable…“.
If one believes in ‘ghosts’, they ‘are measurable’.
The point is, just what is being ‘measured’.
“Yet his argument depends on being able to measure this “value transfer”…“.
I wouldn’t give his ‘argument’ much credence, robbo… ‘measurement’ always requires a ‘measurer’ and their ‘measures’… and all three are social products.
My advice is to interrogate his political, philosophical and ideological beliefs, prior to trying to understanding his ‘measuring’. If you take his assumptions, theories and concepts without critical examination, you’ll fail to see the weaknesses of his ‘argument’.
robbo203 wrote: “Productive workers are those workers who produce surplus value by producing commodities; unproductive workers are those who do not produce commodities or surplus value but are in effect paid out of surplus value.”
I’d suggest that your ‘definition’ has serious problems, robbo.
I’d ask the question of that ‘definition’ – ‘Productive for who?’.
I think that you’d answer ‘Productive for surplus value’, and that ‘surplus value’ is an objective measure.
But, according to Marx, ‘surplus value’ is a social product, and so is not simply an ‘objective’ entity, but is as much a ‘subjective’ entity. If so, at that point, we can provide the answer ‘Productive for a subject’.
Further, if one defines various social subjects, like proletariat and bourgeoisie, then we’d have ‘Productive for exploiters’ and ‘Productive for exploited’.
I think that your fundamental problem is that you accept a definition which has been provided by the bourgeoisie as a supposedly ‘objective measure’, and so your definition starts with ‘Production for exploiters’, rather than a definition for us, the exploited majority.
‘Surplus value’ cannot be measured, because it’s not a pre-existing ‘object’, but something that changes with class struggle. Measures and measurement change.
We have to define ‘productive’, before we can begin to examine our notions of ‘Unproductive labour and exploitation‘.
