robbo203
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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.
There is no chance of that. He is using the concept of unproductive labour in the sense that Marx used it to mean workers who do not produce commodities/surplus value and inferring from this that they are not exploited to back up his general point that the workers in the developed economies are not exploited because according to him they consume more value than they produce. THAT is what I am attacking and it is certainly not a straw man argument
Of course, if workers in the developed economies consumed more in value terms than what they produced there would be no point in setting and operating a business anywhere in the developed world since there would be no profit to be made in doing so. Where the developed world would acquire the means of purchase goods made in the Global South is anyone’s guess. For more than two decades now many big corporations in the West have been cutting their ties with the whole business of producing stuff and have been focussing instead on branding the finished product for sale in Western stores (see Naomi Klein’s book No Logo on this)
Incidentally this idea of Cope’s – that whether or not one is exploited as a worker depends on a net balance between the production and consumption of value – has a certain homologous relationship to the way sections of the left define imperialism . An imperialist nation is defined as one which has net balance in terms of income flows in the form of profit rent and interest. So China by this criterion is considered not to be an imperialist country despite the fact that Chinese capital penetrates most parts of the world
LBird I think you are making a bit of meal of this. Marx himself talked of workers being unproductive in the narrow technical sense of not producing surplus value. But as I mentioned before, he also talked of workers being productive in the wider sense of producing use values. So a person who is being unproductive in the narrow sense can be productive in the wider sense that Marx referred to. So long as you qualify what you are talking about I dont see that there should be a problem.
Its not being derogatory as long as you explain what you mean by the term. Its not a reflection on the person but on the job they do. Years ago I worked a brief stint in the tax office. I was bored stiff with the job and would have readily concurred with anyone who said I was doing unproductive work in every sense of the term. Workers DO often feel alienated from their work – particularly when the see it as being pointless and producing no obvious social benefit
In the narrow sense, unproductive work as a category is, I believe, very useful from the standpoint of understanding the mechanics of capitalism. I am quite interested in Fred Moseley’s argument that the growth of unproductive labour has contributed to a falling rate of profit in the post war era at least among the advanced capitalist economies. There are of course half a dozen or so counter tendencies to the falling rate of profit that Marx touched upon but the interesting thing about Marx’s model and his prpductive/unproductive dichotomy is that it enables you to see how certain structural constraints might come into play and even to predict or anticipate certain developments that might arise from the fact that there are limits to the size of the unproductive sector in the economy.
However, this thread is essentially concerned with the relation between unproductive labour and exploitation. I want to reiterate the central point that is being made – that just because some workers perform unproductive work (dont produce surplus value) does NOT mean they are not exploited. You dont have to produce surplus value to be exploited. Productive labour is only the visible tip of the iceberg, for that iceberg to keep afloat it requires unproductive labour as well
Exploitation is a class-wide and an economy-wide phenomenon . It is not confined to one section of the working class (productive workers) or one part of the globe (the Global South) as people like Zac Cope maintain
Ah yes and I forgot include the (very Leninist ) conclusions Cope draws from the passage quoted above
“By the foregoing measures, then, there is absolutely no reason to suppose that the average OECD worker has any material stake in anti-imperialism. As Emmanuel astutely remarked:
If by some miracle, a socialist and fraternal system, regardless of its type or model, were introduced tomorrow morning the world over, and if it wanted to integrate, to homogenise mankind by equalising living standards, then to do this it would not only have to expropriate the capitalists of the entire world, but also dispossess large sections of the working class of the industrialised countries, of the amount of surplus-value these sections appropriate today. It seems this is reason enough for these working classes not to desire this “socialist and fraternal” system, and to express their opposition by either openly integrating into the existing system, as in the United States of America or the Federal Republic of Germany, or by advocating national paths to socialism [sic], as in France or Italy.101
In fact, the metropolitan working class has struggled to preserve its affluence politically within the imperialist state structure and has adopted concomitant ideologies of national, racial and cultural supremacy, including, but certainly not limited to, a complacent and conservative self-regard. As capitalist oligopolies come to dominate global production, workers in the dominant nations are able to secure better life prospects through their monopoly of jobs paying wages supplemented by superprofits”So basically according to Cope , we’re stuffed. Workers in the global north are not going to opt for socialism (cos its in their material interests to stick with the capitalist exploitation of the global south). And workers in the global south will presumably be too preoccupied in in engaging in so called national liberation struggles – linking arms with their own capitalists – against imperialism to be concerned with expressing solidarity with their brothers and sisters in the north who have grown fat at their expense.
Anyway, you can see now why this issue that I have raised in this raised is actually of quite fundamental importance and need to be addressed
I have been wading through Cope’s book making notes as I go along. This passage sums up the argument he advances and demonstrates how heavily he relies on the implicit assumption that unproductive workers cannot be exploited because they do not produce surplus value. Since the size of the unproductive sector in the Global North is so large (and the size of the productive sector so correspondingly small) it follows , according to Cope, that it depends on the transfer of value from the global south to the global north via the mechanisms of export capital (and repatriated profits) and unequal exchange. In other words, the working class as a whole in the Global North is a net recipient of surplus value rather than producer of it and to that extent is indistinguishable from the capitalists, depending upon the super-exploitation of the workers in the global South where the overwhelming bulk of the productive workforce reside:
“It is the unavoidable conclusion of the present work that the profits of the capitalist class in the OECD (that is, the “top i%” fixated on by social democrats of various stripes) are entirely derived from the superexploitation of the non-OECD productive workforce. Whilst the above calculations indicate that no net profits are generated by the OECD (productive) working class (in the absence of superprofits, these would be completely nullified), there is, however, the matter of the wages of the OECD’s unproductive workforce to consider. Since our estimates of transferred superprofits do not cover the reproduction costs of OECD unproductive labour-power as well as profits, but only the latter, it may appear that the surplus value generated by OECD productive workers goes in its entirety to pay the wages of the unproductive OECD workforce. Even assuming that the wages of unproductive workers in the OECD are paid for out of surplus value generated by the productive workers in the OECD, it is clear that the OECD working class tout court receives the full value of its labour and is, to that extent, a bourgeois working class. Yet it must be understood that whilst the present work does not prove that OECD productive workers do not produce surplus value, it also does not prove that they do. In fact, were OECD profits to be wholly negated through equal remuneration of labour globally, according to equivalent “productivity” and wage levels, there would be a precipitate decline in nominal OECD GDP. Capitalism would collapse utterly, at least in the OECD countries. Given such a scenario, it is scarcely tenable to imagine that the tiny productive-sector working class in the OECD could possibly produce enough surplus value to pay the wages of the bloated unproductive sector. The conclusion reached here, moreover, follows from calculations which are almost certainly overly generous to the First Worldist position, despite demonstrating that the entirety of net profits in the OECD is derived from imperialism. A more reasonable account (one less friendly to First Worldist prejudices) would surmise that if around 80% of the worlds productive labour is performed in the Third World by workers earning less than 10% of the wages of First World workers, that provides not only the profits of the haute bourgeoisie in the OECD, but also the economic foundation for the massive expansion of retail, administration and security services.”
P207-8
Alan,
I think the term “Third World” was introduced in 1950s by a French political scientist (whose name I forget) and popularised by the British sociologist Peter Worsley. It was intended to distinguish this bloc from the first world and the second world (the soviet bloc et al). I am guessing the distinction between developing world and developed world came into fashion shortly after that. The rise of dependency theorists in the 1970s/80s also introduced another term – underdevelopment. The developed core countries were said to systemically block development and industrialisation in the peripheral countries – thus “underdeveloping” them and forcing them to rely on the export of low value primary goods – agricultural and mining products – for processing in the industrialised countries . The Dependency school of thought was proved wrong by the rise of the “Newly Industrialising countries” -another term – exemplified by the Asian Tiger economies like South Korea, Taiwan etc. and of course China. The global north/global south distinction tends to be the terminology currently in use but is confusing for obvious reasons
LBird
I take your point about the term unproductive labour sounding a bit pejorative but remember this is the term Marx himself used as an analytical category with which to examine the workings of the capitalist economy. Marx made it very clear that by unproductive labour he was not suggesting that the work involved was not useful. All he was saying was that it detracted from the production of surplus value since it was financed out of surplus value. The larger the component of unproductive labour in the workforce, the less surplus value there was available for reinvestment as capital and the expanded reproduction of capital. This was an argument Marx derived directly from Adam Smith and I think the productive/unproductive distinction is not only legitimate but quite significant as a way of understanding developments in capitalism (though neoclassical bourgeois economists deny this).
Here is a link to Marx.
https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch02b.htm
Note his comment: “Only the narrow-minded bourgeois, who regards the capitalist form of production as its absolute form, hence as the sole natural form of production, can confuse the question of what are productive labour and productive workers from the standpoint of capital with the question of what productive labour is in general, and can therefore be satisfied with the tautological answer that all that labour is productive which produces, which results in a product, or any kind of use value, which has any result at all”
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’
The problem with this, LBird, is that if you assume there is an “unbreakable link” exploitation and the production of surplus value then where does that leave workers who do not produce surplus value in Marx’s account? Are they not therefore exploited? I would say they are and the fact that they are unproductive has got nothing to do with it.
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 . He argued that surplus value was peculiar or unique to capitalism, in other kinds of class society the economic surplus takes other forms
So contrary to what you say its actually quite easy to think of ‘exploitation’ not producing ‘surplus value’. In feudalism the serfs were exploited but they did not produce surplus value. I mention this because of there are some strands of Marxism like the (late) analytical Marxist G A Cohen who insisted that Marx’s labour theory of value has little bearing on the question of exploitation (Cohen himself seems to have regarded capitalist exploitation as not dissimilar to feudal exploitation)
In a sense you are correct. The production of surplus value lies at the capitalist exploitation. But is only a necessary not a sufficient condition of the latter. This is because surplus value has to be realised in circulation and for that you need unproductive workers. Capitalism without unproductive workers in this sense would simply not be able to function.
Why I am banging about this? Its because I think the matter has quite significant implications. Cope and his ilk are arguing that in effect the workers of the Global North are not exploited but constitute a “labour aristocracy” and that, in effect, their material interests are aligned with the metropolitan capitalists in exploiting the low paid workers of the global South. This is a surprisingly common sentiment and flourishes among handwringing liberals who go on about how “we” in the “West” live such a privileged and pampered existence at the expense of the rest of the world. As if poverty doesn’t exist in the West and privilege doesn’t exist in the non-West.
One of the arguments Cope uses to support his thesis is precisely this argument about unproductive labour. The bulk of workers in the West are now unproductive -they dont produce surplus value – and we are invited to infer from this that they are therefore not exploited. Manufacturing in particular has been steadily relocated and outsourced to the global South over the past few decades. It is, thus, in the global South where more and more productive work is to be found and where wages are a fraction of the wages in the global North (Cope argues that this is not a reflection of differences in productivity and that such differences are far less than might be supposed)
There are many aspects of his argument which simply do not add up to my mind. But the important thing to note about it concerns what we can infer from what he is saying. Cope’s “Anti-imperialism” is emphatically positing that the basic cleavage in contemporary capitalist society as being not between the global working class and the global capitalist class but rather between what Lenin called the oppressor or imperialist countries and the oppressed countries. Obviously that is a view to which we would be fundamentally opposed!
Economical exploitation is extraction of surplus value, therefore, if unproductive labor is exploited they also produce surplus value
Well, not according to Marx. Marx is quite clear that unproductive workers dont produce surplus value. 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
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’.
Well, I would go along with Marx in saying that unproductive labour is labour that does not produce surplus value but is paid for out of surplus value. Where I disagree with Cope is in his suggestion that unproductive labour is not exploited. Unproductive labour might not itself produce surplus value but it is necessary for the realisation of surplus value. Commodities dont sell themselves. Capitalism needs unproductive workers as well as productive workers. Both are part of the working class which encompasses all those who are obliged to sell their working abilities for a wage or salary in order to live and exploitation itself is a class wide phenomenon. It cannot be simply be understood in terms of a single business exploiting its own workforce. It is social and it applies to ALL workers whether they do unproductive work or productive work and whether they live in the global north or the global south
If you take his assumptions, theories and concepts without critical examination, you’ll fail to see the weaknesses of his ‘argument’.
I can assure you that’s exactly what I am not doing – taking his assumptions etc without critical examination. I am particularly concerned with his argument about unproductive labour and exploitation and already have noted a number of inconsistences if not downright contradictions in what he has to say. If people here want to look at the argument go to the link below. I suggest focus on Part 2 – Global Value Transfer and Stratified Labour Today” – which gets to the heart of the argument. Much of the rest is just sociologising.
It is evidently a key book in the so called anti-imperialist milieu and in some respects deeply hostile to the outlook of revolutionary socialism. It is a worth a read for that very reason.
https://www.prisoncensorship.info/archive/books/Economics/DividedWorldDividedClass_ZakCope.pdf
LBird I am simply using Marx’s definition of productive workers as follows without making any assumptions
From volume I of Capital: ‘That labourer alone is productive, who produces surplus value for the capitalist, and who thus works for the self expansion of capital…Hence the notion of a productive labourer implies not merely a relation between work and useful effect, between labourer and product of labour, but also a specific, social relation of product, a relation that has sprung up historically and stamps the labourer as the direct means of creating surplus-value”
I understand the point you are making about the inherent difficulty of “objectively” measuring surplus value. You cannot measure abstract labour in the way that you can concrete labour with a stop watch. It is a constantly shifting industrial average which only reveals itself, so to speak, in aposteriori fashion in the exchange ratios of commodities – their prices – in the long run
Cope’s argument is that GDP based figures, which are measurable, conceal or obscure the value transfers that are happening through global spatial economy and that differential productivity rates between groups of workers in different parts of the world are thoroughly misleading precisely they are couched in terms of value added to GDP. Yes, we can infer from pure theory that workers in more capital intensive industries are more productive (and hence more highly paid) than in labour intensive industries and that there will be a redistribution of surplus value from the latter to the former via the tendency for profit rates to equalise. But how exactly one is supposed to measure all this I cannot see. Yet his argument depends on being able to measure this “value transfer” from the global south to global north which he says cannot be done using GDP data
Isn’t this another expression of the Leninist “aristocracy of labour” where those in the developed world are bribed by imperialism to hold a complacent view about Third World exploitation.
Yes but Lenin’s labour aristocracy theory did not deny that workers in the developed capitalist countries were exploited. Cope’s theory on the other hand does and on the grounds that workers there are the net recipients of value rather than creators of value
I am still trying to figure out Cope’s reasoning for this. He claims for example that through the mechanism of unequal exchange when ” goods enter into imperialist-country markets, their prices are multiplied several fold, sometimes by as much as 1,000%.” On the face of it that seems to suggest that workers the “imperialist-country markets” will need substantially higher incomes to afford these products anyway by comparison with the “oppressed countiries” – to use Leninspeak – where they are available at a fraction of the price.
Another example, I guess, of Britain “taking back control” in the wake of the Huawei decision. LOL
Talking of pets there is another aspect to consider
With cats you do notice the effect. One of the places I work at here in Spain managing the land and tending to the gardens had a few cats. One of these in particular was a pretty efficient killing machine (the others were just too fat and pampered to be up to the job). Freddy the cat (named after Freddy Scissorhands for obvious reasons) despatched birds, rats, lizards and geckos on an almost daily basis, sometimes devouring them whole, other times just biting off their heads. Ironically, poor Freddy. lovable character though he was in other ways, succumbed to disease which the vet reckoned was passed on to him by the very wildlife he killed. He turned blind and was put down. But I cant help noticing the return of wildlife and in particular birdsong since his passing
Another fallout from the Brexit saga – problems between Spain and the UK over Gibraltar. I noticed on Spanish telly yesterday that on the news there were interviews with Spanish people living in London express concern about their future status in the UK
Also this
https://www.ccn.com/israeli-analyst-one-coronavirus-conspiracy-theory-less-crazy-than-you-think/
But the above seems to be dismissed as conspiracy theory according to this
https://www.bbc.com/news/blogs-trending-51271037
