paul phillips wrote: > > For what it is worth, I think there is some useful information gained > by making the distinction between productive and unproductive labour (as > defined by Jim) even though it is impossible to measure the distinction > with any degree of accuracy. I did some calculations for the postwar > period up to the 1980s looking at the rate of profit (conventionally > defined a la Doug) and the ratio of production workers to white collar > workers in Canada. My hypothesis was that the rising productivity and > capital accumulation in production initially produced high levels of
I wonder if everyone (on both sides) responding to this topic (not only in this thread, but in published works on the topic) is not assuming that Marx in his stumblings around this issue was trying to answer the same questions that "economists" try to answer. But what if one takes the same perspective as it is possible to take on the question of surplus value: that it isn't a price theory or a theory about allocation of scarce commodities but rather an attempt to explain how living human activity gets organized and allocated under given historical conditions -- in other words, that it too, as Rubin argued in the case of value theory, is essentially a theory about culture, not about technical economics. If that were the case, then it would still be worthwhile to fumble around exploring relations between it and technical economics, even making rough and ready (and probably erroneous) quantitative assessments. Different kinds of human activity are differently related to the dynamic of a given historical set of relations. The distinction between productive/unproductive (and perhaps reproductive) labor then can't either be accepted or rejected on the basis of economic statistics. ????? Does it make a historical and cultural difference (either within capitalism or in contrast to non-capitalist formations) how much human activity goes into information (advertising) about available commodities (physical and non-physical), how much goes into consumable commodities (physical or non-physical). If this speculation points in a right direction at all, then we have, among other things, a partial and tentative answer to the question often asked, Why didn't Marx finish Vols. II & III of _Capital_? Carrol Carrol
