Jayson Funke wrote: > > Might part of the problem lie in a static view of finance as inherently > > incapable of value-production? Surely finance, in the same way that industry > > has become more financial (by expanding credit provisioning and financial > > investing etc), has also expanded its range of operations into > > value-producing activities. For example, when I worked at Mellon Financial > > we produced tax returns, investment reports, and many custodial services in > > which my labor added value to a product sold to clients. Is menial physical > > labor the only labor that adds value?
raghu wrote: > Why does "menial" work have to be necessarily physical (and why does > physical work have to be menial?) Surely WalMart checkout desks and > McDonald drive-through windows do not involve burning a lot of > calories but it is about as menial as it gets right? "menial" or non-menial has nothing to do with labor being productive or unproductive. What makes labor "productive" in the Marxian system is that it contributes to the aggregate pool of surplus-value. It's not productive in some moral sense (except according to bourgeois morality). It's not productive from the working-class perspective. if they simply involve changing who has property rights for some commodities, work at "WalMart checkout desks and McDonald drive-through windows" is not productive in Marx's sense. (It's part of the necessary overhead.) if the people who work there provide services beyond that, they can be productive. -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
