Speaking of unproductive labour, I just posted to another mailing list --
swt, shorter worktime list -- a draft essay about a seminal discussion of
unproductive labour, fictitious capital, inconvertible paper money and
superfluous things. It's an introductory essay to Charles Wentworth Dilke's
anonymously published pamphlet, The Source and Remedy of the National
Difficulties, mentioned in a footnote in the preface by Engels to vol. II
of Capital. According to Engels, Marx saved the pamphlet from falling into
oblivion. Well, Marx may have saved it from total oblivion, but I
transcribed it and posted it on the internet!
Here's the essay:
http://www.worklessparty.org/timework/srintro.pdf
...and here's the transcribed pamphlet:
http://www.worklessparty.org/timework/source%20and%20remedy.pdf
Jim Devine wrote,
there's economics and then there's economics. the unproductive/productive
distinction may make no sense in terms of neoclassical economics (though
many
NCs see government labor as unproductive), but it makes sense in terms of
Marxian economics. U labor doesn't contribute to surplus-value, whereas P
labor
does.
I don't know if the concept U/P is very useful, though.
Tom Walker
604 255 4812
