Who is Working Class?

[Mathew Forstater]

I disagree on the crudely technical comment.  Material ouput is not the
issue for Marx, creation of surplus value is.  And Marx gives examples of
occupations that in his definition are productive that do not produce
material output (depending of course on how one defines "material").  I
believe examples include some teachers, opera singers, circus performers,
and also some transportation and storage services.  The productive/
unproductive distinction is not the same as necessary/unnecessary or
goods/services.  Also, Marx and Engels did not exclude "unproductive"
laborers from the working class.

(The whole productive/unproductive distinction has been effectively
critiqued by some feminist scholars, among others, in my view.)

Mat Forstater

On Wed, 27 May 1998, Rosser Jr, John Barkley wrote:

snip
>      However, I do note that if one wants to get crudely 
> technical, Marx himself can be interpreted as arguing that 
> productive labor is only that which results in material 
> output, a viewpoint maintained in the former Soviet income 
> and product accounts.  Such a view provides a basis for 
> saying that indeed blue collar workers are really workers 
> and white collar workers are not, more or less.
> Barkley Rosser