Marx may have been influenced by these passages from the Rev. Richard Jones:
'Division of Labourers
...
1st. Unhired Labourers, who till the ground they occupy as peasant cultivators ... 2nd. Paid Dependants, who are paid out of the revenue or of income of their employers. 3rd. Hired Labourers, who are paid out of the capital of their employers
...
The threefold division of labourers which I have presented to you is founded, you will observe, entirely on the difference in the nature and formation of the funds which supply their wages. This division is new, and it may be thought, perhaps, at first sight, that the novelty is, at best, uncalled for; that a difference in the sources of their wages hardly justifies our viewing labourers as forming distinct classes for the purposes of economical reasoning. The artizan, who is paid from his employer's income, produces in many cases exactly the same as the journeyman who works for a master tradesman. The peasant labourer, who tills the earth as an occupier, produces the same sort of wealth as the hired labourer of the English farmer. It is very true that there are points of resemblance, and indeed of identity, between the different employments of the different classes I have pointed out; but the peculiar office of science is not to be deluded with resemblances, but to trace differences; and we shall find very great differences in the productive power of nations occasioned by the prevalence of one or of the other classes I have described.' (p15-17)
Jones, anticipating some of the confusions that have surrounded the distinction between productive and unproductive labour ever since, wrote
'I need hardly guard you against the common error of supposing either that that portion of the community which is not so employed is unproductive of anything useful, or that the epithet "unproductive," as applied to them, is degrading.' p347
And
'The portion of the community which is unproductive of material wealth [he means value] may be *useful* or it may be *useless*.
The unproductive labourers may be *useful:* they may enlighten, govern, defend, or adorn a nation, or may contribute in some mode to increase the happiness and innocent enjoyments of their fellow men; Or they may be *useless:* that is, they may do none of those things.'
p 401
All Quotes from Literary Remains: Lectures and Tracts on Political Economy, Richard Jones, 1859, reprinted NY 1964. -- Jim heartfield