productive labor [used to be: marxist feminism]

[Roger Odisio]

At 06:15 AM 6/21/1999 -0500, Carrol Cox wrote:
>
>
>Roger Odisio wrote:
>
>> Since I think productive labor is a useful category, I would like to hear
>> why you think it might not be.
>
>I said I was not convinced. Primarily because most discussions I have
>seen of it (including Smith's and Marx's) seem to exhaust themselves
>in defining and establishing it, with no energy left to make use of it.
>Beyond that, as I approach my 69th birthday I'm a bit strapped for
>time to study this that and the other thing and have to choose carefully
>what I'll examine and what I won't. I would be interested in a brief
>statement from someone on it -- that is a statement which piqued me
>enough to suggest further exploration might be useful.

Please read my reponse to Rob about the different definitions of productive
labor and the various uses of it as an analytical tool.


>I do have one positive thing against it: some have used it to define the
>working class, thus excluding millions from the class. That may be --
>probably is -- a misuse of it though, for which the theory itself is not
>responsible.

I agree.  It's a gross misuse.  And the difference between what is
productive labor and who is working class provides a crucial starting point
for understanding the difficulties in creating that consciousness, based in
part on the different functions labor performs for capital.