Not so, and not what I said, Doug. And I made no concession, as you characterize it. I said the growth of unproductive/productive labor has no necessary connection to, does not *per se cause*, depressions or expansions. To say a rise in U/P has no a priori effect, is clearly not the same as saying it is irrelevant. It means the changes grow out of conditions and their contradictions, and their effects are likely to be different under different circumstances.
Unproductive labor is in fact useful to capital (a main reason why its growth has happened), in part because it aids in the realization of surplus value, given the insufficiency of profitable investment outlets relative to the potential size of s. It is useful and creates nettlesome contradictions at the same time.
>But it's also
>one that some workers might find insulting - who wants to be called
>unproductive? - so it's politiclaly worse than useless, it's divisive
>and alienating in terms of organization & consciousness.
The P/U distinction is an analytical device, not an explanatory one. As you know, unproductive means of surplus value to capital, not useless.
> The capacity
>of capitalism to colonize & transform the "unproductive" is an
>element of its wicked genius. So why is this such a fruitful area of
>research? I'm profoundly mystified.
You've got the beginnings of an answer right there: because capital has to continually reinvent its "wicked genius" in order transform the advancement of unproductive labor into answers for the contradictions it faces, rather than being a drag on the continued expansion of capital. Within the context of the multicornered struggle over the distribution of surplus value.
>Mike Lebowitz' piece on The Silence of Capital that Angela pointed to
><http://english-www.hss.cmu.edu/govt/silences-of-capital.txt> is
>great stuff.
Something we agree about. But I don't see how you can absorb what Lebowitz has to say about the contradictions of capital, and the dynamics of capitalism (and the distinctions he makes between the two), and still argue that, as a way to organize facts for analysis, you don't see how marxian categories provide anything more than bourgeios categories. For example, his discussion of the needs of workers as an important basis for class struggle begins with an understanding of v--the value of labor power--which has two elements: (1) productive labor because it produces surplus value, and (2) productive labor's social subsistence (the value of the necessities to reproduce labor). Social subsistence as a measure of need is bound up with living standards which are determined outside the production process (and the direct class struggle there). Yet, Lebowitz argues, the struggle over ever changing worker needs is a vital part of the full blown class struggle, which is not confined to the work place, or the battle over wages.
How can you pursue these insights using bourgeios data on employee compensation?
argue that there is nothing to be learned by organizing the facts around Marxian categories, instead of using bourgeois data?