> No, the rate of exploitation refers to the extraction of extra labor out of
> all workers. The rate of exploitation of productive workers is the rate of
> surplus value of the whole economy. The productivity rate implies a
> definition of what is productive in capitalism, ie: the production of
> surplus value. Therefore, Michael's notion of productivity is more correct,
> the extraction of surplus value rather than Doug's notion of productivity
> which fails to differentiate between use-value and value. In fact the
> failure to make this distinction among the so called marxist economists is
> the result of why the economics marxist tradition in its majority supports
> the Okishio theorem as opposed to Marx's own proposition of technical change
> leading to a fall in the rate of profit.
On the other hand, Fabian, perhaps the term labor "productivity", defined as the change in output relative to all labor inputs, is best left to bourgeios economics and those who would confine their analysis to their categories and statistics. Rather than, as you suggest, being redefined as the rate of exploitation s/v, which is suplus value, not output, relative to productive labor only, not all labor, that is. Marxian analytics already has s/v at its center. Let the neoclassicals have "productivity", an empty, after-the-fact calculation that explains nothing, but instead requires an explanation, for which there is never a good one.
RO