[lbo-talk] Unproductive Workers = The Best Organized in the USA

Jim Devine jdevine03 at gmail.com
Wed Jan 18 08:23:50 PST 2006


On 1/18/06, Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol at jhu.edu> wrote:
> I am not sure if the title "unproductive" is tongue in cheek, but even if
> it is not, it is still inappropriate. Would you say, tongue in cheek or
> not, > "Spics and n-words are the best organized workers in the USA?"


> Calling government workers unproductive is an invective straight out
> of the neo-liberal propaganda handbook, and if I were to name only
> one thing in the world "bullshit" that would be on a very short list...

Marx used a concept of unproductive labor (seemingly in order to confuse the reader and to produce seemingly endless debates amongst academic Marxists). But he was clear that it was not a matter of honor to be a productive laborer (under his definitions) -- and thus not a matter of dishonor to be an unproductive one. ("To be a productive worker is therefore not a piece of luck, but a misfortune." -- CAPITAL, vol. I, ch. 16.)

For Marx, a worker is "productive" if she or he produces surplus-value. An unproductive worker does not do so. This differs from the concept of Smith _et al_, who saw unproductive workers as producing socially unneeded use-values (e.g., the work of personal servants). -- Jim Devine "The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side." -- James Baldwin



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