[lbo-talk] Krugman

[Michael Perelman]

In a sense, these unproductive workers amplify the productive power of capital, just 
like capital goods do.  Other unproductive workers do not.  Perhaps the least 
productive work on Marxology deals with debates over the niceities of unproductive 
labor.

On Sun, Dec 23, 2007 at 07:33:49AM -0500, Michael Pollak wrote:
> 
> On Sun, 23 Dec 2007, Seth Ackerman wrote:
> 
> > If by unproductive you're talking about Marx's idea of unproductive
> > labor, I'm not enough of a scholar of Marxology to say where retail
> > workers would fit in his schema
> 
> They are part of the circulation of capital in Vol 2.  They aren't 
> unproductive workers at all.  But they are "not production" workers.  For 
> Marx, all value is created in production and can only be increased by 
> increasing production.  But the more efficient ("productive") the 
> circulation workers are, the fewer of them are needed, and hence the more 
> labor time society has available for production.  So in classical Marxist 
> terms, the more productive the sphere of circulation, the more productive 
> society is.
> 
> Michael
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-- 
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu
michaelperelman.wordpress.com