On Sun, Dec 23, 2007 at 09:47:01AM -0800, Rakesh Bhandari wrote:
> Very quickly. The exchange between the Michael Ps confuses me here.
> Perelman (have to use last names) says not to waste time with nice
> distinctions between unproductive workers but then says that only
> some unproductive workers amplify the productive power of capital!
> Then Pollak seems to be saying that more production workers are
> needed for increasing the mass of surplus value (true if s/v is
> fixed) while the fewer the circulation workers, the more productive
> capital is of surplus value.
> I would suggest that analytical clarity is not just a nicety here. It
> goes to the heart of the kind of rationalization capitalism tries to
> achieve. Through a little Marxology we can mean more (and less) by
> rationalization than for example Weberian sociology allows. An
> interesting alternative here is Negri's vision of the total factory
> in which all activity becomes an aspect of the valorization of
> capital--for example the distinction between work or productive and
> free or unproductive time collapses. He and Hardt try to collapse the
> distinction in other ways.
> But I can't say more.
> Rakesh
>
>
> >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