How is Marxism relevant to contemporary day jobs?

[valdek]

(Please take it easy on me :p, I realise this is the learning section)

How is Marxism relevant in this contemporary day in reference to the advent of a shift away from the manufacturing sector to service industries and away labor-intensive/production-line jobs?
What I mean to say is, how could one apply Marxism to say...A marketing/advertising company where the employees aren't really producing anything, there's no means of production and surplus value isn't really there to speak of?
Or perhaps someone that has a job as a checkout chick at a supermarket? There isn't really any labor power being applied to that situation?
Or perhaps any service industry job, say a school teacher/hairdresser/plumber/mechanic/computer repairman/cable guy etc..
Does LTV apply to any of these occupations?
And/or are these occupations not what Marx would have considered of the proletariat and as such was not directing his writings towards those people?

These sort of questions about how Marx is relevant to today's capitalist society where virtually no one works on a manufacturing line continue to trip me up..
I hope i'm really completely misinterpeting Marx altogether, after only having studied his work on and off for a couple of months now; but i'd love to be pointed in the right direction (just give me a book/article to read besides Capital and i'll do it! [unless it happens to be in conjunction with some sort of modern day interpretation of Capital]).

Thanks guys

[Rusty Shackleford]

intellectual labor and physical labor are one and the same when it is sold in exchange for a wage.

"intellectual property" is produced. it is recognized by the capitalists as a commodity and is therefore something that can produce a surplus value.

From personal experience, im a service worker, a retail worker. without me(not me personally, but a retail worker in general) selling my labor time in exchange for an hourly wage at the store i work at, no product can be moved. the sale cannot be realized, money cannot be exchanged for a commodity. no profit can be realized.

The products i sell are produced industrially. Workers sell their labor for wages and the things they produce are owned by the company or capitalists and the products are then sold to other companies as commodities to then be sold. The factory owners realize a profit from using exploited labor to mold the commodities that were bought into commodities to be sold. the commodities are sold to retail companies to then be sold to the public. The same sort of relation existed 150 years ago.

the retail worker and the cashier in unison are the final stop where the commodity moves out of the hands of the capitalists and becomes someones individual property. At that point, it ceases to be a commodity unless the person seeks to sell it again.


The company that buys the products from the producing companies must make a profit off of the commodity they bought or else it would be pointless. so, they hire people to move it about, to advertise it, to convince people to buy it. the price is market up to the socially recognized market value or a bit higher (marked up) and then sold to someone. that mark up is the real source of profit. but, without the service worker actually puting that product into the hand of a consumer, the profit cannot be realized.

Also, the sale is an attempt to make money off of something by temporarily placing it under market value (or even at its true market value) to sell a greater quantity. Even then, a profit is still made.

In my line of work, i dont really add value to anything. but i allow for its value to be realized for the company for which i work.

people dont go to factories to buy stuff. it is shipped across the glove to be brought to population centers. its basically a way of managing distribution, and thats the shit i do, and it is still relevant.

[ArrowLance]

Services are a commodity as well. The value of those service commodities I'm sure work much like goods. While I am not so sure about 'means of production' there is indeed capital at work in the service industry.

Lets look at the woman who works the checkout of a super market. Her labour time is being applied directly to the distribution of the products at that store, a separate commodity to the products. It may be hard to see since the price of that service commodity is rarely directly compensated for by the consumer and is usually embedded into the price of the goods being distributed.

[Rusty Shackleford]

arrowlance, i was looking for that exact quote in your sig.

[Ned Kelly]

Because capitalist expropriation of surplus value still exists, pure and simple comrade!