Do janitors create value?

[Anarpest]

Inspired by a recent thread on the military. Would you say that janitors create surplus-value? If not, how would you describe their role in the capitalist system, and would you count them as aspects of variable capital or faux frais of production? How would you compare their role with that of, say, service workers, or doctors?

[Jimmie Higgins]

Inspired by a recent thread on the military. Would you say that janitors create surplus-value? If not, how would you describe their role in the capitalist system, and would you count them as aspects of variable capital or faux frais of production? How would you compare their role with that of, say, service workers, or doctors?

Doctor's vs. Janitors is a common right-wing anticommunist talking point, so it's a good example to use. I read somewhere about the value of janitorial services which argued that these jobs add more to the economy than surgeons... I can't find it in google though and it might have been janitors and some other profession, I can't remember.

At any rate, janitors do add to overall profits and are part of the production process even though they are not directly producing commodities. Cleaning up is just a necissity and you can have doctors clean up and scrub their office, but then they are being paid doctor's wages and taking more time to complete the task. A janitorial contractor does tons of cleaning with a small labor crew who get paid little compared to the value they are adding - increasing the lifespan of infrastructure, helping keep a clean workplace to lower illness of the workforce, doing tasks which then don't have to be done by other laborers so they spend more of their paid time just doing their part of the labor process rather than on clean-up.

All these sort of indirect jobs are important to maintaining surplus and gaining profits for the capitalists as a whole. Where their indirect connection to the point of production may be a factor is only in their ability to organize. This is especially true for contract-labor since the janitors could strike and the Hospital or office then just gets a different contractor.

[The Jay]

If you count things getting dirty as degradation, and in a hospital that is certainly true, then a janitor is "repairing" the damage. I would count their labor in the same manor as that of a doctor. They provide a service, not a concrete product.

[Tim Finnegan]

It's important to remember that in capitalism, workers rarely produce finished commodities themselves, but are part of a complex process of production, each worker relating more or less directly to the finished commodity. If we take as our example factory, the assembly-line worker has a more direct relationship to the production of the commodity that the janitor, but both are involved in the same process of production that is necessary to bring the commodity to market.

[Book O'Dead]

Janitors are not just workers, they are fucking HEROES!

Also, they not only create use value, their services are invaluable.

[x-punk]

I certainly believe janitors create value. They take something which is broken or unclean for example and then fix it. They have a very definite product at the end of their labour.

[eric922]

Go to a restaurant that hasn't been cleaned for a couple of days and see if you want to eat there. That is how they add value. They also provide an important role in preventing the spread of disease.

[RRRevolution]

If they were not present than businesses would not make money, because people avoid shopping at extremely unclean businesses.

The same argument about actually creating tangible value could be made for anyone who literally construct products to be sold on the market, not just janitors. It's not a good argument.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

They slow the depreciation of capital so yes, they are a vital part of the production process and add no doubt a great deal of value, even if it is difficult to measure this.

Of course, in a monetised economy there's no doubt that the remuneration of Doctors should be higher than Janitors, but since the aim of Socialism is not to create a monetised economy where everybody is paid equally, this point is moot really.

Right-wing anti-communists have neither the ability nor the will to understand that Socialism wishes to create a non-monetised society not where remuneration is equal for Doctors, Janitors, PhD holders and those with no qualifications, but where there is no remuneration, no capital, and so everyone's needs are met, and their wants too are met to a greater or lesser degree.