How does exploitation work in the service industry?

[Jacob Cliff]

I understand wage workers are exploited because of the unpaid labor time they put forth into production after their necessary labor time (extraction of surplus value by the bourgeoisie), but how does this apply to things that aren't commodities? What about the service industry?

And as another question: capitalists work in some way and do contribute to production. They don't just sit back and collect profit. Does this mean that the workers don't just create the commodity, but it's a joint process between the capitalist and the worker? How would you respond to the argument that capitalists still contribute/started up the business, and therefore deserve the profit made from it? My brother pointed out that they invest more labor at least initially than a person who just flips hamburger patties.

[BIXX]

Isn't it enough to say that we are trapped by work and that alone should be enough of a basis to say fuck that abolish capital

[Left-Wing Nutjob]

If anything, the service industry is even more exploitative - in practice - than more "traditional" forms of manufacturing/heavy industry. Why do you think the service industry has grown so much in the recent decades - the same period when labor has seen historic losses in terms of wages, protections, benefits, unionization rates, etc.?

As to the second question: the haute (high) bourgeoisie doesn't have to work to survive, by definition. They can just live off of capital assets. This distinguishes them form the petite-borugeoisie. Of course, in certain countries (maybe especially the United States), a lot of capitalists delude themselves into thinking that they're "self-made men." :rolleyes: But anyway, my understanding of this is that it's not that they don't work per se (though they surely are plenty of lazy-ass capitalists...) but it's more the fact that labor is an option for them.

Furthermore, their class interests will always be those of property (i.e. capital) and they are in an antagonistic relationship to the working class (also by definition), so any attempt to justify capitalist profits necessarily is an attempt to justify the exploitation of workers.

[oneday]

I understand wage workers are exploited because of the unpaid labor time they put forth into production after their necessary labor time (extraction of surplus value by the bourgeoisie), but how does this apply to things that aren't commodities? What about the service industry?
Services are commodities also. I don't think they there was much of a service sector in Marx's day, but the mechanism is basically the same as industrial production. The workers perform a service, and the owner of the service business controls the payment given in return for the service.


And as another question: capitalists work in some way and do contribute to production. They don't just sit back and collect profit. Does this mean that the workers don't just create the commodity, but it's a joint process between the capitalist and the worker? How would you respond to the argument that capitalists still contribute/started up the business, and therefore deserve the profit made from it? My brother pointed out that they invest more labor at least initially than a person who just flips hamburger patties.

Does someone who buys a portfolio of stocks and bonds and draws 2% of the value yearly have to lift a finger? No. Does someone who invests $50K in a startup business and ends up a billionaire (and probably invested in 50 others companies similarly so as to be assured to make money) have to? No. It is entirely possible for someone so endowed to never work a day in their life. They are living off the surplus produced by the workers in the companies they invested in.

Just because owners of capital sometimes work (and sometimes very hard) does not mean exploitation is not taking place. It just means that they are also contributing labor to the social endeavor, while enjoying the benefits of controlling the surplus.

[VivalaCuarta]

Services are commodities that are consumed as they are produced, not at a later date. Just like any other commodities, they have use values and exchange values that are determined by the labor time socially necessary for their production. The service commodity is more ephemeral than most, but its value continues to circulate and its surplus part returns to capital.

Some capitalists also work. This has been discussed here many times. But unlike workers, they own capital. Their capital, i.e. their power over the labor of proletarians, is the source of their profits. Do they "deserve" their profits? In their society, they do, just as much as workers "deserve" their wages. But their society deserves to die because it is no longer necessary, and its continued existence is a disaster for the human race.

[Fire]

How does exploitation work in the service industry?

From the look of things pretty well for the capitalist class.

And services are commodities, it doesn't have to be a tangible object to be a commodity.

[Fire]

And as another question: capitalists work in some way and do contribute to production. They don't just sit back and collect profit.

True, but the issues isn't that they don't work, its that they also have a power over people's lives and livelihoods.

[John Nada]

I understand wage workers are exploited because of the unpaid labor time they put forth into production after their necessary labor time (extraction of surplus value by the bourgeoisie), but how does this apply to things that aren't commodities? What about the service industry?There is such a thing as non-productive labor not from proletarians, such as cops, managers, clergy, lawyers, career criminals, state bureaucrats, ect. Also businesspeople who perform or even sell their labor to another capitalist, and workers who are high paid and own a stake in the company. This is the petite-bourgeoisie, who live off rent extracted from workers, but aren't rich enough to live off rent alone.

However, the bourgeoisie likes to push that myth that shit in the service industry "isn't real work, just teenage shit" as an excuse for not paying more. Yet often the service sector is "realer" work than the fore-mentioned petty-bourgeois strata.

Don't view the labor performed in isolation. Think of it as part of one long assembly line, from the mines and farms to the counter at a store. That service is part of of the production of commodities, just like a mucker, truck driver or a longshoreperson. The commodities have to be exchanged for exchanged value. Even if it appears that the worker "isn't really making shit" like in a coal mine or sweat shop, often the labor performed is to add or realize the exchange value of a commodity. Generally one does not get paid wages for something without anything produced. You're hired for a reason.

And as another question: capitalists work in some way and do contribute to production. They don't just sit back and collect profit. Does this mean that the workers don't just create the commodity, but it's a joint process between the capitalist and the worker? How would you respond to the argument that capitalists still contribute/started up the business, and therefore deserve the profit made from it? My brother pointed out that they invest more labor at least initially than a person who just flips hamburger patties.Often they do work, particularly the petty-bourgeoisie.However they live off rent derived from surplus value extracted from the workers. The petty-capitalist is often worse than the big chains, because he/she want to squeeze the workers for everything they got. And believe me, they're making a killing over the worker "just flipping hamburgers". I'm sure many slave masters and lords/ladies worked hard driving slaves and extorting peasants also.

The so-called post-industrial service economy isn't something new. Marx describes a "servant class" in Capital:
Lastly, the extraordinary productiveness of modern industry, accompanied as it is by both a more extensive and a more intense exploitation of labour-power in all other spheres of production, allows of the unproductive employment of a larger and larger part of the working-class, and the consequent reproduction, on a constantly extending scale, of the ancient domestic slaves under the name of a servant class, including men-servants, women-servants, lackeys, &c. According to the census of 1861, the population of England and Wales was 20,066,244; of these, 9,776,259
males, and 10,289,965 females. If we deduct from this population all who are too old or too young for work, all unproductive women, young persons and children, the ―ideological‖ classes, such as government officials, priests, lawyers, soldiers, &c.; further, all who have no occupation
but to consume the labour of others in the form of rent, interest, &c.; and, lastly, paupers, vagabonds, and criminals, there remain in round numbers eight millions of the two sexes of every age, including in that number every capitalist who is in any way engaged in industry, commerce,
or finance. Among these 8 millions are:
PERSONS

Agricultural labourers (including
shepherds, farm servants, and
maidservants living in the houses of
farmers)1,098,261

All who are employed in cotton, woollen,
worsted, flax, hemp, silk, and jute
factories, in stocking making and lace
making by machinery 143,642,607

All who are employed in coal mines and
metal mines 565,835

All who are employed in metal works(blastfurnaces, rolling mills, &c.), and
metal manufactures of every kind144,396,998

The servant class 1451,208,648

All the persons employed in textile factories and in mines, taken together, number 1,208,442; those employed in textile factories and metal industries, taken together, number 1,039,605; in both cases less than the number of modern domestic slaves. What a splendid result of the
capitalist exploitation of machinery!Bold mine: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch15.htm#S6 He compares it to a slave era.

Also Marx quote a report on bakeries in Britain at the time:
―The work of a London journeyman baker begins, as a rule, at about eleven at night. At that hour he ‗makes the dough,‘ – a laborious process, which lasts from half an hour to three quarters of an hour, according to the size of the batch or the labour bestowed upon it. He then lies down upon the kneading-board, which is also the covering of the trough in which the dough is ‗made‘; and with a sack under him, and another rolled up as a pillow, he sleeps for about a couple of hours. He is then engaged in a rapid and continuous labour for about five hours – throwing out the dough, ‗scaling it off,‘ moulding it, putting it into the oven, preparing and baking rolls and fancy bread, taking the batch bread out of the oven, and up into the shop, &c., &c. The temperature of a bakehouse ranges from about 75 to upwards of 90 degrees, and in the smaller bakehouses approximates usually to the higher rather than to the lower degree of heat. When the business of making the bread, rolls, &c., is over, that of its distribution begins, and a considerable proportion of the journeymen in the trade, after working hard in the manner described during the night, are upon their legs for many hours during the day, carrying baskets, or wheeling hand-carts, and sometimes again in the bakehouse, leaving off work at various hours between 1 and 6 p.m. according to the season of the year, or the amount and nature of their master‘s business; while others are again engaged in the bakehouse in ‗bringing out‘ more batches until late in the afternoon. 46... During what is called ‗the London season,‘ the operatives belonging to the ‗full-priced‘ bakers at the West End of the town, generally begin work at 11 p.m., and are engaged in making the bread, with one or two short (sometimes very short) intervals of rest, up to 8 o‘clock the next morning. They are then engaged all day long, up to 4, 5, 6, and as late as 7 o‘clock in the evening carrying out bread, or sometimes in the afternoon in the bakehouse again, assisting in the biscuit-baking. They may have, after they have done their work, sometimes five or six, sometimes only four or five hours‘ sleep before they begin again. On Fridays they always begin sooner, some about ten o‘clock, and continue in some cases, at work, either in making or delivering the bread up to 8 p.m. on Saturday night, but more generally up to 4 or 5 o‘clock, Sunday morning. On Sundays the men must attend twice or three times during the day for an hour or two to make preparations for the next day‘s bread.... The men employed by the underselling masters (who sell their bread under the ‗full price,‘ and who, as already pointed out, comprise three-fourths of the London bakers) have not only to work on the average longer hours, but their work is almost entirely confined to the bakehouse. The underselling masters generally sell their bread... in the shop. If they send it out, which is not common, except as supplying chandlers‘ shops, they usually employ other hands for that purpose. It is not their practice to deliver bread from house to house. Towards the end of the week ... the men begin on Thursday night at 10 o‘clock, and continue on with only slight intermission until late on Saturday evening.‖ 47 Source: https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch10.htm#S3 He mentions bakeries along with potters, weavers, and fucking phosphorus match factories(very high risk of death). Difference from many of the other jobs is most that shit is still true in the fucking first-world! Fast food is essentially the same as the bakeries. Food adulterated with nasty shit, long hours standing with little rest, hot ovens blazing around you, and a "temporary" job with a lot of applicants. Only this was the job of journeymen, and the British inspector even recommended banning children under 18 from working in a bakery.

[VivalaCuarta]

It is important not to confuse Marx's "servant class" with the majority of today's "service industry" workers. By his definition the "servant class" is unproductive -- their labor does not augment capital. So housewives, nannies, chauffeurs, etc. Literally servants. But today's "service industry" workers are not personal servants living off the scraps of the bourgeoisie's income. They are employed to produce capital.

[Carlos-Marcos]

What about the service industry?


The workers in the service industry are often exploited by the tipping sham - esp. in the US.