Product/Unproductive Labour and the Proletariat

[Niccolò Rossi]

The thread on cops and their class membership in the learning forum (http://www.revleft.com/vb/police-t83648/index.html) and a video by one Brendan Cooney (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHSxOUW-okk) have got me thinking on the subject of productive and unproductive labour and it's relation to social class.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHSxOUW-okk

Marx raises the concept of productive labour in Capital Vol. I:

On the other hand, however, our notion of productive labour becomes narrowed. Capitalist production is not merely the production of commodities, it is essentially the production of surplus value. The labourer produces, not for themselves, but for capital. It no longer suffices, therefore, that they should simply produce. They must produce surplus-value.

The question I would like answered is: Does a wage-labourer have to perform productive labour to be considered a proletarian?

Bank Tellers, Clerks, Sales Persons, Managers, Teachers, Doctors, Nurses, Truck Drivers, Police Officers are all perform unproductive labour. All of them however facilitate the the production of value. Does this make them proletarians? The Bourgeoisie also facilitate the production of surplus-value, but they aren't proletarians.

Does the fact that they are wage labourers and the position they occupy within the social production process as not as directly exploited individuals, but as tools in the system of social exploitation, individuals with the objective class interests the same as the proletariat suffice to define them as members of the proletariat or is productive of labour a determining factor?

[Die Neue Zeit]

Before I reply to your post, here's my original (and lengthy) Theory thread:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/has-capitalism-really-t65831/index.html




Does a wage-labourer have to perform productive labour to be considered a proletarian?

Yes. However, given the examples you've cited, you have a different definition of "productive labour" than I do (since most of them are mentioned specifically in my WIP).


Bank tellers

Banks can recoup the salary costs through service fees. Bank tellers are clerical workers.


Clerks

Clerical workers


Salespersons

Assuming they're employed and not "self-employed": clerical workers


Managers

Coordinators


Doctors

They can be professional workers, coordinators, or petit-bourgeois.


Nurses

PROFESSIONAL workers


Truck drivers

Either manual workers (manual work in connecting trailers to tractors, and manual work in terms of truck drivers with freight ;) ) or petit-bourgeois (own truck)


Police Officers

"Class #2"




Bank Tellers, Clerks, Sales persons, Cleaners and even potentially Teachers and Shop-floor Managers are all examples of individuals who despite being wage slaves to a capitalist, do not directly produce surplus-value.

One more thing to note is that there are still some Marxists who equate the word “proletarian” with those who work strictly to produce physical commodities, separating them from the rest of the working class. There are distinctions within the working class, and they are sectoral, but historically the classical Marxists used the two words interchangeably. The sectoral distinctions have arisen as a result of the development of capitalism as a whole. First came the manual workers – forestry and mining workers, factory workers, and proper farm workers (as opposed to peasants), among others – most of whom are indeed involved in the production of physical commodities. Then came the clerical workers – office workers, typical retail workers (except those doing heavy-lifting in the warehouses), bank tellers, bartenders, and others – who are involved in the provision of services.

A trend in the development of the capitalism has been professionalization, even that of intellectual work, as noted by Frank Furedi in his work Where Have All the Intellectuals Gone?: Confronting Twenty-First Century Philistinism. With this trend comes professional workers, including teachers, professors, engineers, nurses, and most accountants (who neither have ownership stakes in accounting firms nor exercise “factual control” through management).

[Niccolò Rossi]

However, given the examples you've cited, you have a different definition of "productive labour" than I do (since most of them are mentioned specifically in my WIP).

I have defined productive labour as Brendan Cooney has done in his video and in the manner done by Marx and Adam Smith. The Wikipedia page (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Productive_and_unproductive_labour) provides an except from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations which sums up what I mean by 'productive labour':

"There is one sort of labour which adds to the value of the subject upon which it is bestowed; there is another which has no such effect. The former, as it produces a value, may be called productive; the latter, unproductive labour. Thus the labour of a manufacturer adds, generally, to the value of the materials which he works upon, that of his own maintenance, and of his master's profit. The labour of a menial servant, on the contrary, adds to the value of nothing. Though the manufacturer has his wages advanced to him by his master, he, in reality, costs him no expense, the value of those wages being generally restored, together with a profit, in the improved value of the subject upon which his labour is bestowed. But the maintenance of a menial servant never is restored. A man grows rich by employing a multitude of manufacturers; he grows poor by maintaining a multitude of menial servants. The labour of the latter, however, has its value, and deserves its reward as well" - (Wealth of Nations Book 2 Chapter 3) The Wikipedia page also provides a summary of the concept in Marx in 10 points:


work is not "naturally productive", both in the sense that it takes work to make work productive, and that productive work depends on tools and techniques to be productive.



generally speaking, a worker is economically productive and a source of additional wealth to the extent that s/he can produce more than is required for his/her own subsistence (i.e. is capable of performing surplus-labour) and adding to a surplus product.



the definition of productive and unproductive labour is specific to each specific type of society (for example, feudal society, capitalist society, socialist society etc.) and depends on the given relations of production.



there exists no neutral definition of productive and unproductive labour; what is productive from the point of view of one social class may not be productive from the point of view of another.



the only objective definition of productive labour is in terms of what is as a matter of fact productive within the conditions of a given mode of production.



from the point of view of the capitalist class, labour is productive, if it increases the value of (private) capital or results in (private)capital accumulation.



Capitalistically productive labour is therefore labour which adds to the mass of surplus value, primarily through profitably producing goods and services for market sale.



no new value is created through acts of exchange only; therefore, although labour which just facilitates exchange is "productive" from the employer's point of view (because he derives profit from it), it is unproductive from the social point of view because it accomplishes only a transfer of wealth. This "unproductive" labour is accepted however because it reduces the costs of capital accumulation, or facilitates it, or secures it.



the definition of productive and unproductive labour is not static, but evolving; in the course of capitalist development, the division of labour is increasingly modified, to make more and more labour productive in the capitalistic sense, for example through marketisation and privatisation, value-based management, and Taylorism.



whether work has been productive can really be known only "after the fact" in capitalist society, because commodity-producing living labour is in most cases definitely valued by the market only after it has been performed, when its product (a good or service) is exchanged and paid for.

If our definitions are clashing, would you care to apply the one I am using. You can't have a debate regarding the Marxist and Anarchist concept of the transition period without agreeing upon a singular definition of the state. The same applies here.


One more thing to note is that there are still some Marxists who equate the word “proletarian” with those who work strictly to produce physical commodities

Such would be utter nonsense. I can understand where the confusion comes from, but even if one was to exclude unproductive labour, the producers of services can still productive and there is no basis what so ever for such an arbitrary division. Take he example of a prostitute, prostitutes produce commodities, their services have a use-value, labour-value and exchange-value.

[Die Neue Zeit]

I have defined productive labour as Brendan Cooney has done in his video and in the manner done by Marx and Adam Smith.

The only reason why my definition is different is due to simplicity. I didn't want to have as a result two dozen different classes just because of the difference between "use value" and "exchange value." ;)

[chimx]

Does a wage-labourer have to perform productive labour to be considered a proletarian?

I would argue no due to the extent that labor has been divided within capitalism. I think it is important to not view the idea of productive and unproductive labor on an excessively micro level, but bare in mind production on a macro level. While many jobs appear to be unproductive on the surface level, if you look at their role in the process of production it becomes clear that they do create a surplus value.