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Unemployed as productive workers
Could we make the case that the "unemployed" are actually productive workers? Have others already argued this?
As capitalism expands and commodification spreads, society is more and more like a single factory built with the ends of production of surplus-value in mind, towards the maintenance of productive capital. Marx defined productive capital as the association of labor with the means of production.
On the surface it would appear that a person without a "job" cannot be a part of a productive capital. Unemployed members of the working class appear to lack any association with the means of production; they are not even workers, much less unproductive workers... so how can they in reality be productive workers?
Because capitalism depends on an industrial reserve army of labor to regulate wages (i.e., keep them low by using the threat of disassociation, or rather negative association [firing], and replacement by desperate job-seekers to keep the employed workers disciplined and "in line"), we see that structurally they (the unemployed) are actually associated with the means of production, albeit in a different way than the employed. The employed are positively associated with means of production, while the unemployed are not simply "disassociated" with means of production in the same way that non-members of society such as groups of tribal peoples who subsist in the midst of wilderness could be considered, but negatively associated with them as members of the society. We can consider the positive and negative associations with the means of production to be a division of labor required by capitalist production, no different in theory from the division between mental and manual labor. Therefore negative association is productive.
In the society of a capitalist state considered as a whole unit--as a factory-society--geared towards capitalist production, the industrial reserve army is directly employed as a wage-regulator force. Their "abstract" work consists in seeking or being available for "concrete" work, in maintaining a well-stocked labor market. (The same way that consumers of food expect the employees of a grocery store to keep food on the shelves, consumers of labor [capitalists] expect the reserve army of labor to keep labor on the market). The reserve is also a reproductive force in that they stand by to replace workers who die or retire.
Private capitalist firms do not pay a wage to the unemployed to provide them with means of subsistence in exchange for maintaining the labor market, but their means of subsistence is provided either by the state through social assistance, charitable individuals and/or organizations, support of family/friends, or "hustling", or a combination of all these, meaning that the cost of maintaining the wage-regulating section of the proletariat (i.e. the "wages" paid to the unemployed) is a negative externality from the perspective of the competitive capitalist firm who shifts the cost to these alien actors, while from the perspective of the factory-society, those who appear "unemployed" are actually directly employed as wage-regulators and labor market-maintainers, which is a fundamental role in the division of labor which creates surplus-value. The irregularity and precarity with which they access means of subsistence is due to the fact that the factory-society denies their structurally essential role in the productive process, and stigmatizes them as incapable or lazy. Ideally, the "directly" employed would receive a living-wage whose cost is internalized by the capitalist firm with which they are associated, and the "unemployed" (who are actually directly employed as the industrial reserve--their job being to keep the labor market open and filled with plenty of options of labor-buyers [i.e. capitalists]) would receive a misery-wage (motivating their performance on the labor market, to successfully sell themselves), the cost of which is externalized by all the society's capitalist firms with which they, the unemployed, have the potential to become associated, although this misery-wage is an internalized cost when considering the society as a productive whole.
Thoughts?
Im not sure? It sort of sounds like your taking the pink labor argument and combining it with the basic income argument and applying it to the unemployed as a whole. A drug addict does not seek regular work, therefore his existence has no effect in wages. Neither is someone who is comatose, or disabled or even just rich enough not to work. The act of seeking work is an important factor. I'm also struggling to connect a person on medical disability to externalized wages on the worker, since were not talking about a housewife whose income is derived from her husband, but the general public welfare which is paid for by taxes. I have problems with the catch-all term "unemployed", even if your disqualifying tribal people. "Job seekers" might be more applicable, as even employed job seekers can have a dramatic effect on wages.
There is also an argument to be made that lucrative criminal enterprises are necessary under capitalism, so that rather than robbing banks you can become a brothel owner or opium trader
Good points. Maybe "unemployed" is too much of a catchall. Most of what I was really trying to describe are jobless job-seekers. So maybe applying for a job which one is capable of performing and being rejected is needed to establish negative association with the means of production. Although, on the other hand, the process of applying for jobs and being rejected or ignored can be really demoralizing, especially if it is continually repeated, which can make people stop actively seeking. However their existence is still known by employers, who can begin more actively recruiting them if suddenly there is a bigger demand for labor, and they may be encouraged to become more active job-seekers again when they hear of renewed opportunity. Also some drug addicts might seek work irregularly, which still has an effect, and of course some drug addicts are able to balance their habit with employment (synthetic urine kits, etc.)!
recruitable labor might be a better term, children are technically recruitable but laws prevent them from working so theyre not recruitable under current conditions. So even foreign workers who don't speak the same language can be recruited and trained at a price. but babies, the comatose, and the ultra rich can't be recruited. The labor force participation rate is something being bandied about in pop economics circles lately, it sort of glosses over what your talking about. You can say that the capitalist pays for recruitable labor in a sense because public schools, public communication, global immigration (for the chosen), are purchasable in a sense by the class as a whole and they're removable to a degree.
so basic income would mean people wont work for these wages, if they can survive without a job, removing survival from the factor of wages is something capitalists definitely want. I can't recruit you to come work for me if you fear for your survival simply by leaving your conditions. A country thats population can't read is less desirable as well.
Marx talked about the moral necessity of overpopulation that capitalists feel, so that when the starvations come the capitalist can look down on the proletariat for dying. But i think this is often mistaken for malthusianism overpopulation, what he meant was they dont need to die, in a "there's too many people" sense they just need to be explainable deaths. So you'll see pity for the homeless doctor, because how can you explain his homelessness?, but the drug addict, and the savage is explainable
I'm not sure what you mean here, "removing survival from the factor of wages" and the second sentence:
Don't capitalists want their workers to depend on their jobs for survival? And if I accept your recruiting me for a job, doesn't that mean I don't have to fear for my survival?Originally Posted by willowtooth
Or would implementing a basic-income-for-all measure (formally getting rid of the idea that you need to work [in positive association with means of production] to survive) be seen a way of optimizing the labor market, because by recognizing their structurally necessary role (in negative association with the means of production) and easing the industrial reserve's access to means of subsistence, they would be better able to focus on "investing" in enhancing their own labor-power, while nevertheless having an inferior status to those whose income is "basic, plus" (that is, enhanced by employment)? This could help foster the neoliberal mindset where every worker thinks of themself a small entrepreneur, competing with other small entrepreneurs for access to luxuries or a less austere existence and the privileges of "basic, plus some" life. [edit:] Whereas the socialist solution would be to unite the working class as opposed to creating an antagonism between basic income and basic income plus (between positive and negative associations with means of production)--everyone would be positively associated, which would also reduce the amount of labor workers have to do.
Last edited by Lacrimi de Chiciură; 23rd June 2017 at 12:57.
the most desirable situation for the capitalist is to have the largest pool of healthy skilled educated labor for as cheap a price as possible. if you're scared of losing your house, car, family, etc by simply leaving your job, then you are removing yourself from that pool of talent making the pool smaller. So for example lets say im building a pipeline and i need 100 engineers, even if i promise double or triple the normal salary the best engineers won't give up their already secured jobs, to risk coming to work for me in the middle nowhere. If i own a restaurant and I need a new head chef. the best chef in the world might not want to risk coming to work for me. Another example is health insurance, many people take undervalued positions with low pay because theyre guaranteed health insurance at their current job. The desired state for most capitalists is to have a giant pool of labor thats extremely well educated and capable of moving anywhere on planet, and simultaneously work for free (or as cheap as possible)
slave owners want their slaves to fear for their survival, but even slave owners want to be able to purchase healthy slaves, who have all the necessary training, who can be transported as quickly and cheaply as possible, capitalists might want you to fear for your survival from losing their employment but want you to be free to change jobs to come work for them at anytime. Migrant laborers for example need to be able to move across continents with the seasons to pick fruit in the spring, and corn in the fall.
I have mixed feelings when it comes to basic income, for one thing its physically impossible to develop further into late stage capitalism without it. However it creates a nationalist factor, in that crisis will allow all kinds of horrible crimes to be committed in the name of basic income in the same way a national currency does. It would probably be better to do a reverse basic income, sort of like reparations, towards former and current colonial states. From the bottom up, so the richest nations pay the poorer nations a basic income, similar to the way certain oil states that pay each of their citizens a % of oil revenue, except much more involved and more directed through the existing national structures, it would certainly be easier to implement a basic income where people survive on $1 day rather than $1000 a week or whatever it would be in the richest nations... but thats just something I made up
I know im being a bit of a technocrat here but automation is exponentially increasing, anything short of nuclear war will lead to a society of full automation. Essentially instead of 5% unemployment, we will have 5% employment... the only question will we just force the other 95% to "knit blankets for eachother" subsidize their labor to make meaningless products that nobody needs or wants simply to adhere to traditionalist values of work ethic, and the moralist need to watch others starve, to prove our own self worth. Or will we have true universal international basic income.
This is confusing. Marx defined productive labour in the historically specific context of capitalist production relations as labour which produces surplus-value. "The only worker who is productive is one who produces surplus-value for the capitalist, or in other words contributes towards the self-valorization of capital." (Capital Vol I, pp.644) Surplus-value, of course, in Marx's account, arises from the relation of wage-labour. The commodity which the worker sells to the capitalist, his labour-power (Arbeitskraft) or 'capacity to labour' (Arbeitsvermogen), is a commodity with the distinctive property that the value produced by it in it's consumption as a use-value i.e. the actual living labour process is greater than it's value in exchange. Productive labour, from the standpoint of capitalist production, is wage-labour. Marx says that Adam Smith "hit the nail on the head" when he " defines productive labour as labour which is directly exchanged with capital; that is, he defines it by the exchange through which the conditions of production of labour, and value in general, whether money or commodity, are first transformed into capital (and labour into wage-labour in its scientific meaning)." (Theories of Surplus Value)
Marx does use the term 'productive capital', for example, in Capital Volume II when referring to the 'circuit of productive capital', one of the three 'moments' of capitalist circulation along with the circuits of money and commodity capital. Productive capital in this sense is capital in the form of the material elements of labour (raw materials and means of production) and living labour combined in the actual material process of production. This was in the context of a discussion of circulation however, and it seems what is really at stake here is the definition of productive labour.
Capitalism also depends on individuals who personify the capital relation to carry out the activity of purchasing constant and variable capital. In that sense you could say that capitalists are 'productive workers' since their activity not only contributes but is essential to the reproduction of capitalist social relations. Or the current government could be said to consist of 'productive workers' in the sense that their activity is essential to the reproduction of capitalist social relations.
Ultimately, my question is, why? What exactly are you clarifying by attempting to broaden the definition of productive labour in this way?
I understand the impulse to react against the idea that the unemployed are simply lazy, for example. But the category of productive labour is not a moral but an analytical category. In fact Marx notes in this context, in Volume I - "To be a productive worker is therefore not a piece of luck, but a misfortune."
Last edited by Zanthorus; 26th June 2017 at 23:57.
"From the relationship of estranged labor to private property it follows further that the emancipation of society from private property, etc., from servitude, is expressed in the political form of the emancipation of the workers; not that their emancipation alone is at stake, but because the emancipation of the workers contains universal human emancipation – and it contains this because the whole of human servitude is involved in the relation of the worker to production, and all relations of servitude are but modifications and consequences of this relation."
- Karl Marx -
Rather than claiming the "unemployed" are producing value (they can't, by definition), the point would be to tie why mass unemployment exists under Capitalism and the creation of the reserve army of labor.
Well, for starters, expounding the idea that the role played by the industrial reserve army is vital to the capitalist system's ability to create surplus-value can help clarify matters for people who are perplexed as to why Marxists consider the unemployed part of the working class. Or why a concept like "proletariat" is still relevant when advanced automation technology looms over industry, factory-workers and miners become a less common demographic, and the unemployed and underemployed are likely to become more and more significant demographics.
There is a passage from Volume 1 of Capital immediately preceding the one you quoted above that I think is relevant to the idea being developed here (my emphasis and comments on that passage, divided into three parts):
"Just as head and hand belong together in the system of nature, so in the labour process mental and physical labour are united. Later on they become separate; and this separation develops into a hostile antagonism. The product is transformed from the direct product of the individual producer into a social product, the joint product of a collective labourer, i.e. a combination of workers, each of whom stands at a different distance from the actual manipulation of the object of labour."We could say that the industrial reserve army, through negative association with the means of production, stands at a distance from the "object of labor", but it is part of the subject of labor. Marx's choice of phrase--industrial reserve army/reserve army of labor--definitely implies a belonging of this group to the total industrial army, which is another term for the collective laborer. Moreover, not only does the above passage imply the existence of indirect routes to productivity, but the below passage also evinces the increasing prominence of indirectly productive workers and the need to progressively expand the concept of the "productive worker".
Nowadays, it is no longer necessary to be employed in a factory to be a productive laborer. The unemployed working class, the part of the industrial army which is in standby mode, is a subordinate organ of the collective laborer without which the capitalist class cannot appropriate surplus-value.
"With the progressive accentuation of the co-operative character of the labour process, there necessarily occurs a progressive extension of the concept of productive labour, and of the concept of the bearer of that labour, the productive worker. In order to work productively, it is no longer necessary for the individual himself to put his hand to the object; it is sufficient for him to be an organ of the collective labourer, and to perform any one of its subordinate functions."
"The definition of productive labour given above, the original definition, is derived from the nature of material production itself, and it remains correct for the collective labourer, considered as a whole. But it no longer holds good for each member taken individually. Yet the concept of productive labour also becomes narrower. Capitalist production is not merely the production of commodities, it is, by its very essence, the production of surplus-value. The worker produces not for himself, but for capital. It is no longer sufficient, therefore, for him simply to produce. He must produce surplus-value."
The section of surplus-value which is appropriated by the bourgeois state through taxes does not form a true social fund; it is used to build up pro-capitalist infrastructure and apparatuses. Thus this surplus-value goes towards the perpetual renewal of a surplus army of industrial laborers. Public education is funded not to foster individuation, but for capital. The reserve army perpetually restocks the proverbial shelves of the labor market not for themselves, but for capital. To subsist while it performs this labor, the cost of its access to the means of subsistence (wages "in the scientific sense") are externalized--paid largely by the working class as an extra burden. More countries are beginning to experiment with implementing basic income, recognizing that labor-market maintenance is actually labor; would this be happening if the capitalists willing to give it a try thought that basic income was something other than the recognition of the industrial reserve as wage-laborers? if they really thought their collective laborer would call it a day?
Well, circulation is important because you need consumption to produce surplus-value. Basic income is also essentially recognizing this consumerist role as one of the duties of the collective laborer; it's hiring people to become consumers. It's expanding consumerism as a productive industry; it's main innovation is the outright employment of consumers, transforming them as such into wage laborers. Capital, Volume II goes pretty extensively into how consumerism entails more production of surplus-value, analyzing retailers and transport in particular as a productive industries.
For example, this passage is pretty good ammunition against that cliché that Walmart workers and so on, are no longer part of that industrial proletariat that Marx was supposedly all about:
As the capitalist mode of production presupposes production on a large scale, so it also necessarily presupposes large-scale sale; sale to the merchant, not to the individual consumer. In so far as this consumer is himself a productive consumer, i.e. an industrial capitalist, i.e. in so far as industrial capital in one branch of production supplies means of production to another branch, there is also direct sale by one industrial capitalist to several others (in the form of orders, etc.). [p. 190]
The key difference here I think is that members of the industrial reserve army do not enrich themselves at the expense of the industrial army at large. I would argue that some categories of government workers like postal workers and school teachers are definitely productive workers.
Last edited by Lacrimi de Chiciură; 27th June 2017 at 02:40.
