Talk:Productive and unproductive labour

New mysteries
I m surprised that the end comment is that the distinction between productive and unproductive labour is less and less important. I understand from what is written that more and more people get money from doing unproductive labour and that productive labour is less and less a way to accumulate wealth. IT seems to me that this is a clear path for economic suicide.

-- You seem to have missed the point entirely. There is no meaningful distinction between "productive" and "unproductive" labour. This section of the article accurately describes the method of wealth creation in a global economy. What I can't understand is why the author calls it a "mystery". If no one objects, I'm going to remove the word "mystery". Salvor Hardin 07:21, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

I used the term "mysteries" in this article to refer to the modern difficulties of explaining the origins of new wealth. The suggestion is that trading processes have become much more complex, making it more difficult to identify who or what creates new wealth in contrast to redistributing existing wealth. In other words, it has nowadays become much more difficult and more controversial to distinguish between productive and unproductive activities, because of the new realities of a globalising services economy. Jurriaan 23:10 18 January 2007

Karl Marx in italics
Assuming that Marx did not write a self-titled album on labor theory, his name shouldn't be italicized. OWiseWun (talk) 23:47, 13 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Yep, you're right. Got it. C RETOG 8(t/c) 04:45, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

Unproductive Labour in economic theory
I'm moving the following two paragraphs here from the article. The tone is wrong for the article--there's no need to explain in the article why it's only fair to add some material to the article. Can this be whittled down to it's essence before being put back? (I also admit I don't understand what it's mainly saying.) C RETOG 8(t/c) 23:22, 24 September 2010 (UTC) It seems unfair to delete an important part of the following as wrong as this view is found widely in actual [2010] literature. But this is due to the fact that scientific history – and other history – is written backwards. That the history of science is not accumulative but presents itself as accumulative was explained by Kuhn: “[S]cience textbooks refer only to that part of the work of past scientist that can easily be viewed as contribution to the statement and solution of the texts’ paradigm problems. Partly by selection and partly by distortion, the scientists of earlier ages are implicitly represented as having worked upon the same set of fixed problems … that the most recent revolution in scientific theory and method has made scientific.” This phenomenon is valid first of all for the term “unproductive labour”, a central issue for classical and an absurd notion for neoclassical economics. The effort to do justice to classical economists from a neoclassical standpoint leads to many well meaning but pointless explanations. An analytical treatment of this notion from the classical point of view is offered under Unproductive Labour in economic theory.

1. answer
I´ll try it again: Within the logical structure of neo-classical economics (a micro-theory supposing a homo oeconomicus) certainly “unproductive labour” makes no sense because it is excluded logically by assuming that everybody behaves to maximise utility.

But classical economics make no sense without this notion as it is a macro-economic development theory and not maximising micro-economic utility. As a development theory it has to compare the input to the reproductive circle in t2 with the input in t1. If the input of goods and services in t2 is bigger than in t1, you have development. All output of t1 which does not enter as input into the reproduction circle of t2 is considered “unproductive labour” by Quesnay, Smith, Ricardo und J.S. Mill. “Unproductive” as it is lost for development on a macroeconomic level.

Within neoclassical categories this is as impossible to understand as to Ricardo, an ardent Benthamite, utility considerations have nothing to do with Political Economy. (In Smith this is mixed as the mayor part is written before his tour to France and the important opening and other parts reflect what he learned with Quesnay.) As there are two views on economics, you need two articles on “productive and unproductive labour”. The usual game is to view classical economists with neoclassical concepts to make them look stupid. We shouldn’t follow this stupidity.

As you find difficulties to see what I want to say, I am well disposed to reformulate it. Cuauti (talk) 18:09, 26 September 2010 (UTC)


 * Unfortunately, I still don't really understand what you're trying to say. I admit to a poor education on early economic thought. I pretty much know Smith and 20th century stuff. The gist of what you're saying makes some sense--that material should be presented clearly, and on its own terms. I have two big caveats for that, however. First, the material I removed reads kinda like original research even if it's based on how you would want to clarify things. SO, you need to be careful about that. Second, if more recent and generally accepted economics criticizes classical economics, that is proper to present, just as it would be worthwhile in an article on gravity to point out that Newton's notions have been superseded by Einstein's. C RETOG 8(t/c) 23:50, 26 September 2010 (UTC)

2. answer
This is original research only in the sense that I hope to save the classics from the crude misinterpretations of the neoclassics. The difference of classical and modern physics is v.g. a different definition of time, the difference of classical and modern economics is the end of the science: Macro-economical growth versus micro-economical utility maximisation. I do not enter in the historic reasons why growth was abandoned the neoclassics.

An example: The article maintains: „They regarded human labour as the mainspring of wealth“ Rubbish because to a neoclassical reader this means that capital and land were disregarded as factors of production.

The concept of “factors of production” is neoclassical and incompatible with classical theory. To a classical economist everything is present labour and inputs. The inputs again are former labour and former inputs. So everything can be reduced to present and dated labour. [You may remember the capital- controversy Cambridge vs. Cambridge where England showed  that the differences in time-structure of dated labour makes the neoclassical concept of capital logically inconsistent.]

Labour is important to the classics because it includes neoclassical capital as dated labour. („land“ is another story as the monopolistic income from heterogeneous land by Ricardo was forged by the neoclassics as a competitive productivity income from homogeneous land.)

There are many more cases like this in the article, but I don’t like to delete it, because although false, it is the stuff you find in most neoclassical textbooks. (T. Kuhn, “Structure of Scientific Revolutions” tells you, why this is the case.) So I prefer a separate article and everybody can make up his mind. Cuauti (talk) 21:47, 4 October 2010 (UTC)


 * Plenty of current economists advocate classical and marxist economics. Classical economics has NOT been superceded by neoclassical economics. -- RLV 209.217.195.130 (talk) 14:49, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

=sources!=

The section on Marx's critique is lacking any or all references. This is close to plagiarism. For example, some of the distinctions made between:

commodity production, versus other production capitalist production versus non-capitalist production production versus circulation (exchange) production for profit, versus non-profit production productive consumption versus unproductive consumption material (tangible) production, versus non-material production production of use values, versus production of exchange-values production of value, versus appropriation of revenue production of income, versus distribution of income production versus destruction

are extracted or copied right out of Sungur Savran and E. Ahmet Tonak's article 'Productive and Unproductive labour: at attempt at clarification and classification' p.132. Please add references or remove the section altogether. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.81.5.140 (talk) 05:24, 10 October 2011 (UTC)


 * I am aware of the Savran/Tonak article, but I did not base the ten distinctions I mentioned on their article. Their article is a flawed interpretation of Marx. Rather I based the ten distinctions on Marx's Capital. There is exists a very large literature on the topic which I consulted in days gone past - Savran & Tonak themselves make use of this literature. I don't mind referencing Savran & Tonak however. User:Jurriaan 19 March 2012 15:50 (UTC)
 * While I think of it: I was thinking and writing about this topic before Savran and Tonak did, in the context of a study of national accounting. Therefore, it could be that Savran and Tonak plagiarised from me. I met Savran at the conference in 1984, but I never met with Tonak, I only corresponded with him. User:Jurriaan 20 March 2013 22:13 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 212.64.48.162 (talk)