Re: [Marxism] Marx on management

[Rdkrnstdt@xxxxxxx]

The relative growth of non-value-adding labor (or, the growth of the 
transformation of v into, what might be termed, ~v, or, of surplus-value 
producing 
labor into non-surplus-value producing labor) was treated quite nicely in Fred 
Moseley's rejoinder to Robert Brenner's
emphasis on international competition as the leading contributor to the fall 
in the rate of profit.  From the article: 
THE DECLINE OF THE RATE OF PROFIT IN THE POSTWAR US ECONOMY:
A COMMENT ON BRENNER

"According to Marxâs labor theory of value, not all labour employed within 
capitalist enterprises produce value and surplus-value. Some labour within 
capitalist enterprises perform functions which by themselves, according to 
Marxâs 
theory, do not result in the production of additional value and surplus-value. 
These unproductive functions are entirely necessary within capitalist 
economies, but nonetheless, according to Marxâs theory, do result in 
additional value 
or surplus-value...If these unproductive costs increase faster than the 
surplus-value produced by productive labour, then there will be proportionally 
less 
profit left over for capitalists. As we shall see, according to this Marxian 
theory, this negative effect of rising costs of unproductive labour was the 
main cause of the decline in the rate of profit in the postwar U.S. economy.

Full text at:

http://www.mtholyoke.edu/~fmoseley/HM.html

In a message dated 1/10/2005 3:58:08 PM Pacific Standard Time, 
andromeda246@xxxxxxxxx writes:
"The work of supervision and management necessarily arises everywhere when 
the direct production process takes the form of a socially combined process, 
and does not appear simply as the isolated labour of separate producers. It 
has, however, a dual nature. On the one hand, in all labour where many 
individuals cooperate, the interconnection and unity of the process is 
necessarily represented in a governing will, and in functions that concern 
not the detailed work but rather the workplace and its activity as a whole, 
as with the conductor of an orchestra. This is productive labour that has to 
be performed in any combined mode of production. On the other hand - and 
quite apart from the commercial department - this work of supervision 
necessarily arises in all modes of production that are based on opposition 
between the worker as direct producer and the proprietor of the means of 
production. The greater this opposition, the greater the role that this work 
of supervision plays. It reaches its high point in the slave system."


Karl Marx, Das Kapital (1894), Dietz ed. p. 397. Pelican edition, p. 507 
(translation corrected).




Here's some rough calculations on the employed US population (domestic) 
providing a thumbnail picture of the managerial & control structure in 2002, 
assuming salaried employees (civilian + military) = 128.1 million, paid 
selfemployed = 10 million, total salaried employees & selfemployed (civilian 
+ military) = 138.1 million:



Managers and executives 15.8 million
Supervisors  9.1 million



Subtotal, managerial & supervisory employees 24.9 million



Law enforcement officers and detectives 1.2 million

Security guards   1 million

Corrective institution & prison officers 328 thousand
Domestic military personnel 1.1 million



Subtotal, security personnel all kinds 3.6 million



Grand total, managerial, supervisory & security personnel: 28.5 million



We can then estimate that one in five paid jobs in the US is either a 
managerial, supervisory or security function. Obviously, most of the latter 
typer of functions are salaried, and not self-employed positions. But, 
basically, the ratio of civilian managerial/supervisory functions to total 
civilian salaried employees is justabout the same - one in five.



Jurriaan
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