[OPE-L] Dumenil and Levy on Unproductive Labor

[Jurriaan Bendien <adsl675281@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Jerry

You:

Where, however, did you get the idea that
faux frais constitute a portion of constant capital?  Is supervisory
labor to be counted as means of production?

Me:

In Marx's accounting scheme, capital costs in production which are neither V
nor S are C. In general, Marx refers to these incidental operating costs as
inputs which do not contribute net new (newly created) value to the social
product and do not increase the value of capital. Their value stays constant
in the valorisation process, i.e. they are conserved and transferred to the
value of new output without increasing in value in the production process.
Consequently, they have to be regarded as a component of constant capital.

To illustrate, in 2002, the US IRS tax-assessed capital costs of all US
corporations with a positive net income included the following items, which
Marx presumably regarded as "faux frais" (I'm not arguing this is the
complete list):

Repairs $85 billion
Bad debts $98 billion (IRC Section 166)
Advertising $160 billion
Net loss, non-capital assets $15 billion
Other deductible operating expenses n.e.c. $1,752 billion

These are together some $2.1 trillion of corporate operating costs, which
presumably are deducted from gross revenues. I do not know what the "other"
item cited actually includes - basically, the US tax categories are based on
a classification system that reflects accounting categories in a distant
past, and consequently the "other" item becomes larger and larger as fresh
tax-deductible items emerge. Of course, I do not deny that for tax purposes
you can also write off (i.e. regard as a cost) items which in reality are an
element of surplus-value or profit, but many of them are just a genuine
expense, which is a net loss of income.

You:

Faux frais is a cost, to be sure.  It is paid out of revenues and
represents a portion of S.

Me:

This is the point in dispute - how can you account for operating expenditure
such as necessary repairs etc. as part of surplus-value, if it is not even
part of gross profit? How can you deduct costs involved in faux frais from
gross revenues, and yet include them in S? Your argument seems to be that
gross output (total sales) less variable capital expenditure equals S, but
that won't wash - of course we must deduct intermediate expenditure and
depreciation among other things.

You:

Productive or unproductive of what?  I was using the term in the sense in
which I understand Marx to have intended it -- productive of surplus
value.  Nowhere, that I am aware of, did Marx ever suggest that capitalists
or their agents in the production process -- managers -- are productive of
surplus value.

Me:

Well, sometimes in his jottings Marx regards managerial labour just as
"workers" (in TSV3). Insofar as managerial labour is part of the
Gesamtarbeiter ("collective worker") they would presumably contribute to the
value of output like any other worker. However, I admit Marx never
explicitly resolved the economic role of managerial labour. The problem
really is that there are many types and gradations of management, some
productive in function, others purely supervisory or controlling.
Since you like quotes, how about this one from the Resultate: "Since with
the development of the real subsumption of labour under capital or the
specifically capitalist mode of production it is not the individual worker
but rather a socially combined labour capacity that is more and more the
real executor of the labour process as a whole, and since the different
labour capacities which cooperate together to form the productive machine as
a whole contribute in very different ways to the direct process by which the
commodity, or, more appropriate here, the product, is formed, one working
more with his hands, another more with his brain, one as a manager, engineer
or technician, etc., another as an overlooker, the third directly as a
manual worker, or even a mere assistant, more and more of the functions of
labour capacity are included under the direct concept of productive labour,
and their repositories under the concept of productive workers, workers
directly exploited by capital and altogether subordinated to its
valorisation and production process."
http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch02b.htm

You:

Yes, they have in many cases a vital role in coordinating
and organizing production and, of course, extracting work from
wage-workers. This does not mean that they themselves create surplus value
and are exploited.

Me:

My argument is that the issue is not so clearcut, i.e. some managerial
labour is productive in function, other such labour is not. You can only see
that, if you examine more closely the real occupational division of labour
that operates. Easy Marxist schemas superimposed on reality are unhelpful
here.

You

Your conclusions are based on, imo, on conflating labor employed in
production with productive labor.  Simply because production depends
on a particular type of labor does not by itself make that labor
productive of surplus value. So, I think we can dismiss your
dismissal out-of-hand.

Me:

No, not really. I'm suggesting managerial labour can be productive or
non-productive of new value, depending on the case. Some are just as much
exploited as any exploited worker. Easy abstract schemas are not very
helpful here, you have to look at the actual data and facts pertaining to
the activities. The question is to what extent the manager directly
participates in the production and valorisation process. In 2002, there were
about 15,800,000 managers and executives in the US, and 9,100,000
supervisors (BLS data), some of whom could be regarded as productive workers
and other not. Generally, the ultra-leftists simply dismiss managerial
labour as unproductive, but that's just rhetoric, not based on facts or
serious arguments. One of the papers I aim to write some day, is about
management, but lack the time for it now, I have to study for an exam.

Jurriaan