RE: [OPE] No rise is s/v? Kliman's pseudo-empirical work on the falling rate of profit

[GERALD LEVY <gerald_a_levy@xxxxxxx>]

Jurriaan:
 
Marx, I think, was very clear and consistent about the subject of 
productive vs. unproductive labor. (The manuscripts for what became
Volume II, I think, are particularly important since
they represent his 'late' thinking.) This is not to say that some issues
don't remain _ especially as it relates to the classification of 
individual workers in an unusual or ambiguous situation vis-a-vis the production 
of surplus value. But, if Kliman thinks that Marx was wrong on that subject and 
is in need of revision, then let him make that case explicit. It's 
certainly a legitimate question to ask. What is _not_ legitimate for him 
to do is just to side-step the whole question since it is vital to the thesis
of his paper and because the Marxian empirical literature since Gilman has 
included estimations of productive vs. unproductive labor expenses.
 
If one wants to calculate the rate of profit - from Marx's or a Marxian
perspective - then one _must_  do this. Otherwise, all wage labor expenses
regardless of whether the labor is engaged in capitalist _production_
or not  are counted as part of V and this, hence, affects the magnitude of the 
rate of profit.
 
In solidarity, Jerry


> The real point is not so much that Dr Kliman is inconsistent with Marx in
> this respect, but that Marx never reached a definite and ambiguous
> conclusion about the meaning of unproductive labour, except to say that the
> concept refers both the the "useful effect" of the labour, and the social
> relations of production within which it is performed. 		 	   		  _______________________________________________
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