Surplus value in non-productive work.
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I get stumped when asked about workers who are not directly working in producing goods, but in the multitude of non-productive jobs: clerks, civil servants, police, nurses, doctors, psychiatrists, clergy, novelists and other writers, etc. Obviously, they are all abetting the process of exploitative production, but how are they themselves producing surplus value, I am asked.
They don’t produce surplus value, but are necessary adjuncts to the process of surplus extraction under capitalism
Entertainers and writers can be said to produce surplus value, because a television production, or major theatre production, or film, are products which are sold. Hence, screenwriters, comedians, actors etc., are salary workers paid for their labour but not reaping the value going to the tv company, film company etc. Exceptions would be drama co-operatives I suppose.
So, is it correct to say not all members of the working class produce surplus value, but are still wage-slaves, in that they are members of the class which is compelled to work in order to live?
(Whereas an individual capitalist might work for fun, but doesn’t need to in order to live).Not all wage workers produce surplus value. An obvious example is a servant working in the household of a capitalist or aristocrat. All workers produce something (some use-value) but not all workers produce value and so no surplus value.
There is a bit of a semantic argument here as in Marxian economics the definition of “productive” is a worker who produces surplus value. So, by definition, a “nonproductive” worker is a worker who doesn’t produce value and it would be a contradiction to say that a “non-produtive” produced surplus value — if they did, they would be a productive not a non-productive worker.
A “non-productive” worker may not be exploited for surplus value but they can still provide their employer will surplus labour, as this article explains:
“So, is it correct to say not all members of the working class produce surplus value”
Of course, for one thing not all members of the working class, proletarians, will be engaged in wage labour.
Shop staff, train drivers, security guards don’t directly produce surplus value, but they are a cost and an essential part of the overall realisation of value: the collective working class produces the surplus value.
To take my usual example of a cricket ball factory, some of the team will be directly involved in creating the ball, some just put it in a box, or move the boxes to the loading bay for collection. None of the directly productive staff can say how much value they added, since it is a collective act, and the box fillers and movers are essential to getting the product out.
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