Letter: Unproductive workers (1976)

Letter to the Editors from the November 1976 issue of the Socialist Standard

Unproductive workers

I understand according to the  SPGB that there are two classes: “those who produce but do not possess” and “those who possess but do not produce” (from Principle 2). I was surprised, therefore, to read in an article called “The Productive and the Unproductive Worker” that there exists a group of people who fit into neither of these categories. According to the author nobody who works for the state is a productive worker, and there are certainly people who work e.g. in the Civil Service who are not members of the possessing class.

Surely the doctor (another of the author’s examples of an unproductive worker) can be productive insofar as he contributes to the production of surplus value — he maintains the health of those engaged in producing steel, cars etc.?

Alison R. Hessiter

London N.19

Reply:

The point of the article was to clarifv terms which are often misunderstood. An unproductive worker is one who is paid not out of the value created in his working day but out of capitalist revenue. What must be appreciated is that the definition is from the point of view of capitalism — like that of “useful” labour, which was also discussed in the article.

Only a minority of workers are engaged directly in production. Transport, distribution, a good deal of clerical work etc. are obvious adjuncts of production; but there remain large numbers who are employed in “services” and administration. Clearly these non-producers are also non-possessors, and they are necessary to the social process of commodity production. The motor-car worker requires the doctor for his health and teachers for his children, and the provision and payment of them involves clerks and inspectors; more apparatus is necessary to collect taxes from his employers; legal enforcement means policemen, courts and ultimately armed force — and so on.

Your statement about the doctor is therefore quite correct, and the second clause in our Principles is explained in the article: “all workers, whether their work is productive or unproductive, play a part in this process. To that extent all workers are exploited, because they are under the domination of capital and have to sell their labour-power to whoever will buy it.”

Editors.