The scientific issue

It is a notable fact that, while the theory of the unproductive utilization of labor and resources – the theory of unproductive consumption or of unproductive labor – occupies a prominent place both in Capital and in the Grundrisse, the subject has until recently received only cursory treatment by Marxists and still less consideration by students of the standard economics. For the latter this is not so surprising. In the philosophical folklore of economics, one must as a scientist avoid value judgments. Such judgments as may be required in order to distinguish between productive and unproductive employments of labor power, or between productive and unproductive uses of means of production and of wage goods (consumption) will, so they say, spoil irrevocably the work of the scientist. Whether or not a given activity falls into one or another of these categories has been taboo in scientific discourse. In orthodox economics, as a consequence, the blithe assumption has long been pervasive that all activity is productive. Indeed, it can be shown at the analytical level that the entire standard theory of production itself hangs upon the unraveling thread of this assumption.

Consistent with its prohibition, modern economics does not face up to the issue. Marx, to the contrary, holding strictly to the classical tradition, recognized the inescapable need to confront the phenomenon theoretically simply because historical observation throws up so much evidence of its ubiquitous presence.