Productive labor

“ We see, however, by this, that there is a distinction more important to the wealth of a community than even that between productive and unproductive labor; the distinction, namely, between labor for the supply of productive, and for the supply of unproductive, consumption; between labor employed in keeping up or in adding to the productive resources of the country, and that which is employed otherwise. Of the produce of the country, a part only is destined to be consumed productively ”

“ By Unproductive Labor, on the contrary, will be understood labor which does not terminate in the creation of material wealth. And all labor, according to our present definition, must be classed as unproductive, which terminates in a permanent benefit, however important, provided that an increase of material products forms no part of that benefit. The labor of saving a friend's life is not productive, unless the friend is a productive laborer, and produces more than he consumes. ”

“ Nor is it precisely true that the labor set free by each250 improvement will all be driven to seek employment in the production of more wealth. The increased power of satisfaction, which each fresh improvement gives to a certain portion of the community, will be utilized in demanding leisure or services, as well as in demanding wealth. Some laborers will, therefore, become idlers and some will pass from the ranks of productive to those of unproductive laborers—the proportion of which, as observation shows, tends to increase with the progress of society. ”

“ The growth of population, the increase and extension of exchanges, the discoveries of science, the march of invention, the spread of education, the improvement of government, and the amelioration of manners, considered as material forces, have all a direct tendency to increase the productive power of labor—not281 of some labor, but of all labor; not in some departments of industry, but in all departments of industry; for the law of the production of wealth in society is the law of “each for all, and all for each.” ”

“ In fact, they will freely choose the kind of productive labor they prefer, and all kinds of work will, in accordance with the law of supply and demand, be reduced in varying proportions to definite quantities of ordinary labor. ”

“ Is it meant that the man who does any manual labor in connection with, or contribution to the production of a thing, should have the whole of that thing? Or, is it meant that the man who contributes manual labor to the productive enterprise should have all that part of the thing which belongs to the labor element, in proportion to the capital, land, and other elements which contribute to production? ”

“ They may not directly produce commodities but their services are essential to the smooth working of the processes of production. The only workers who do not deserve to be called productive laborers are thieves, swindlers, counterfeiters, and other parasites. They often work harder than would suffice to earn them an honest living; but their labor is not productive. They live on what others produce.
Natural resources, labor, capital, organization, and government. 42The Factors in Production.—There are five factors in production ”

“ When the rapid growth of the country required greater productiveness, and the enlargement of territory made necessary a change in the distribution of the products of labor, the factory system was introduced, whereby capital, or unproductive labor, was joined with productive labor to accomplish greater results than had heretofore been attained by individual labor. ”

“ The conditions which govern the need of the productive system for labor may be summarized 64 as follows: Firstly, the consumption habits of the community, by which is decided the direction in which the productive powers are employed; secondly, the state of the productive arts, which governs the manner in which the various agents of production are combined for purposes of production; thirdly, the available supply of the agents of production, other than labor. ”

“ Notwithstanding the enormous increase of productive power by the universal introduction of labor-saving machinery and the discovery of new agents for the increase of wealth, the task of the laborer is scarcely lightened, the hours of toil are but little shortened, and few producers are lifted from poverty into comfort and pecuniary independence. ”

“ Whenever, therefore, he pays for a service voluntarily, he acknowledges its productiveness. Lastly, from a national-economical point of view, all labor is considered productive which increases the quantity of goods exposed for sale in the market ”

“ The division of labor embracing all the particular kinds of productive occupations, is the complete expression of social labor in its material aspect viewed as labor creating use-values. But from the standpoint of commodities and within the process of exchange, it exists only in its results, in the variety of the commodities themselves. ”

“ Why, then, should it be called unproductive when such secondary labor is performed by particular persons? Otherwise the farmer would have no time whatever for his principal business! Edinburgh Review, 1804, IV, 343 ff.; Wakefield, An Essay upon Political Economy, 1804, who is concerned mainly with the theory of the productiveness of labor. L. Lauderdale says, that when the nation's wealth is estimated according to its value in use, all useful labor is productive; and that when estimated according to its value in exchange, all labor that is paid is productive. ”

“ The principle of those illustrations applies to the whole Productive Process. By division of Labor, that is to say, by Labor specialization, Economic accomplishment is multiplied beyond all the possibilities of isolated individual production. ”

“ From an Address on Success in Business.
=165.= THE BENEFICENCE OF LABOR-SAVING INVENTIONS. There is, if not an ever-increasing need, an ever-increasing consciousness of need, of labor-saving inventions and machinery. And, if those inventions should render labor twenty times as productive as it is to-day, should make this a general rule, that all human labor shall produce twenty times as much as it does to-day—there would be no glut of products, as so many mistakenly apprehend. There would only be a very much fuller and broader satisfaction of human needs. Our wants are infinite. ”

“ Hence the notion of a productive labourer implies not merely a relation between work and useful effect, between labourer and product of labour, but also a specific, social relation of production, a relation that has sprung up historically and stamps the labourer as the direct means of creating surplus-value. To be a productive labourer is, therefore, not a piece of luck, but a misfortune. ”

“ This genius for simplification of processes, this wonderful knack of devising machinery which will do the work of the human hand, has multiplied the output of our factories: and this in turn has increased wages and decreased the hours of labor, and so brought a great uplift into the lives of our workmen; given them the power to provide better homes for their families, better education for their children, and greater leisure in which to work out a broader destiny for themselves. ”

“ As the co-operative character of the labour-process becomes more and more marked, so, as a necessary consequence, does our notion of productive labour, and of its agent the productive labourer, become extended. ”

“ In looking back upon all the various circumstances which we have exhibited as necessary for carrying industry to the greatest point of productiveness, we think that we must have established satisfactorily that the two great elements which concur in rendering labour in the highest degree beneficial, are, 1st, the accumulated results of past labour, [Pg 379] and 2nd, the contrivances by which manual labour is assisted,—those contrivances being derived from the accumulations of knowledge. Capital and skill, therefore, are essential to the productive power of labour. ”

“ An increase in the funds expended in employing labour, whether that labour be productive or unproductive, tends equally to raise wages. The condition of the whole labouring class is, so far, benefited. It is true that the labourers thus employed by sojourners are probably, in part or altogether, withdrawn from productive employment. ”

“ It will be neither an easy or rapid task to make the work in factories and mines very attractive. Beside the attractiveness of labor another power of attraction will come into operation through the wages of labor. ”

“ The fact that the labourer must have food, clothing, etc., in order to enable him to perform the work is at once recognized and the unwary reader, having been told that the food, clothing, etc., used by productive labourers are capital, assents to the conclusion that the consumption of capital is necessary to the application of labour. ”

“ In Socialist society, an increase of production accrues to the benefit of all: The share of each rises with the productivity of labor and increased productivity again makes possible the reduction of the hours of work, socially determined as necessary. ”

“ But the result, or the earnings of labor, as is readily seen in those primary and fundamental occupations in which labor first engages, and which, even in the most highly developed condition of society, still form the base of production, does not depend merely upon the intensity or quality of the labor itself. ”

“ In order to labour productively, it is no longer necessary for you to do manual work yourself; enough, if you are an organ of the collective labourer, and perform one of its subordinate functions. The first definition given above of productive labour, a definition deduced from the very nature of the production of material objects, still remains correct for the collective labourer, considered as a whole. ”

“ Productive activity, if we leave out of sight its special form, viz., the useful character of the labour, is nothing but the expenditure of human labour-power. Tailoring and weaving, though qualitatively different productive activities, are each a productive expenditure of human brains, nerves, and muscles, and in this sense are human labour. ”

“ Stone. “If you mean that productive labourers add more to the wealth of the society, the very way of putting the question shews that you are right: but we may see, in the case of every civilized state, that a mixture of productive and unproductive labourers is the best for the comfort and prosperity of society.” ”

“ This we may hope to do by several methods; for example, by reducing the daily hours of labor, by promoting vocational education, by the restriction of child employment, by a better organization of the labor market (see p. 418) , and by providing wholesome recreation for the workers.
Labor is a service. Is Labor a Commodity?—Labor, as a factor in production, receives its return in the form of wages. A generation ago it was customary to speak of labor as a commodity and to say that the worker “sold his labor” for wages. But labor is not a commodity. ”

“ The employment of these different sorts of labour power, an employment which is, in its turn, made necessary by the mode of production, makes a great difference in the cost of maintaining the family of the labourer, and in the value of the labour-power of the adult male. ”

“ The Final Productivity of Labor.—If we assume that the capital of society is a fixed amount, we may perform an imaginary experiment which will show how much labor really produces. We may set men at work, a few at a time, until they are all employed, and we may measure the product of each of the detachments. We should make the different sections of the working force as similar to each other as it is possible to make them and call each section a unit of labor. ”

“ Who can say to what infinite powers the wealth-producing capacity of labor may not be raised by social adjustments which will give to the producers of wealth their fair proportion of its advantages and enjoyments! With present processes the gain would be simply incalculable, but just as wages are high, so do the invention and utilization of improved processes and machinery go on with greater rapidity and ease. ”

“ It should be said at the outset of this chapter that, in a very true sense, practically all men are laborers. That into which a man puts his energy and by which he earns his living, is his labor, whether it be work of the hand or the head. But the labor we are to consider in this chapter is that of the men who work for wages; and we will also make the arbitrary distinction that it is that of the men who work for wages in some branch of manufacturing, mining, trade, or transportation, the great divisions of modern industry which we have thus far considered. ”

“ Makes employment easy to obtain, with just wages in return for the labor done, putting within the reach of all, those comforts and luxuries, which, in this age of the world with its skill for quick and easy production, should be looked upon as a matter of course, but which in fact are unknown to a large part of the working people of the country. ”

“ Down to the day when large production began, the labor employed in the production of the necessities of life took up the whole time of those engaged in it; it required the fullest exercise of both body and mind. ”

“ As the labour which confers productive powers, whether of hand or of head, may be looked upon as part of the labour by which society accomplishes its productive operations, or in other words, as part of what the produce costs to society, so too may the labour employed in keeping up productive powers ”

“ Considering then that a society demands as the socially necessary labor within a definite time for the production of trousers 10,000 labor days and for suspenders 1,000, that is to say, this amount of labor is necessary in order to satisfy the social need for trousers and suspenders at the present stage of the productivity of labor. ”