Class, Productive and Unproductive Labour - Journal of Alternative ...

Dr. Timothy Kerswellin the process of commodity production. This process issomewhat more complicated than that involved in thecirculation sphere as the value required to sustain thissphere is acquired primarily through the collection of taxes.In terms of the taxes appropriated from capitalists andworkers in the circulation sphere, this value is surplus valueextracted from the production sector to begin with. Themore complicated question is in terms of income taxextracted from the production sector worker as in manycases, income tax appropriated goes into programmaticspending which directly benefits the production workersthemselves, making it difficult to conceive of such a situationas a form of exploitation. Despite the desirability, or evennecessity of such a situation, it follows that if productivelabour is the sole source of value, and that the sphereinvolved with the reproduction of the social order creates novalue of its own, then this sphere exists due to the extractionof value from the production sphere.What follows from this is that as a whole, both circulationlabourers and social reproduction labourers have a stake inthe maximization of surplus value extraction from theproduction sphere. The upper limit at which labourers inthese spheres can bargain for better wages is determined bythe amount of surplus value extracted from the productionsphere. The following Venn diagram provides a pictorialrepresentation of the political economy of the distribution ofvalue, although one that is not to scale.Production labourers have an interest in minimizing theamount of surplus value extracted by capital. In doing sothey directly challenge the amount of value that is able to beaccumulated as capital but also the amount of value thatcan be distributed to the circulation and social reproductionsectors. By contrast, capitalists as a sphere have an interestin maximizing the amount of value extracted from theproduction sphere but also minimizing the amount of valuethey must spend on circulation and social reproduction.Finally, circulation and social reproduction workers have aninterest in maximizing the amount of surplus value extractedfrom the production sphere, but then minimizing the amountof value that returns to capital by maximizing their wageshare. The relationship between the three spheres is35