In response to this question, first it should be noted that while the proportion of GDP devoted to services has increased in every advanced industrial economy, this is in large part due to the efect that increasing productivity has on the relative cost of goods and services. Because it is dificult to increase the productivity of service sector work, as manufacturing productivity increases, the cost of goods tends to fall relative to the cost of services (Baumol and Bowden 1966). Since, over time, the relative cost of services tends to increase, it seems as if the sector is expanding. But the increase in the value of the service sector masks a material reality of massively increased output of commodities, for which there has been a ready market. As noted in chapter 3, according to a chain-quantity index measure, which best approximates actual quantity of things produced, per capita output of consumer durables increased ninefold in the United States between 1925 and 1998 (Sherby 2000). The relative shift toward services, measured in terms of GDP, is therefore evidently entirely compatible with ever-increasing production, consumption, and accumulation of material goods.41
Moreover, part of the apparent increase in the proportion of economy devoted to services is an accounting artifact, resulting from the commodification of activities previously carried on outside the market sphere (Gershuny and Miles 1983). For example, as eating out becomes more common, the amount of labor involved in food preparation does not necessarily increase (it might well decrease), but more people are in paid employment to provide that service. The commodification of previously uncommodified activities accounts for a significant part of the nominal increase in the value of the services sector and for the increasing proportion of the labor force employed in service provision.
Nonetheless, the increasing prominence of services cannot be entirely reduced to an accounting artifact. As capitalist economies have matured there has undoubtedly been a significant movement of labor from manufacturing to the service sector. Many of the new service sector jobs are not just the result of commodification of activities previously conducted outside the market. Rather, as productivity increased in manufacturing, industrial workers were shed and were reemployed providing quite novel services—call center work would be a prominent contemporary example. However, this development is not incompatible with the commensuration theory. The theory does not presuppose that the workforce is employed in the extractive and manufacturing sectors. The argument is that wage workers seek commensurate compensation for giving up their time and freedom, whatever sector they work within.
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Time for Things