{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","title":"Zombie Capitalism Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781608461042","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","id":"4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","uuid":"4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","title":"Zombie Capitalism Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx","normalized_title":"zombiecapitalismglobalcrisisandtherelevanceofmarx","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781608461042","isbns":["9781608461042"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":426,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Zombie%20Capitalism%20Global%20Crisis%20and%20the%20Relevance%20of%20Marx","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe/search"},"page":{"printed_page":124,"pdf_page":124,"physical_index":124,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"0a9bb2e319d0bf024a03a8e643769a0cfc212735aae85f731de9c09eff6fde55"},"chapter":"Zombie Capitalism Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx","content":"Such labour could not be regarded as productive if the capitalist employed it in these ways, any more than the labour of the servant could be. Maintaining discipline, selling goods or getting the accounts done were necessary functions that had to be paid for by deductions from surplus value, not creative labour that added to surplus value. They did not produce something new, but were merely concerned with controlling the production of value by others, with transforming it from one form (commodities) into another (money), or with dividing it up between people. The activities of a supervisor, a bank clerk or a shop assistant could no more create value (and therefore surplus value) than could the valet.\n\nBut what happened if the productive capitalist used other capitalists to carry out some of these functions on his behalf? The labour employed by these other capitalists should be counted as productive according to Marx's established definition since it enabled them to make a profit. But seeing things like this presented a problem. The profit did not arise from increasing the total amount of output any more than it did when productive capitalists directly employed people to perform the tasks. It simply amounted to the second capitalist getting a slice of the surplus value originally in the hands of the first capitalist. Marx concluded that from the point of view of capitalist production such labour was unproductive, even though this seemed to be based on a different definition of productive labour to that he used elsewhere. For this reason Jacques Bidet, for instance, has argued that Marx was inconsistent.9 Yet it made sense in terms of the thing both Adam Smith and Karl Marx were interested in-the distinction between what advanced capitalist development and what retarded it.\n\nSo long as capitalists were operating in an economic environment in which capitalist production was not yet dominant, those who employed workers to provide personal services were providing them mainly to those whose wealth came from outside the capitalist system. The payments received, for instance, by the owners of a school constituted a transfer of resources into the capitalist sector from the pockets of pre-capitalist exploiters-resources that could then be used for productive accumulation. By contrast, the merchants or shopkeepers who handled the goods of the productive capitalists got their profit from the already created surplus value of the productive capitalist. They were not adding to total surplus value and with it the further accumulation of capital.\n\nAs Marx put it at one point:\n\n124\n\nUnderstanding the System: Marx and Beyond","previous_page":123,"next_page":125}