Service industries can extract surplus value and prolong capitalism’s viability

Evidence

Pollock, the other leading economist in the Institut, was quick to challenge Grossmann on other grounds. Stressing the inadequacy of Marx’s concept of productive labor because of its neglect of nonmanual labor, Pollock pointed to the service industries, which were becoming increasingly important in the twentieth century. Surplus value might be extracted from workers in these industries as well as from those producing commodities, he argued, which would prolong the life of the system. — Martin Jay, The Dialectical Imagination, 132

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to later debates about the welfare state and organized capitalism that Pollock will develop in exile; also to contemporary debates about commodified immaterial labor. — connects to: For Marx, surplus-value extraction reveals the state’s hidden foundation; Labor is the commodity whose surplus value is expropriated and realized through market exchange; The mode of surplus extraction reveals the hidden foundation of the entire social edifice (+5 more)
• QUESTION: Pollock’s argument about service-industry surplus value foreshadows autonomist-Marxist accounts of immaterial labor — worth checking whether anyone has traced that lineage.

Broader Connections

• For Marx, surplus-value extraction reveals the state’s hidden foundation #expands (0.85)
• Service economies rely on wage suppression because productivity gains are limited #expands (0.85) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 116
• Labor is the commodity whose surplus value is expropriated and realized through market exchange #expands (0.80)
• The mode of surplus extraction reveals the hidden foundation of the entire social edifice #corroborates (0.78)