Bill Mitchell put up a post today that covers a lot of ground and focuses on the concept of work as it has evolved over time to the contemporary neoliberal concept of productive as equable with work from which management can profit from wages.
...the dominant elites, which are increasingly being dominated, in turn, by large financial interests, which themselves are inherently unproductive, have developed a narrative to convince us that it is better to have millions of people doing nothing than advancing societies commonwealth.
If a person is not advancing private profit-seeking behaviour then the work is unproductive. We have bought that narrative from the elites. We have also bought the narrative that the unemployed are in some way letting themselves down – they are lazy, unskilled, lacking in something or other.
What I found most interesting in the post is Bill's observation:
I note that not all of my MMT colleagues would agree with me that Marx is an important part of understanding the basis of MMT. I am not suggesting that MMT is part of Marxist doctrine – it could be but it doesn’t have to be. But I think you cannot understand the capitalist monetary system unless you understand class dynamics.
That is certain to raise eyebrows but it is consistent with the growing interest in Marx lately. A lot of people are beginning to figure out that workers are not getting fair shake and are questioning the prevailing narrative. Marxist and Marxian analysis has not only been marginalized in the United States, but demonized. Therefore, most people have no knowledge of it and no interest, since they have been inculcated with the idea that any association with Marx involves sure descent into totalitarianism. That's unfortunate since Marx makes many observations that are still relevant wrt to the prevailing narrative about work.
Bill Mitchell — billy blog
Sport and doping – the spreading tentacles of capitalBill Mitchell
See also Matias Vernengo,
Sraffa and Marxism or the Labor Theory of Value, what is it good for?
