ABSTRACT
The third group of classical authors was radically sceptical about the existence of unproductive labour. However, in the analyses of this group of authors, we find an idea of the importance of immaterial labour for the creation of wealth. Productiveness is partly freed from the coercive bond of material production and can open new prospects for growth. Melchiorre Gioia made detailed criticism of Smith's distinction. First, he wrote, productive labour is that which produces utility. Second, it is absurd to place honourable professions like those of lawyers, doctors or professors at same level as prostitutes or gamblers. Louis Say rejected Smith's postulate on material labour, because services too have utility. Value is only given by utility. Labour, he maintained, can be productive but also destructive, since it often destroys houses or natural beauties, or subtracts work from useful production in order to produce luxuries. Ricardian economics was not able to explain the growing importance of intellectual and service labour in accumulation.
