ABSTRACT
Unproductive labour is one of the weakest aspects of Marx's economics. The issue was raised in favour of development against all sorts of rent and unproductive consumption. Marx stressed that productive labour in the general sense and in the capitalist sense are completely different. In the general sense, productive labour simply reproduces what the worker consumes. In the capitalist sense, productive labour is that which produces a surplus value, besides the value of the worker's consumption. Thus, Marx corrected Smith in principle but in practice accepted his view that only material labour is productive. Napoleoni commented: first Marx defined productive labour independently of the use value of the product, but then–as in the case of commerce–reintroduced use value as discriminant. Marx drastically ruled out that any of the activities devoted to exchange and circulation of commodities could be productive. Probably influenced by Quesnay–and unlike Smith–he reduced commerce to exchange.
