ABSTRACT
The problem of unproductive labour derives from the capitalist tendency to economic development. Luis Ortiz called for the idle and the rich, soldiers, menial servants, vagabonds, students, jurists and scholars to be put to productive work. Ortiz's list of the unproductive is much like the lists compiled by Petty and Smith. Like Botero and Serra, Petty set out to identify which occupations produce more wealth and which produce less or no wealth at all. Petty persevered in his endeavour to list the more productive occupations through a hypothetical census of the British population. Genovesi's analysis, although so insightful, had little success, except in Italy and Spain. Even less appreciated were his considerations on unproductive labour. The evolutionary interpretation of unproductive labour fell away quite soon, because it did not make use of the modern economic categories. Besides, the confrontation between the physiocrats and Smith monopolised the post-Smithian debate and wiped out even the memory of the evolutionary approach.
