Key Arguments

• Production is no longer for the worker but for capital, requiring self-valorization
• The nature of the work (e.g., teaching vs. making sausages) is irrelevant; the economic relation of exploitation is what defines it
• Being a productive worker is a 'misfortune' rather than a privilege because it implies being a direct means of valorization

Source Quotes

He must produce surplus-value. The only worker who is productive is one who produces surplus-value for the capitalist, or in other words contributes towards the self-valorization of capital. If we may take an example from outside the sphere of material production, a schoolmaster is a productive worker when, in addition to belabouring the heads of his pupils, he works himself into the ground to enrich the owner of the school.

The only worker who is productive is one who produces surplus-value for the capitalist, or in other words contributes towards the self-valorization of capital. If we may take an example from outside the sphere of material production, a schoolmaster is a productive worker when, in addition to belabouring the heads of his pupils, he works himself into the ground to enrich the owner of the school. That the latter has laid out his capital in a teaching factory, instead of a sausage factory, makes no difference to the relation.

If we may take an example from outside the sphere of material production, a schoolmaster is a productive worker when, in addition to belabouring the heads of his pupils, he works himself into the ground to enrich the owner of the school. That the latter has laid out his capital in a teaching factory, instead of a sausage factory, makes no difference to the relation. The concept of a productive worker therefore implies not merely a relation between the activity of work and its useful effect, between the worker and the product of his work, but also a specifically social relation of production, a relation with a historical origin which stamps the worker as capital’s direct means of valorization.

The concept of a productive worker therefore implies not merely a relation between the activity of work and its useful effect, between the worker and the product of his work, but also a specifically social relation of production, a relation with a historical origin which stamps the worker as capital’s direct means of valorization. To be a productive worker is therefore not a piece of luck, but a misfortune. In Volume 4 of this work, which deals with the history of the theory, we shall show that the classical political economists always made the production of surplus-value the distinguishing characteristic of the productive worker.

Key Concepts

• The only worker who is productive is one who produces surplus-value for the capitalist
• contributes towards the self-valorization of capital
• a schoolmaster is a productive worker when, in addition to belabouring the heads of his pupils, he works himself into the ground to enrich the owner of the school
• teaching factory, instead of a sausage factory
• To be a productive worker is therefore not a piece of luck, but a misfortune

Context

Marx redefining 'productive labour' specifically within the context of capitalist social relations, moving beyond the abstract definition of making useful things