Value creation in the production of services: a note on Marx

Abstract

Marx argued that value-creating (productive) labour was labour exchanged against capital, ie, employed as wage labour. Thus capitalist services could create surplus value. But he saw capitalist services as 'insignificant', and in relation to the finance sector argued that because value was created only in production and never in realisation, commerical services were unproductive. Thus Marx predicted that the role of commercial-financial capital would decline vis a vis industrial capital. While he forecast both the growth of the public sector and the later policies of marketisation, he failed to anticipate the future growth of the finance sector. Nevertheless, the discussion of 'commercial ca..