No one is saying "Labour" is not productive.

But the productiveness of Labour pales into insignificance compared to the productiveness of Capital (defined as Property) and NEITHER is independently "productive".

ie as said elsewhere, it is the relationship between Labour and Capital which is productive.

Property rights, and private ownership, are key of course. Capital consists of "Property" in all its forms, and particularly "Intellectual Property".

I don't believe in private ownership. Nor do I believe in State ownership.

When we distinguish the Public and Private sectors we are in fact referring to Private as "owned by a Joint Stock Limited Liability Corporation".

A Corporation is of course a legal claim - as is debt -over assets and production. The difference between these two forms of "Finance Capital" - as Marx had it - is that one is permanent and the other temporary and they are irreconcilably conflicting claims.

But both are obsolete IMHO. I am pointing out that the existence of the "Open Corporate" - of which the UK LLP is the first example - allows a new "enterprise model" - neither Public nor Private but both - whereby assets are held in trust on behalf of "the People"/ the Community, and Users of these assets, and Investors in these assets, share the production.

Using an "Open Corporate" as a "wrapper" we are able to encapsulate the entire property relationship in a new and optimal way, thereby synthesising Equity and Debt as a contnuous class of what I call "Open Capital".  

The increasing primacy of Intellectual Property - the "Value" it constitutes, and its nature as productive "Capital" - is a challenge for Marxists in a not dissimilar way to the challenge the "ownership" of Knowledge represents for muslims.

The Islamic prohibition on "ownership" of the Commons ie Water, Fire and Pasture would surely have been extended to "ownership" of Knowledge had the Prophet been alive today.

Equally, if Marx had been alive he would have had to completely re-visit his thinking.

http://www.opencapital.net/papers/Valueknowledge-based.pdf

was presented to the Institute of Advanced Studies at Lancaster University, and I guess I was one of the few
not coming from a Marxist perspective.

Marx's concept of Surplus Value was a great achievement and much of his analysis, as far as I understand it, was pretty accurate.

But his basic assumptions were faulty. The Sun of Capital does not go around the Earth of Labour.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson

Let's see. Suppose there is this field. You have a plough and I don't. You can only work the field for half of the day. So you decide to enlist me and to work shifts. That way we get twice as much work done in teh day as you could have on your own. But the plough is still yours. Without your plough I could till a corner of the field with a stick.

So, is the plough productive? And, since 1) I cannot be nearly as productive without borrowing your plough; 2) you don't need my labour to provide for yourself with your plough; shouldn't your ownership of the plough be worth something?

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?

Cassiodorus: You know, all of Marx is online, and I'm not really telling you anything that isn't available in a standard guide to the topic.

Would you call yourself a Merxist? In that case, we have a standing challenge that you might be inclined to respond to:

techno: let's organize a debate about the future.  You find someone who has a traditional Left / Marxist / Socialist worldview, and I will act as closely as possible like a 19th-20th century Minnesota Populist.  Since Populists taught that every example used in organizing should be something anyone could confirm by looking out a window, I will insist that I can use modern examples.  Otherwise, I will attempt to be a completely authentic Populist.

I predict that even with the "handicap" of 100 year-old political theory, my historical Populism will better explain current political / economic / environmental / technological reality and offer more constructive ways of addressing our civilization ending problems than any other form of leftist / progressive thought.

Are you interested?

Can the last politician to go out the revolving door please turn the lights off?