Productive and unproductive labour were concepts used in classical political economy mainly in the 18th and 19th century, which survive today to some extent in modern management discussions, economic sociology and Marxist or Marxian economic analysis. The concepts strongly influenced the construction of national accounts in the Soviet Union and other Soviet-type societies (see Material Product System).
Read more about Productive And Unproductive Labour: Classical Political Economy, A Quote From Adam Smith, Neoclassical Economics, National Accounts, Marx's Critique, Productive Labour As Misfortune?, Ecological Critique, Material Product Accounts in Soviet-type Societies
Famous quotes containing the words productive and/or labour:
“Suppose that humans happen to be so constructed that they desire the opportunity for freely undertaken productive work. Suppose that they want to be free from the meddling of technocrats and commissars, bankers and tycoons, mad bombers who engage in psychological tests of will with peasants defending their homes, behavioral scientists who can’t tell a pigeon from a poet, or anyone else who tries to wish freedom and dignity out of existence or beat them into oblivion.”
—Noam Chomsky (b. 1928)
“Through throats where many rivers meet, the curlews cry,
Under the conceiving moon, on the high chalk hill,
And there this night I walk in the white giant’s thigh
Where barrren as boulders women lie longing still
To labour and love though they lay down long ago.”
—Dylan Thomas (1914–1953)