This background of craftsmanship may lead some readers to conclude, after they have read this book, that I have been influenced by a sentimental attachment to the outworn conditions of now archaic modes of labor. I have been conscious of this possibility, but I have tried not to let any of my conclusions flow from such a romanticism, and on the whole I do not believe that this criticism would be warranted. It is true that I enjoyed, and still enjoy, working as a craftsman, but since I grew up during the years of rapid change in the mechanic crafts, I was always conscious of the inexorable march of science-based technological change; moreover, in my reflections upon this subject and in the many discussions among craftsmen debating the “old” and the “new” in which I took part, I was always a modernizer. I believed then, and still believe now, that the transformation of labor processes from their basis in tradition to their basis in science is not only inevitable but necessary for the progress of the human race and for its emancipation from hunger and other forms of need. More important, throughout those years I was an activist in the socialist movement, and I had assimilated the Marxist view which is hostile not to science and technology as such, but only to the manner in which these are used as weapons of domination in the creation, perpetuation, and deepening of a gulf between classes in society.

The extraordinary development of scientific technology, of the productivity of labor, and to some extent of the customary levels of working-class consumption during this century have had, as has often been noted, a profound effect upon the labor movement as a whole. The unionized working class, intimidated by the scale and complexity of capitalist production, and weakened in its original revolutionary impetus by the gains afforded by the rapid increase of productivity, increasingly lost the will and ambition to wrest control of production from capitalist hands and turned ever more to bargaining over labor’s share in the product. This labor movement formed the immediate environment of Marxism; and Marxists were, in varying degrees, compelled to adapt themselves to it.

[...] Since the discontents of youth, intellectuals, feminists, ghetto populations, etc., were produced not by the “breakdown” of capitalism but by capitalism functioning at the top of its form, so to speak, working at its most rapid and energetic pace, the focus of rebellion was now somewhat different from that of the past. At least in part, dissatisfaction centered not so much on capitalism’s inability to provide work as on the work it provides, not on the collapse of its productive processes but on the appalling effects of these processes at their most “successful.” It is not that the pressures of poverty, unemployment, and want have been eliminated—far from it—but rather that these have been supplemented by a discontent which cannot be touched by providing more prosperity and jobs because these are the very things that produced this discontent in the first place.

[...] Recognizing that there are very few “eternal” or “inevitable” features of human social organization in an abstract sense, such an analysis would proceed by way of an understanding of the historical evolution which produced modern social forms. And most important, such an analysis must not simply accept what the designers, owners, and managers of the machines tell us about them, but it must form its own independent evaluation of machinery and modern industry, in the factory and in the office; otherwise it will create not a social science but merely a branch of management science.

Essentially, Marx defined productive labor under capitalism as labor which produces commodity value, and hence surplus value, for capital. This excludes all labor which is not exchanged against capital. Self-employed proprietors—farmers, artisans, handicraftsman, tradesmen, professionals, all other self-employed—are according to this definition not productive workers because their labor is not exchanged for capital and does not directly contribute to the increase of capital.* Nor is the servant a productive worker, even though employed by the capitalist, because the labor of the servant is exchanged not against capital but against revenue. The capitalist who hires servants is not making profits, but spending them. It is clear that this definition has nothing to do with the utility of the labor employed, or even its concrete form. The very same labor may be either productive or unproductive, depending upon its social form. To hire the neighbor’s boy to cut the lawn is to set in motion unproductive labor; to call a gardening firm which sends out a boy to do the job (perhaps even the same boy) is another thing entirely. Or, to put the matter from the point of view of the capitalist, to hire gardening labor to maintain his family’s lawn is unproductive consumption, while to hire the very same gardening labor in order to realize a profit from its work is to set in motion productive labor for the purpose of accumulating capital.