Adam Smiths concept of productive and unproductive labour: An Interpretation

Roy Grieve ()

No 805, Working Papers from University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics

Abstract: This note explores Smith’s employment of the concept of ‘productive labour’, a concept which commentators have frequently found problematic. We suggest that Smith’s difficulty in formulating a satisfactory definition of ‘productive labour’ stems from the fact that he seems to have had in mind - and to have tried to combine - two different (but only independently valid), concepts of productive labour: one (anticipating Marx) in respect of labour whose employment yields surplus value to the capitalist, the other (presaging Sraffa) focusing on labour employed in certain necessary or ‘basic’ industries within the economy.

Keywords: Adam Smith: Productive and Unproductive Labour; Surplus Production (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B12 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 28 pages
Date: 2008-04, Revised 2009-02
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.strath.ac.uk/media/1newwebsite/departme ... 008/08-05Amended.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:str:wpaper:0805

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers from University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirsty Hall ().