Unproductive Labour in Political Economy

Cosimo Perrotta is a retired Professor of the History of Economic Thought at the University of Salento, Italy

Winner of the 2019 Ernest Lluch Prize from the Spanish Association of Economic History"Perhaps the most important lesson that emerges from Perrotta’s analysis is that the delineation of productive and unproductive labor is bound up in (both determining and reflecting) definitions of national wealth and, more broadly, the nature of economic goals (e.g., “welfare”)...the thoroughness with which Perrotta has immersed himself in this literature repays itself with many gems."Steven G. Medema, History of Political Economy

• I - Introduction: what is unproductive labour, II - Unproductive labour before Smith, III - Physiocracy: labour productive of surplus - Condillac, IV - Adam Smith: the struggle against rent, V - Supporters of Smith on unproductive labour, VI - Critics of Smith on services and intellectual labour, VII - The subjective approach (all labour productive), VIII - The deadlock of unproductive consumption, X - Underconsumption and crises, X - Technical progress, XI - Marx’s blind alley on unproductive labour, XII - Investment in human capital, XIII - Overproduction versus underconsumption, XIV - Fall and revival of Smith’s distinction, XV - Crises and underconsumption in Marx and his followers, XVI - Productiveness of public expenditures, XVII - Productive labour in the 1960s-70s Marxist thought, XVIII - New middle classes and human capital, XIX - The welfare state as investment in human capital, XX - Saturation: the growth of unproductive labour, XXI - The future of productive labour