MARXISM AND CURRENT MANAGEMENT APPROACHES

Marxism and Current Management Approaches

Marxism and Current Management Approaches

Introduction

Marxism: Basic Principles "Marxism" is a perspective that involves a number of differing "sub-perspectives" (that is, whilst there tends to be a general agreement about the need to construct a critique of Capitalist society, there are major disagreements between writers working within this perspective). keeping this in mind, we can summarise some of the main Marxist ideas in the following terms:Marxism emphasises the idea that social life is based upon "conflicts of interest". The most fundamental and important of theses conflicts is that between the Bourgeoisie (those who own and control the means of production in society) and the Proletariat (those who simply sell their labour power in the market place of Capitalism). (Avineri, 2008, 54)

Marxism and Current Management Approaches

The definition of productive labour is a controversial topic in Marxian economics. But Marx's final view, expressed in Capital Vol. 1, is that what makes labour productive from a capitalist point of view has nothing to do with the particular nature of the productive activity involved, but rather whether or not it generates or adds to private profit. It's a social-institutional definition, not a technical one. Of course, Marx considers no net new value is generated by acts of exchange in themselves, and in this sense he talks about e.g. bank workers as unproductive workers from the soial point of view. But bank workers are producers like any other, and if their labour creates profit, they are productive workers like any other from a capitalist point of view. (Avineri, 2008, 54)

How the flows of income involved should be accounted for socially, is a separate question, related to the valuation and definition of the gross product. Really Marx implies that (1) circulation activities transfer value (transfer claims to output), rather than create net additions to it, and that (2) there is no "neutral" definition possible of productive labour, and one has to ask "productive for whom?". What is a source of profit to one sector is a cost to another - the aim is normally to reduce that cost, and arguments may be made that it is an "unproductive" cost which does not add to profit. But that is a sectoral bias. (Blake, 2004, 48)

From a class point of view, one might say that some imposts or costs on production are "unproductive" for the majority of owners of capital at anytime, while the "productivity of others is hotly disputed. All have a stake in maximising the volume of surplus-value receipts of course, but how to increase that volume, beyond the idea that workers should work harder and work more for less money, is a subject of dispute. Beyond a certain limit, more work done does not yield more surplus-value because the costs involved in that increase begin to outweigh the benefits (social and health effects, etc.). The ability to work more or less depends a lot on (1) power relationships, specifically market power, bargaining strength at every level, (2) ...