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Using a particular understanding of the labor theory of value, this paper surveys the criticisms made of the Marxian distinction between productive and unproductive labor, and rejects them as misconceived. The distinction is then used to draw some consequences for how "the rate of exploitation" should be understood.

It is commonly proposed by those who accept the distinction between productive and unproductive labor that a rising proportion of unproductive labor constitutes a burden to the operation of a capitalist economy, because unproductive labor is paid out of surplus-value, leaving less available for accumulation. This paper evaluates recent attempts to estimate empirical trends in productive and unproductive labor in the U.S. economy since 1964. These attempts are flawed by a failure to distinguish between working class unproductive labor and the unproductive labor attributable to managers-plus-capitalists. This distinction is at the heart of the trends in the neoliberal era, and these trends suggest that the distinction between productive and unproductive labor is less empirically useful than a focus on class.

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