Understanding the “Service Economy”—A Marxist Critical Approach

This article attempts to clarify certain misunderstandings about productive/unproductive labour (PUPL) concerning the “service economy.” The concept of service labour is embedded in the discussion of PUPL. After examining Smith’s and Marx’s definitions of “service” and “service labour,” we demonstrate that criticisms of the connotation of “service” in Smith’s literature are based on a misinterpretation of the classical definition of the term and are not consistent with the post-industrialist dogma on “service economy.” Therefore, despite the growing importance of tertiary activities, we have to reject certain Marxists’ proposals that urge us to regard non-material labour in the tertiary industry as “labour productive of value,” and remain careful in applying the PUPL theory to the modern economy.