The Proletarianization of Palestinians in Israel (ص 457)

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Title

The Proletarianization of Palestinians in Israel (ص 457)

content

458
class. The latter formulation assumes that although all those who belong
to proletariat class-locations do necessarily perform productive labor,
not all productive laborers belong to proletariat class-locations. In
this sense, our question is essentially two-fold, combining both the pro-
ductive/unproductive division and the manual/mental division of labor.
The latter thus goes beyond the economic criteria for class determination
and enters the domain of structural determination of class-location, where
the criteria are politico-ideological relations of subordination/domina-
tion in and beyond the social division of labor. This domain was cogently
developed for the first time by Nicos Poulantzas, whose novel contribution
lies precisely in seeing the three criteria (economic, political, and
ideological) to inseparably determine the boundaries of social classes.
According to Paul Sweezy and Paul Baran, arms have no use-value.
Therefore, armament is unproductive and employees in the arms industries
are necessarily unproductive laborers. This is to say that military (in-
cluding high technology) production involves no productive labor. This is,
indeed, missing the whole point regarding what is productive labor for the
capitalist mode of production, which is essentially indifferent to the
utility of the product. Because utility of commodity is irrelevant to
the creation of surplus value. 29
Examining the first dimension of the question we have posed above
requires a far more rigorous understanding of Marxism than the one pro-
vided above by Sweezy and Baran. To do so, however, is to break this
dimension into two further questions:
(a) the extent to which mental labor can be productive labor;
(b) the extent to which labor categories performed in high tech-

Is Part Of

The Proletarianization of Palestinians in Israel

Date

1978

Creator

Najwa Hanna Makhoul

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Generated Pages Set

Theses رسائل ماجستير ودكتوراه