O trabalho (im)produtivo como não-idêntico ao modo de produção capitalista: uma perspectiva a partir de K. Marx e T. Adorno

Abstract

This thesis has the intent to present the concept of (im)productive work as non-identical to the capitalist mode of production, in the sense of being productive for human being, and not for capital; the purpose is to highlight the critical dimension of work that is not combined with the logic of valuing value. Therefore, we take as central theoretical references the contributions of Karl Marx and Theodor W. Adorno. In the first chapter, we approach the conceptual structure presupposed by the capitalist conception of (un)productive work, in the way it is examined by Marx; and from an Adornian perspective, we present such a structure through a conceptual constellation. We started with the topicalization of work as a founding category of the human being, that is, its characterization independent of the limitations suffered in capitalist society; We proceeded then to emphasize the specific and limited meaning to which it was reduced in the logic of capitalist production, highlighting the following aspects: the dual character of work, merchandise, labor power and, finally, surplus value as a supreme end, guiding and identifier of all productive and social dynamics governed by capitalist logic. In the second chapter, we expose the set of particularities that allow to emphasize and understand the main elements that compose the definition of productive work and unproductive work, in the scope of capital, demonstrating, in short, that capitalism has its vital impulse based on surplus-value extraction, keeping it as a permanent structuring parameter throughout any and all production processes. In the third chapter, we problematize the theoretical and conceptual framework assumed by the capitalist conception of productive work, highlighting its immanent limits so that, based on this diagnosis and in the form of its own constelational composition, we can develop a critical perspective that allows us to understand the achievement of surplus value as the result of what we call the identity principle of capitalism. We also deal with the harmful consequences that this principle has on the worker. In summary, work, which is productive for capital, is actually unproductive for human being, especially for workers; the work that produces wealth in the form of capital, at the same time produces misery for workers, given that socially constituted wealth is privately seized; such is the problem that this research diagnoses. In order to indicate perspectives for its overcoming, we resorted to the Adornian concept of non-identical, which refers to the elements that are not in line with the principle of capitalist identity, therefore, it points to the need to overcome them to build another form of production organization. It is considering this assumption that we conceive work, productive for human being and unproductive to the capital, as non-identical to the mode of production based on exploitation. Finally, in the fourth chapter, based on the understanding that productive work, as it is not identical to capitalism, is loaded with subversive and critical potential, and that can only be properly recognized and assume effective materiality when work is not determined by capital's form of sociability, we point to the necessary rupture with the dominant identity principle, which requires overcoming capitalism itself.