Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Unproductive activity in a capitalist society
- 3 A Marxian accounting framework
- 4 A growth model of accumulation and unproductive labor
- 5 Rise of unproductive activity in postwar economy
- 6 Absorption of labor and capital and rate of surplus value
- 7 Absorption of new resources and growth in real income
- 8 Conclusions and speculations
- Appendix: Data sources and methods
- References
- Index
2 - Unproductive activity in a capitalist society
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 March 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Unproductive activity in a capitalist society
- 3 A Marxian accounting framework
- 4 A growth model of accumulation and unproductive labor
- 5 Rise of unproductive activity in postwar economy
- 6 Absorption of labor and capital and rate of surplus value
- 7 Absorption of new resources and growth in real income
- 8 Conclusions and speculations
- Appendix: Data sources and methods
- References
- Index
Summary
At the same time, the complexity of litigation seems to be increasing. Even if a case is settled without trial, preliminary motions and discovery procedures may occupy much time of judges and attorneys. Moreover, the country has experienced a marked growth in statutes and administrative regulations; the number of federal agencies jumped from twenty to seventy in the last two decades while the pages of federal regulations tripled in the 1970s alone. Paralleling these trends, the supply of lawyers has doubled since 1960 so that the United States now boasts the largest number of attorneys per thousand population of any major industrialized nation – three times as many as in Germany, ten times the number in Sweden, and a whopping twenty times the figure in Japan. In sum, though there may not be more court cases, the country has more legal work to do and many more attorneys to do it. Just what society pays for this profusion of law is hard to guess. Lloyd Cutler has put the figure at $30 billion a year, but the truth is that no one has bothered to find out. Be that as it may, legal costs are primarily people costs, and if we mark the growth in the total number of lawyers and the average compensation of attorneys, it is clear that legal expenditures have been climbing more rapidly than the gross national product for many years.
(Derek C. Bok, “A flawed system,” Harvard Magazine, May–June 1983, p. 40.)Historical background
The concept of unproductive labor has a long history in economic thought.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Growth, Accumulation, and Unproductive ActivityAn Analysis of the Postwar US Economy, pp. 25 - 55Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1986