This should not come as a surprise, as these indicators are typical products of the liberal economic philosophy that is aimed at profit generation, and the way these indicators are achieved does not seem to be important. This conceals the real influence of economic factors on the indicator, and makes it more suitable for drawing comparisons than for actual assessment. An increase in the GDP does not always correspond to an equal improvement of the life quality of the population, or an increase in its real labour productivity.
There is no merchandise or service that would be fully manufactured by one producer. Even a farmer uses farming tools that have been manufactured by others. Besides, farming requires fuel and lubricants; managers, builders, and financial experts. The worker should be protected from the inner and outer aggression; legal framework should be worked out, etc. This is true for all other products of human labour, too. As the result, in reality, the entire society is engaged in the production of any goods or services. And only the result of works of all participants of the labour process can determine the efficiency of the production process.
A universal indicator of the functioning of the entire economics and organisation system as presented in Figure 1 – not tied to intermediary results – is the final effect of the system. This means the total number of commodities that are produced by the society, per one citizen. This indicator characterizes the efficiency factor of social labour, and serves as the result of all economic activities. All other products of labour – machines and equipment, raw materials and semi-ready goods, resources and scientific research, even finance, are intermediary; they are only necessary to the extent where they contribute to increasing the quantity and the quality of commodities produced. Current indicators reflect this criterion only to a certain limited extent, as much as they conform with it.
As a standard for measuring the actual efficiency of human labour we suggest using Social labour productivity (SLP), which depends on the quantity of commodities (whether tangible or intangible) produced in the entire state by one average (generalized) worker in a unit of time. It is important to remember that any labour that is required in the society is deemed productive.
This indicator is integral and directly related to the main purpose of economics – satisfaction of human needs. The social indicator ignores intermediary results that masque this purpose (quantity of coal mined, steel, machines or equipment produced, amount of profit, income, level of inflation, etc.). On the contrary, it is based on the objective of economic activity formulated above, i.e. satisfaction of human needs. Moreover, it does not depend solely on production but on distribution as well; on level of wage labour exploitation; on the economic and political doctrine implemented in the country; on the quality and intensity of labour differentiation and cooperation; on the functioning of all state structures and social institutes. This indicator bounds all of these factors into only coherent system.
The SLP is determined not only by the state of development of science and technology, of education and culture, of medicine and sport, but also by the social and national state policies, by their morality and humanity, by ecology and demography. It depends on the types of property existing in the country, on security and diplomacy, on economic relations and types of money used, too. In this light, let us elaborate on some features of this indicator.
Obviously, with SLP we are dealing with a qualitative indicator, not a quantitative one. Consequently, direct assessment of SLP is impossible, for it is impossible to assess quantitatively all human needs and to compare the commodities that satisfy these needs. However, this type of assessment is often used in everyday life, when we distinguish between “warm’ and “cold’, “good’ and “bad’, without saying exactly how warm or cold something is. Besides, almost all economic indicators cannot be measured precisely, be is labour, money, GDP, GNP, exchange, or consumer cost. This is quite logical, as economics is interested in the qualitative description of these factors, not their quantitative assessment. It is the dynamics, the dependence on various circumstances, and their impact on economic situation that matter, not the numerical result of their measurement.
At the same time, the SLP can be fairly precisely assessed right now. Suffice it to observe that the higher the SLP, the higher the quality of life in the country. Therefore, the closest similar indicator – one measurable from the point of view of quantity and dynamics – would be the nominal average income of a worker. This corresponds to the actual value of the consumer basket (including both its tangible and intangible contents) for an average worker.
Moreover, further we will provide a description of the method of calculating the social labour intensity of commodities (SLIC) to assess its value and dynamics, which can be implemented at any enterprise separately (Subsection 3.1.2). This value is directly related to SLP, as any decrease in the SLP, all other conditions being equal, leads to an automatic SLIC increase, and vice versa. This allows stimulating the dynamics of production development, as well as determining the factors that condition it.
The unit of time for which SLP is calculated may be equal to one hour, one year or the average life expectancy. Thus, one can consider hourly, daily, monthly, yearly or secular SLP. Each of the values provides different information. For instance, secular SLP allows assessing the total quantity of commodities that a person produces in a lifetime. Besides, it helps establish the impact on SLP of such factors as average life expectancy, quality of nutrition, daily schedule, and balance between labour and rest. It also depends on the length of work leaves, the functioning of sports, healthcare and wellness facilities, ecological situation, etc.
Yearly SLP may be used to assess the efficiency of social labour differentiation and cooperation, the impact of various reforms and reorganisations. Hourly SLP is more flexible and dynamic. It helps to study the influence of various small and big organisational measures, psychological factors, technical equipment and many other factors in the labour efficiency at enterprises. None of these indicators contradict the other, on the contrary, they form a single information data base useful for optimisation of social labour in general, as well as of specific parts of this system. Besides, they make it possible to assess the actual efficiency of economic and other structures.
SLP is significantly different from the industrial and other specific criteria of labour productivity which are used nowadays. Indeed, as the production of any item or service engages the entire society, and not just a part of it, specific criteria will not be able to correctly assess the real labour productivity of the society as a whole. Moreover, they often do more to conceal it, for many of these criteria are interdependent. For instance, income increase in financial or trade sector often entails suppression of other sectors of economics, etc.
It is obvious that a single social criterion is free of this drawback. This means that all kinds of technological and organisational novelties, property limits, and new state institutes are useful provided that they contribute to SLP growth. By consequence, economy has no place for selfishness, politics, ideological speculations, clan struggle, etc.
Thus, SLP is not solely an economic, but also partially a philosophic criterion related to the vision of the world. If any type of activity does not increase SLP, then it should be diminished or altogether abolished. If the social value of any type of labour is low, the share of income it produces should be limited. If the salaries of scientists, engineers, doctors, teachers, and the wages of workers are lower than the average in the country, this means their labour is in low demand. But when the income of government officials, businessmen, finance experts, tradesmen and criminals are much higher than the average, then