Abstract

This article argues that the depreciation of labour and the degradation of nature are today the principal causes of the structural crisis, because capitalism cannot go beyond the current level of exploitation of labour and nature without a corollary decrease in the rate of profit. It draws on a distinction between use value and exchange value that proves helpful for an understanding of two facts. Firstly, that the mobilisation of labour in non-saleable services is productive of value. Secondly, that the « value » of nature does not belong to the order of economy. It belongs to a scale which cannot be evaluated : it provides wealth, but not value.