If we were to use Marxian analysis then we would start with the social relations of the participants to the means of production.

We are producing music in pubs, our means of production are our instruments and, less directly, the chairs we sit on, the building that allows us to perform the session etc.

In the productive process of the tunes or songs, labour is freely given and its product is socially/communally owned (i.e. not owned by anyone).

Our labour utilises energy in the production of the tunes/songs and so for production to continue energy must be put back into the session. In the immediate, this is achieved through pints of real ale, pork scratchings and dry roasted peanuts from the bar and, in the longer term, daily breakfast, lunch and dinner, somewhere to sleep etc.

At the bar, the barman says 'this pub belongs to JD Weathervain, it does not hand out beer for free, only in exchange'. Our pleas that we have been entertaining the entire pub, perfoming a useful function and making the world a better place go unheeded, if we want a pint we must give something in exchange. If we try to pour our own pint we would be met with violence either from the bar staff or the state on their behalf. We have to leave the pub to find something to exchange for beer.

Outside the pub any attempts to obtain something to exchange for our much needed pints directly are met with a similar reaction to attempts to pour them ourselves, as are attempts to produce something for exchange ourselves - we find the breweries, pig farms, chair factories etc. (means of production) belong to JD Weathervain or someone like him. But JD Weathervain says 'I'll take your labour in exchange for something that you can exchange for your, now very much needed, pints etc.

Then we find that in order to get enough to exchange for our pints, breakfast, lunch and dinner, somewhere to sleep etc., we have to work eight-hours a day, five-days a week. That time is spent producing commodities (goods and services to exchange) e.g. making JD Weathervain's beer, pork scratchings or chairs. After that we can go back to the session in the pub and have our, now desperately needed, beer and pork scratchings*.

What I am trying to say is that whilst there are elements of freely given labour and socially owned produce, such as sessions, these operate within the system of minority ownership of the means of production. Before we can go to a session we must eat, sleep, be clothed etc., and we can only have access to food, shelter, clothes etc. (the means of life) on the proceeds of selling our labour to the minority that possess the means of production which they use to accumulate further wealth, that is as capital. Elements of socialised production can occur within capitalism.

Some Marxists would probably class sessions as domestic labour. That is labour used to reproduce labour.

*At this session there are twenty players, nineteen of them are discussing what kind of week they've had - brewing, making chairs, scratching pork etc. - then someone asks the well dressed guy with the expensive fiddle who's keeping quiet: 'hey JD Weathervain, what was it you do again?'. He replies, looking slightly sheepish, 'I own a brewery'. 'You own a brewery?' asks his questioner, 'but what have you got to exchange for beer and pork scratchings?'. 'I've got what your labour produces' says JD Weathervain. 'But you paid us for that' says the questioner. 'Yes, but not as much as I got for it' says JD Weathervain. 'So you live off our work?' asks the questioner. 'I wouldn't quite put it in those terms' says JD Weathervain. 'Why don't you give us more for our labour?' asks another questioner 'then we'd have more time for sessions'. JD Weathervain continued 'Well, naturally, I'd like to, but I have such expensive tastes and you've no idea how much it costs to . . . '.