public health (was: reparations)

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Roger O writes:
> Public health spending does not come out of surplus value, or the surplus
> product, as you put it.  It, like education costs, e.g., are part of labor's
> social subsistence.  According to Marx:  subsistence is that bundle of goods
> and services necessary to "produce, develop, maintain, and perpetuate"
> productive labor as a class.  Thus subsistence includes not only that of the
> worker, but also the nurture of offspring to "perpetuate" labor.

this is true in terms of the _benefits_ of investment in public health
(which is what I was talking about). However, to finance that investment
(draining a swamp, e.g.), some of the surplus-product must be used. The
swamp, once drained, provides the benefits of "producing, developing,
maintaining, and perpetuating" productive labor as a class -- and
nonproductive labor, too.

(I was using the term "surplus-product" simply because it applies to all
modes of production, whereas surplus-value only applies to capitalism.)

> Think about it .  There is nothing "surplus" about health spending; it's a
> necessity.  And it doesn't matter whether the health care is provided
> privately
> (which a worker must buy with part of his wages), or free by a public agency
> funded through taxes.  Surplus value is that product remaining after labor's
> social necessities are provided, and replacement of the means of production
> (rougly depreciation of capital) is accounted for.   In other words surplus
> value = total product - (reproduction cost of capital + labor).

right, but isn't the reproduction cost of labor-power a variable? This
complicates the analysis. If workers get used to not having a lot of their
babies die (low infant mortality), then this becomes part of the moral &
historical component of the value of labor-power.

> And Jim:  your discussion about whether or not capitalism produces a
> surplus product makes no sense to me, since capitalism is *defined* by
> capital's exploitation of labor--called surplus value, which is the
> difference between what workers produce (labor) and the reproduction cost
> of labor power (roughly corresponding to what labor is paid) and the means
> of production.  Could Jim Blau or anyone else think otherwise?

There are situations where capitalism exists but no exploitation occurs. In
a general strike, nobody is working for pay, so there's no surplus-value.
In a severe depression, capitalists don't hire anyone, so no surplus-value
is produced. These are extreme cases (in which capitalism is threatened
with extinction, especially the first case), but they show that we
shouldn't put "creation of surplus-value" into the definition of
capitalism. Capitalism is organized to exploit labor, but it doesn't always
succeed.

I wrote:
> > The lower infant mortality rate seems mostly a result of government
> > investment in public health (rather than relying on the market).

Doug writes:
> But greater wealth and scientific progress - both of which are products of
> capitalism - are what made government investment and the science of public
> health possible. Obviously they're not enough, or I wouldn't be an
> anti-capitalist, but it's pointless to deny that capitalism has something
> to do with lower infant mortality and longer lifespans.

I wouldn't say that wealth and scientific progress are products of
capitalism as much as products of workers and scientists under capitalism.
It's true that capitalism seems to be much more able to produce a
surplus-product than previous modes of production (including that which
dominated the old USSR). This only represents the _potential_ for
investment in public health. Whether the surplus-product is allocated to
such investment or not depends on the factors I listed (the "Engels effect"
(ruling-class fear of working-class diseases), worker struggle for better
living standards, fear of the USSR, etc.)


Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &  http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine