Re: Re: public health (was: reparations)

[Jim Devine <jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Roger wrote:
> > >Public health spending does not come out of surplus value, or the surplus
> > >product, as you put it.  It, like education costs, e.g., is 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.

I responded:
> > 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.

Roger now writes:
> Yes. The individual capitalist firm that sells health care services produces
> surplus value.  I was talking about aggregates--what is remaining after the
> necessities of productive labor are provided for.

I don't understand why we are mis-communicating here. I was talking about
aggregates, too. The resources for draining a swamp and similar investments
in public health come from surplus-value (just like those for investments
in the means of production). The benefits of draining the swamp help
reproduce the working class over time.

Other investments in health -- like the construction of HMO buildings in
search of profit -- are not part of "public health." In fact, what
distinguishes what I was talking about -- investment in public health --
and what you are talking about -- an individual capitalist firm that sells
health care -- is that the former is _not_ done for profit, whereas the
latter is done for profit.

I was talking about why infant mortality rates have fallen. I said that if
anything, the development of capitalism  only produces the _potential_ to
lead to this result. Free-market solutions and the like (which more and
more prevail in this neo-liberal era) do not allow capitalism to live up to
this potential. HMOs do not deal with issues of public health. It's not
profitable for them to drain swamps and the like. Some sort of _government_
intervention is needed to deal with public health issues. (Sometimes this
involves the creation of subsidized not-for-profit organizations.) The
government will do this only when pressed to do so by fears of communism,
popular movements, etc.

>  The subsistence of
> unproductive labor, btw, comes out of surplus value. By definition, it's
> not part
> of the subsistence of (productive) labor, i.e., that labor which produces
> surplus
> value for capital.  I know that makes quantification, or just the ability to
> understand what you see, that much more difficult, but it's important to
> be clear
> about these things conceptually.  To get behind the numbers to try to
> understand
> the contradictions facing capital.

I find that the usual way in which Marxists deal with the subsistence of
unproductive labor (and with the issue of unproductive labor in general) is
pretty unproductive in terms of increasing our understanding of the world.
In terms of the mathematics of determining the rate of profit that affects
capitalist accumulation, unproductive and productive labor-power play
exactly the same role. A lot of labor is "indirectly productive," i.e.,
promoting the effectiveness of productive labor, making the distinction
fuzzy. Beyond that, I prefer not to debate this issue at this time.

> Some of the potential surplus value a health care firm produces is typically
> taxed away and used to provide part of labor's necessities, including health
> care, eductation, etc., through public means. That is, some of the potential
> surplus value may be redistributed to labor in the realization
> process.  But I'm
> getting way ahead of myself.

again, I was talking about public health, not for-profit health care firms.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx &
http://clawww.lmu.edu/Faculty/JDevine/JDevine.html