Nuts - debt, future surpluses and compelled labour

[rc&am]

i'd not been paying much attention to nuts and berries before, but the post by
rakesh sparked my interest.  i'll remain agnostic over the ratio of
unproductive to productive labour, since i'm not sure whether or not certain
tasks previously associated with unproductive labour can so easily be said
today to be in the same realm.  an example would be domestic work, where the
difference is not in the task but whether or not a domestic worker produces
surplus value.  rakesh's comments were useful, but i don't know how much
various quantitative assessments have taken this on in their initial
formulations.

but, that wasn't what i wanted to ask.

Rakesh Bhandari wrote:


> Of course as private capital formation stagnates, the state must issue
> debt to finance a compensatory level of economic activity. But since such
> activity is also unproductive and  does not itself produce any new value
> or surplus value, it can only be paid off by the state's  future claims on
> social surplus value. High levels of state spending may increase the
> level of economic activity in the present while compounding crisis in
> the long run. In the 70s it took the form of runaway inflation.

okay.  an hypothesis:  to the extent to which the state now avoids the
inflationary premises of keynsian spending, what are the measures being
introduced which would enable the state to 'guarantee' a future surplus
without resorting to inflationary measures?  i think the 'answer' to this
might explain the shift to things like workfare/work-for-the-dole, prison
labour, slave-like forms of work, and - as doug has shown - the attempt to use
the courts and the state to impose imf-like obligations on those in debt which
compels them to future work.  {as an aside, i think the proposed amendment to
the US constitution to give the state the power to conscript labour should
also be viewed in this light}  what do you think rakesh?  others?

also, maybe more interestingly, if the keynsian 'solution' to overproduction
(well, maybe war) advanced inflation, then what are the 'spin-offs' from these
new kinds of compulsion/forms of work?  what problems does it pose for
accumulation?

angela