C. Joanna asks:
"If they're inevitable social structures, they're inevitably common to all societies. Now, how is a market a social structure?"
Well, they're made of people coming together with a common understanding of purpose (to buy and sell). Other than that, I don't know.
She asks: "So if you can't describe something in classical economic terms, it's 'private'" -
Largely true, but the point is to use market logic as an analytical tool.
Joanna continues: "...and these realms of private and public you see as essentially discontiguous even though there could be no 'public' without a 'private'?"
Precisely. Rights as we understand them are discontiguities between private and public. The disconguity between private and public is the reason we need laws and contracts - to formalize our consent to make our lives public. Within families there may be an implicit surrender of privacy but societies are not families. They are (ideally) groups of freely associated families.
We have this exchange:
"'In order for you to get paid as a parent, I as an outsider would have to judge the effectiveness of your parenting as it benefits me - as a product - and decide your wage accordingly. There is almost no possibility that we could work out terms along those lines.'
Have you heard of alimony and child support?"
Alimony and child support are not wages or anything like wages. They are part of an equity settlement in the case of the dissolution of a contract.
The next exchange is this:
"'As a taxpayer I may offer you as a mother government assistance, health care or benefits, but that isn't pay. That is essentially government-based insurance intended to keep the cogs of society turning smoothly. There, the logic is that children create a temporary crisis of liquidity so we create a pool of liquidity to keep workers going until they can be productive again.'
Ah, I see. Now we introduce the holy ghost of the government, mediating between the Public and the Private. Turning the cogs through the crisis of liquidity.
...and you think this is a helpful way to describe the world because...."
Well, it stops this weird confusion of benefits and wages. Not all money people are given in society is wages. It is distinctly unhelpful to try and equate economic production with private reproduction. Socialism was not created so that people could get paid for brushing their teeth and washing their hair. In an interdependent economy "work" is defined by the consumer, not the worker.
peace,
boddi