>>I'm curious whether this lack of interest in the industrial sector is driven
by the trend towards interpenetration of financial companies with those which
actually employ people to produce goods. If GM, for example, is making money
on insurance with one tentacle, it's unlikely to advocate its abolition even
if it's costly to another tentacle. I just haven't seen anyone break that down
wrt health insurance companies.
It's still true, though, that keeping the workforce disciplined (i.e. desperate to keep a job for health insurance) benefits all capital sectors, at least until we revolt. If, by 'ideology,' you mean class interests rather than more narrow industry interests, I guess you could call that ideological.
Jenny Brown<<
Like Doug, I also don't see that interpenetration, either. If it were prominent, we could understand a corporation's interest in wanting to avoid stealing from insurer Peter to pay industrialist Paul. But here you have sectors that ostensibly compete. What is good for Met Life in the form of engorged premiums is bad for a non-finance-sector-based or public employer. Doug says it's ideology and a fear of entitlements that explains why the business class is so dense in ignoring national health care. I'm not persuaded--his places too much emphasis on consciousness and not enough on real history and real class struggles--but I sure don't have a better explanation for why business isn't aggressive in sucking up to classic social democratic nostrums and shifting healthcare costs to the public sector. May I suggest something as vulgar as empirical analysis? We could--gasp!--ask business leaders and execs of professional associations, either as scholars or journalists, what shapes lobbying decisions? Why are certain lobbying decisions made and others avoided.
As for the absence of healthcare being itself a useful tool in keeping the workforce disciplined, are you assuming that they (we) would be undisciplined with the introduction of guaranteed access to family healthcare? If you are, that's inputing a lot of control to one set of bad policies. I'm old enough to remember when employers were happy to provide a comprehensive package of benefits; it was cheaper than a big wage raise. And the workforce in my long-ago youth was certainly disciplined. Hell, they were job scared, then and now. Fear as an instrument of social control takes many forms; raising a family while one illness away from bankruptcy is just one of them. Capitalism won't collapse if the US inaugurates universal health care, though the fight for it can buff up its enemies--especially if those business sectors with no stakes in the present private insurance racket continue to take a pass.
Mike Hirsch -----Original Message----- From: JBrown72073 at cs.com Sent: Sep 29, 2005 1:57 PM To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] corps & single-payer
>Doug:
>
>This absense of cheap and accessible quality health is something that puzzles
>me, too. I've always assumed we'd get national healthcare when unions had
>the cloat to either demand it or win real private health insurance back,
>so business would look to shift the cost and get on board, too. It's never
>happened. Okay. But why at least some US corporations don't use a
cost-benefit
>analysis in supporting national health is a puzzler. From the early 80s
>on, unions such as the UAW and Steelworkers were faced with the Hobson's
>choice of getting either raises or better benefit funding as health costs
>soared for business. If the burden of health care is indeed so onorous,
>and the unions developed the muscle to make health care a priority, why
>wouldn't some Iacocca or other maverick type come out for dumping the cost
>on the government. You say it's "ideology." Could be, though when ideology
>trumps self-interest it's the ideologue who suffers.
>
>Wanna say more on the "ideology" angle?
>
>Mike Hirsch
I'm curious whether this lack of interest in the industrial sector is driven by the trend towards interpenetration of financial companies with those which actually employ people to produce goods. If GM, for example, is making money on insurance with one tentacle, it's unlikely to advocate its abolition even if it's costly to another tentacle. I just haven't seen anyone break that down wrt health insurance companies.
It's still true, though, that keeping the workforce disciplined (i.e. desperate to keep a job for health insurance) benefits all capital sectors, at least until we revolt. If, by 'ideology,' you mean class interests rather than more narrow industry interests, I guess you could call that ideological.
Jenny Brown ___________________________________ http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
________________________________________ `And these words shall then become Like oppression's thundered doom Ringing through each heart and brain, Heard again -- again -- again-- `Rise like Lions after slumber In unvanquishable number-- Shake your chains to earth like dew Which in sleep had fallen on you-- Ye are many -- they are few.' --------Shelley, "The Mask of Anarchy: Written on the Occasion of the Massacre at Manchester" [1819]