> The capitalist system depends on the public sector in a range of
> ways to keep its profits going, so however you slice it, it's a
> strange use of the word.
The private and public sectors of a capitalist economy are interdependent, but the degrees of dependence are not equal -- the public sector depends on the private sector in a way that the latter doesn't on the former. The reason is that, though capitalists can't do away with all of business services (minimum quantities of police, military, road construction, etc. are necessary for them, and capitalists are generally willing to pay for more than enough of them), they can make workers responsible for quite a large part of the costs of reproduction of labor power (such as maintaining their health) without endangering reproduction of capitalism, as long as workers are willing to bear them.
Justin wrote:
> It's supposed to get ath the idea that you have to produce enough
> food, clothes, tools, etc., to have a working capitalist economy,
> but you won't have that without public goods, legal servives,
> accountants, police, etc., anyway. True, you can't eat legal
> services (which, btw. are produced in the private sector for profit
> for the most part), but you can't have property rights, contracts,
> erc., and other equipment necessary for a capitalsist economy
> without them either. Likewise roads. Or childcare. So I think we
> should write off thi dintinction asa bad idea.
Theoretically, you can have a mixed capitalist economy in which the government employs, say, 98% of the workforce to do the teaching, doctoring, policing, judging, soldiering, etc., no one producing any goods, and the rest are engaged in the private sector producing and selling legal services to foreigners, at prices and volumes that would cover all the nation's import needs for food, clothes, tools, etc. The market for your legal services had better stay unnaturally good. :->
Yoshie Furuhashi <http://montages.blogspot.com> <http://monthlyreview.org> <http://mrzine.org>