> Non-profit-making labor (unproductive labor in Marx's terminology) isn't
> necessarily a drain on society. Some kinds of non-profit- making labor
> (e.g, teaching in public schools) promote social welfare; other kinds
> (e.g., soldiers making an unjust war) diminish it. Non-profit-making
> labor can be a drain on profits, though: e.g., if US workers succeed in
> transforming the US health care system into a single-payer universal
> health care system, a lot of what has been done in the private sector for
> profits either becomes unnecessary or gets transformed into
> non-profit-making labor, depending on how the transformation is made.
------------------------------------------------
But is it really the case, to take Yoshie's example, that single payer would
be "unprofitable" - in systemic terms? For sure, it would reduce profits in
the insurance industry and health administrators in these firms and their
counterparts in the medical sector and large corporations would lose jobs,
but wouldn't there be a net benefit to the private sector as a whole from
the lower overhead costs of production if coverage for their workers was
largely transferred to the public sphere? As this example shows, isn't the
relationship between the public and private sectors under capitalism
complementary than antagonistic? And, if this is so, isn't the iron wall
erected between "productive" workers in private firms and "unproductive"
ones in the non-profit public sector therefore also ...unproductive? Isn't
the role of the latter "complementary" and "indirectly productive" - not
only in terms of those functions "which promote social welfare" but in all
those functions which facilitate the production of surplus value in the
capitalist mode?
Not enough attention, it seems to me, has been paid in this discussion to the effect of 20th century "corporate liberalism" and massively increased state intervention on the production of surplus value in an advanced capitalist economy. The right - at least in its propaganda designed for mass consumption - has seen the effect as largely negative, focusing on the levies used to finance this intervention as a net drain on profits. Social democrats haven't seen any effect; they regard the state as largely neutral or benignly acting on behalf of the masses rather than the capitalists when it it is forced to act. But surely the prevailing view here is that the state has actively strengthened rather than weakened the capitalist mode of production by moderating the effect of its cyclical crises, providing the necessary infrastructure and protection for its expansion, and improving its labour productivity by assuming responsibility for the health and education of the workforce.
It's true as Yoshie and Leigh and others have noted that intervention from above converged with and was related to mass pressure threatening social revolution from below, and it would be futile to try and disentangle the two threads to see which was the stronger. But I don't think there's any denying that, whatever the source, the effect has been to enhance rather than restrict capitalist production and profitability on a global scale and, in the case of depressions, to restore it. The public works projects, social insurance schemes, and collective bargaining rights introduced during the Great Depression were not, as widely supposed, so much "unprofitable" concessions to the masses under their pressure as consciously-designed programs to revive profits and save capitalism by restoring purchasing power. In normal times, decisions to loosen or tighten fiscal and monetary policy by the "exective committee of the ruling class" is designed to enhance profitability rather than restrict it. Even nationalizations under capitalism have as their purpose to restore profitability to ailing sectors.
It's worth recalling that Marx's view of the "executive committee" was shaped in a period when its functions were largely repressive, restricted to policing class relations at home and opening markets for its capitalists abroad. Its vastly-expanded economic and social functions lay in the future. In these circumstances, it would not difficult to view the state's role - and that of its paid agents - as "unproductive" in relation to the generation of surplus value. Marx would not have anticipated the expansion of the capitalist state into these spheres because he expected the capitalist mode of production to be overthrown well before then. Or is there evidence that Marx foresaw the great expansion of the public sector and public employment and incorporated these concepts into his thinking, and if so, how?