Marvin Gandall wrote:
>
>> 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
This is probably true, BUT. . . .
While I agree with Jim that philological questions are less important than direct questions about the world, STILL if we are talking about Marx we ought not to impose _our_ use of words on _his_ use of words. And if we do that, then "productive" DOES NOT MEAN USEFULE. It is a technical term. Unrproductive DOES NOT MEAN NOT USEFUL. It is a technical term.
On the whole, unproductive labor is of more human use, more beneficial to the whole species and to the individual, then is most productive labor.
And your reply also shows that Yoshie's attempt to finesse this problem of the "feeling" in words has failed. Profit-making vs Not Profit-making is subject to all the same verbal quibbles and misunderstandings as are Marx's terms. To use Marx's own example, when Milton sold PL for #5 he was not a productive laborer but a petty producer because he did not produce surplus value for a capitalist. The sleezeballs that write lying horseshit for Periodical X are productive laborers because they produce surplus value for the capitalists who own X.
I have no opinion on whether productive/unproductive labor is a useful concept for economics. But before worrying about the economic meaning of the terms one _should_ I think view them as anthropological and historical terms -- ultimately, cultural terms, not as economic terms and CERTAINLY not as terms expressing a judgment of the worth of the activities so described.
Carrol