Saturday, January 7, 2017

Peter Cooper — Is Public-Sector Labor ‘Productive’ in a State Money System?

An issue that troubles me in relating Marx to Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is whether to apply the ‘productive/unproductive labor’ distinction to production that is monetized in a state money. Although I am not especially enamored of the distinction in general, it is particularly its application to public-sector activity in a state money system that strikes me as problematic. I ask the reader to countenance two propositions:
Proposition 1. All public-sector labor in a state money system is productive.Proposition 2. Proposition 1, if true, would alter none of Marx’s central theoretical conclusions.
If the following argument is mistaken, maybe someone can set me straight, and it will then be clearer how to proceed in future....
heteconomist
Is Public-Sector Labor ‘Productive’ in a State Money System?
Peter Cooper

4 comments:

Andrew Anderson said...

Proposition 1. All public-sector labor in a state money system is productive.

Obviously not; e.g. the military except for legitimate defense, e.g. the TSA.

But what is productive is the creation of fiat itself - especially when we have a government subsidized usury cartel that drives the population into debt they cannot pay in aggregate because of the missing interest problem and/or because of fear during the bust phase of the boom-bust cycle said cartel engenders.

But even without the cartel, fiat creation is desirable to avoid rewarding risk-free money hoarding since progress requires risk-taking, not sitting on a pile of cash and hoping to free ride on the risk-taking of others.

Matt Franko said...

"progress requires risk-taking"

No it doesnt, it requires determination....

Noah Way said...

... public-sector labor in a state money system is productive ...

for the private sector.

There, fixed it for you. Now everything should make perfect sense.

Andrew Anderson said...

What ever the reason, fiat creation is desirable. It's unfortunate that BS jobs like the TSA and an aggressive military are the means thereof when new fiat could simply be distributed equally to all citizens for productive and peaceful uses.