Paul Cockshott (wpc@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Mon, 11 Oct 1999 09:57:53 +0100
At 20:43 06/10/99 +0100, you wrote:
>Paul, you wrote:
>
> >The criterion is quite simple, a worker is unproductive if the total
> >product of the economy would not fall if the worker were shot the next
> >day.
>
>I see what you mean. But I should point out this is not an acceptable
>argument in Holland as far as I know. Also, for every death on the one
>side, there will be a death on the other side, that's the ay it goes.
>
>Comradely
>
>Jurriaan
My suggestion was only half in jest. It has been standard practice during
part of this century to shoot unproductive workers, or at least to give some
productive workers preferential exemptions from being sent to the trenches
which amounted to the same thing.
As Corelli Barnet points out the ultimate audit of an imperialist economy
is war. In time of war, illusions about what is productive and essential
get tossed to one side as the necessity arises for the entire surplus
product to assume a particular material form - tanks, shells etc.
The economists responsible for national planning have then to decide
which categories of labour contribute to the production of this surplus
and which do not.
All unproductive workers except those in the armaments industry
are then liable to be shot.
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