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Marxian economics finds its fulcrum--so as to lever economic understanding--in its fundamental postulate that all new value comes into existence only with the labors of humans, i.e. the workforce.(1) <#m_4426030999311900811_sdfootnote1sym>This new value added by human labor(2) is divided, in capitalism, into the products of necessary labor and those of surplus labor with the former being the amount of time it takes for the average worker to produce items which recreate the value of his wage; while the latter is the time worked after that with the value of the products produced during that time being that which remains with the capitalist after the workers wage has been paid. After the value of the wage has been resurrected, it must be seen that all new net value is born into this world as surplus-value which, all things being equal, becomes the capitalist’s profit. Without this latter portion of the workday, in capitalism, then the necessary labor portion would cease for “As every child knows” the prime motivation of capitalist production is not employment but profit. Sans this there would be no industry. The corona virus has wrought devastation upon wealthier nations with China, South Korea, Japan and Italy having to quarantine workers in their millions crippling wide swaths of many sectors of their economies. We will leave for later the horrendous near future to be suffered by the more economically underdeveloped areas of the world. But within those more developed areas there are industries which are relatively self-contained and those which occupy this or that rung on a national or international supply chain. The quarantined self-contained business would cease or drastically cut back on its workforce but being self-contained the damage that it does to industry as a whole is only to itself as cloistered company and the others who being local to this production depend greatly upon the expenditure of at least part of the revenues in the forms of wages and profits of the workers and the capitalists of the stalled behemoth. In addition those vendors further away would feel the loss of the expended purchasing power they previously absorbed. Those industries which are links in the supply chain can either be active and passive or even participate as both. Further their activities in this movement of production could be national or international or, again, both. The active elements are the downstream producers of the components of further upstream production; the upstream passive ones are the receivers of those components produced downstream. If the downstream element cannot produce then neither can those upstream sans those components. On the other hand, if the upstream producer cannot sell on its products then it must cease to be able to purchase those downstream elements. A break in a link anywhere and the repercussions pancake themselves up and down on each other with a failure of this one leading to that of the other leading to… And the capitalist producers find themselves in the vise of a ‘scissors’ of decreased effective demand and decreased supply. And if no work then no value is created. No wages replicated, no profits created so as to be realized. This is the threat to developed countries. Countries that are struggling to correctly respond to this disease and their health facilities are vastly superior both in quality and scale to those of what used to be called ‘The Third World'. (3) <#m_4426030999311900811_sdfootnote3sym>Therefore to economic and war-avoidance refugees attempting to flee to more developed areas will be joined by those shocked into fear by the massive massive amounts of those who will be infected with the virus. The more developed nations will face tremendous resistance to allowing admittance of all refugees and their right wing anti-immigration activists will be joined by not only those formerly neutral on the issue but also by some formerly of the left-wing pro-migrant forces. The only long-term solution to the migrant problem might be called a ‘reverse Rodney (4) <#m_4426030999311900811_sdfootnote4sym>where the developed world will commit the resources so as to redevelop 3rd World economies deformed by Western colonization and neocolonialism and now Chinese neocolonialism into single-crop and/or raw material production designed for export to the developed countries. Such a redevelopment ought recreate a ‘natural’ economy’ where production is done for local consumption and hence must include many raw material mines, crops, and animals. Only, and to a lesser extent, would commodities be produced for export to and trade with countries where items are produced that are both desired and cannot be produced locally. 1*.“*Every child knows a nation which ceased to work, I will not say for a year, but even for a few weeks, would perish.” “Marx to Kugelmann In Hanover.” London, July 11, 1868 https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1868/letters/68_07_11-abs.htm And “...according to our previous analysis, the value of the constant capital (JAI: material means of production) reappears in the value of the product, but does not enter into the newly produced value, the newly created valueproduct.” “Capital. Vol 1.” Chapter XI. https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch11.htm 2 <#m_4426030999311900811_sdfootnote2anc>As measured in units of average labor, called Abstract Human Labor-time (AHL-t), which is the value-adding ability of the average worker. 3 <#m_4426030999311900811_sdfootnote3anc>Italy has 37 doctors per 10,000 people. Angola has 1.7. Cuba is a remarkable outlier in that it has 67 doctors per 10,000 people. The US has 24.5. “List of countries and dependencies by number of physicians.” Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_number_of_physicians 4 <#m_4426030999311900811_sdfootnote4anc>Walter Rodney. “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/How_Europe_Underdeveloped_Africa JAI _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: https://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com