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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
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