Units of production
Posted by Bill Skepnek on Mar 28th, 2007
Karl Marx claimed capitalism relentlessly reduces human relationships to questions of pure economics. The relationships of physician/patient, of lawyer/client, even those of parent and child, and of husband and wife, are valued, and those values are calculated by use of objectively measurable numbers.
Marx himself, of course, bought off on this. His materialist view merely reorders the management. Both Marxist Communism and the invisible hand of pure capitalism share an essentially mechanistic view of the world. The expression of human will is driven by physical need. Consequently, the will does not express itself; it merely responds to external stimuli. We have no “will”; what we “choose” is no more than a reflex to the pain and pleasure we find in the external world. Strike the nerve beneath the kneecap, and the leg will straighten.
So why in a BoomerGirl blog, and in The Men’s Room at that, should I engage in such blatant philosophical speculation? The answer is that I’m thinking about Earline’s death.
She was nearly 78 years old. She had never earned a wage, and by the yardstick of both Marx and the Capitalists, she was less than worthless, she was a liability. As a unit of production she had reached the point where the cost of her continued existence could not be justified by her potential for economic production.
Don’t start thinking she was ever an invalid who vegetated in front of a television. In the 35 years I knew her, I cannot remember that she ever watched TV. She was forever on the move, in her yard, or the kitchen, or the nursery. She was that way until she died. And when she wasn’t working she had a glass of wine in her hand as she did more jabbering than listening.
Two tumors in her brain that went undiscovered far too long are what killed her, and they killed her quickly. Her children think the doctor did not pay attention. They think Earline’s health insurance let her down. I don’t know whether any of that is true, but I know we’ll never know. You see, there’s no money in finding out. Whether she had good medical care only makes a difference if she had some measurable value as a unit of production. Earline had exhausted her value; she lacked reproductive capacity, and she could no longer be relied upon to hold a job for pay. Her death was therefore incapable of causing economic loss. Materially, mathematically, she lacked value. A materialistic society necessarily projects materialism into its social values. She was valueless, and our legal system, which in turn reflects our social values, calculates her life as worthless. Even if bad care killed her, it makes no difference, “No harm, no foul.” Learning the truth is not worth the effort of asking.
Of course, we all die. It was simply her time. Sh*t happens, and it’s our job to get over it. It is simply the natural course of things that worn out equipment must in time be replaced.
Or is that all there is to it? Is there something beyond the weighing and calculating of material production? Is there a social value to the human will, is there worth to sentiment? Is our will dictated solely by physical needs? In "The African Queen" Charlie (Humphrey Bogart) justified getting drunk as no more than “natural” for a man to do every once in a while. Men, he suggests, get drunk when the world causes them to be drunk; just as gravity pulls objects to earth. Rosie (Katherine Hepburn) disagreed. To her the human spirit is a “wild card”, running counter to the perceived predictability of a mechanistically constituted universe.
“Nature, Mr. Allnutt,” she said, “is what we were put into this world to rise above.”
Was she right? Can we judge life so narrowly? Does the measurement of material things explain the world? Or does the choice of rising above nature imply a value to human relationships which is more real than we can calculate from the measure of units of production? Ask Earline’s kids.
at 5:30 p.m.
Sorry about your loss. Despite your family's pain, you have given us another provocative piece. Let's say we all buy into this notion of all relationships forming as a result of a physical supply and demand kind of thing. Even if that is the case, I would like to think of the social capital gained by those relationships as a by-product, then, and a valuable by-product at that. There is no substitute for the words, or deeds or mannerisms of a lost loved one that live on in the words, and deeds and mannerisms of my children. There is no substitute for the value of a human spirit. Hope others agree. I loved your posting this time.