The Marxist-Leninist Weekly

Across the country, working Canadians, youth and students, and collectives representing every kind of need are fighting against the neo-liberal anti-social offensive and its repercussions on society. The wrecking of social programs has led to an unending deterioration of public services, along with deteriorating wages and working conditions. The matter of who the economy should serve is not discussed at all. A diversionary debate is promoted by governments, media and the parties that form the cartel party system in all the provinces on whether to raise taxes to pay for social services, or cut taxes and reduce spending on social programs. Both sides cite high ideals to deliberately avoid dealing with the role health care, education, public services and social programs play in the socialized economy.

What is obscured is that those who work in health care, social care, education and other social programs all add value to the economy. Their work, which improves the productive capacity of the working class itself, is the origin of value in this sector of the economy, which directly contributes to other sectors. The issue of putting this value back into the economy as investment to meet all that is needed to sustain a modern universal health care, education and public services system at the highest level is never discussed. Moreover, enterprises that directly benefit from the health care their workers receive in the form of greater productivity do not pay for this benefit, meaning that the value created through that health work is not realized. Instead, it is made an individual matter to be paid for privately, or must be funded from the public purse and sourced from taxation.

Not only does this "debate" feed the notion that health, education and social care services are a "cost and a burden" to the "real economy," but it also serves to hide the fact that the private sector actually recognizes this wealth creation in the public sector and social programs. This is why oligopolies linked to health care, pharmaceuticals, seniors' care and related fields take over public services so as to realize for themselves the wealth created in health care, social care, education and other social programs. Such privatization of public services drastically reduces the amount of services to the people and makes people pay for them through taxes or direct income. It is also well recognized that the media, governments and the parties that form the cartel party system do not engage in arguments that pit raising taxes against "balancing the books" and eliminating deficits when it concerns funding war and war production, or bailouts to the rich and their interests.

It is important that the value produced by workers in health care, social care, education and all social programs is recognized. It is not possible to organize any aspect of the society without the contribution of the public sector and social programs. In a modern society, no aspect of the economy and of life can function without healthy, educated people and the social programs that contribute to the well-being of society as a whole, including welfare payments, pensions in old age, care for injured workers, programs for women and children, the injured and unemployed and so on.

In a modern society, the health care, social care and education of working people are a vital claim on the wealth created by all of the people in the economy. For the media, governments and parties that form the cartel party system to speak about these social programs being dependent on the balancing of income and outcome of taxation is to obscure the source of wealth available so as to serve other interests, notably that there are any number of pay-the-rich schemes funded by the Treasury. The people have a claim on the whole economy to serve the general interests of society to meet the needs of all for modern public services. This is the way forward that working people fight for. Their claims on society open a path to resolving the crisis in the health service, social care and other social programs.

Examining the Outlook of the Ruling Elite on How to Fund Social Programs and Public Services and Infrastructure

Articles published in the New York Times in 2019 discuss imperialist theories of how to fund or not fund social programs. These theories emanate broadly from the view that social programs emerge from unproductive work; they therefore are consumers of value and produce no new value, which can be exchanged for equivalent value with other sectors of the economy. The consumption of value during unproductive work such as military activity becomes a cost to the economy, a burden that must be borne by other economic sectors. The working class must challenge the assumption that social programs are unproductive, similar to the clearly unproductive sectors whose existence consumes value produced elsewhere in the economy.

If social programs are to exist at all, according to the imperialists, they must fulfill one or more various roles such as:

- increase the productivity and value of the capacity to work of the working class and its reproduction and availability;

- allow the financial oligarchy to use and profit from the benefits and productivity of the modern socialized economy and working class but not pay directly for the value produced socially in social programs, public services and public infrastructure;

- be organized and viewed in such a way to allow the particular enterprises of the financial oligarchy to avoid directly paying for the increased social value and capacity to work of the working class, which they consume;

- open possibilities for the financial oligarchy to expropriate added-value from social programs, public services and public infrastructure rather than have it retained within the public domain and public enterprises to strengthen the public sector with increased investments;

- be necessary under certain conditions to forestall a revolutionary upheaval of the organized and socially conscious working people.

The worldview or outlook of the ruling elite on how to fund social programs is in contradiction with the modern socialized economy. Their outlook arises from their social being rooted in their private ownership and control of the socialized productive forces and their privileged class position allowing them to expropriate as private profit the added-value the working class produces collectively.

The following is a series of excerpts from the first of three articles in the New York Times accompanied with comments from the author. Parts Two and Three examine the second and third articles from the Times.

Part One

On Paying for a Progressive Agenda: Getting fiscal about policy proposals
Paul Krugman, New York Times, February 19, 2019.[1]

New York Times: Whoever gets the Democratic nomination, she or he will run in part on proposals to increase government spending. [...] There will be demands that the candidate explain how all this will be paid for [...] some real questions about the fiscal side of a progressive agenda.

[... Elizabeth] Warren's latest proposal on child care [...] has me thinking that we could use a rough typology (classification) of spending proposals, classified by how they might be paid for.

[First classification of how social spending proposals might be paid for.] Investment -- Typically spending on infrastructure or research, but there may be some room at the margin for including spending on things like childhood development in the same category. The defining characteristic here is that it's spending that will enhance society's future productivity. [Much of what seems to be in the Green New Deal falls into that category.] How should we pay for that kind of outlay? The answer is, we shouldn't.

Comment: Public investment in infrastructure and research increases productivity in the workplace and the economy generally. This social value is typically not exchanged for money when private enterprise directly consumes or otherwise benefits from the investment. The New York Times item admits that certain social programs increase the value of work-time or the capacity to work of the working class. Instead of advancing the thesis that the investment and production of social value should be viewed and treated as any commodity and exchanged in the marketplace for an equivalent value when bought or otherwise consumed, the article lets enterprises off the hook from directly paying through exchange of equivalents for the socially produced value they consume. Krugman bluntly states, "We shouldn't pay."

But this begs the question why these socially produced commodities should be treated differently from other commodities that enterprises consume in their operations. Why should private enterprises and the rich oligarchs who own them be allowed to consume publicly produced value without paying for it? Krugman makes a mockery of the issue by saying "we" the public should not pay in the first place. The "we" conveniently ignores the division of the socialized economy, and society, into two main social classes: those who sell their capacity to work to acquire a living (the working class) and those who buy the capacity to work of the working class to run their enterprises dominated by the financial oligarchy.

We shouldn't pay, Krugman suggests, but rather borrow the money from the federal treasury and then forget about it, as if servicing public debt to private investors is of no importance or the debt simply disappears into some economic dark hole without any ramifications for the economy.

NYT: [...] If you can raise funds cheaply and apply them to high-return projects, you should go ahead and borrow. And Federal borrowing costs are very low -- less than one per cent, adjusted for inflation -- while we are desperately in need of public investment, i.e., it has a high social return. So we should just do it, without looking for pay-fors [user fees].

Comment: The grain of truth of what Krugman suggests would only come to fruition if, firstly, the borrowed funds were from government (public) sources and not private moneylenders, and secondly, if the borrowed funds were invested in public and private enterprises that returned a portion of their profits to service the public debt and allow further public borrowing from itself and investments.

The value from "desperately needed" public investment and its "high social return" goes into the socialized economy where enterprises consume it without paying for it. If they paid for it as they should, the money would be returned to the public investor to pay off the original investment and debt. Otherwise, the public treasury is on the hook for it and the financial oligarchy carries on merrily with its class privilege, exploitation of the working class and ridiculously extravagant lifestyle intact, while real social problems are ignored and left unresolved and starved for public investments.

The "pay-fors [user fees]" comment is to suggest that individuals should be saved from paying for the socially produced value when in fact the actual beneficiaries or consumers are enterprises that need the value for their operations and should directly pay an equivalent in exchange for the value [realize its value].

NYT: [Second classification of how possibly to pay for social spending proposals, according to Krugman.] Benefits enhancement -- Benefits enhancement, the second category is a bit harder to define, but are initiatives that either expand an existing public program or use subsidies to create incentives for expanding some kind of socially desirable private activity.

Comment: This classification appears to entail mainly pay-the-rich schemes in one form or another. Public handouts to the financial oligarchy in various ways in all sectors whether in crisis or not have now become routine practices for all governments.

Public funds are used to ensure profit can be expropriated directly from social programs such as Medicare and education. In the U.S. most hospitals are private enterprises while both in the U.S. and Canada, private enterprises own and control the construction and supplying of hospitals, the pharmaceutical sector and almost all local medical clinics. This ensures a huge chunk of social added-value produced in the health sector and a substantial amount in the education sector is directly expropriated to fill private coffers. Most of the expropriated added-value is removed from the sectors, not to speak of what happens to the produced commodity, which is the increased social value of the capacity to work and how it may or may not be realized.

Payment for the social value from having a healthy reliable and educated workforce, which increases the social value of the capacity to work, has become a muddled hodgepodge of taxes, individual user fees, public and private company and individual insurance schemes and other measures.

Key issues are avoided and lost in this New York Times debate: health care and education for all are a right and the state is duty bound to guarantee those rights; and, enterprises are responsible to realize (pay for) the social value from health care and education found in the capacity to work of the workers they employ and consume.

Health care and education today are rights that exist in the relation between the individual and the socialized economy and modern society. The socialized economy is capable of satisfying these rights from birth to passing away but to do so its form, including ownership and control, must be in conformity with its socialized nature.

How the social value from social programs and public services and public infrastructure are realized in practice requires direct confrontation with the financial oligarchy, a restriction of its social wealth and political power through democratic renewal and modern arrangements and human relations. This conflict or class struggle is a centrepiece of a nation-building project the working class must take up and bring into being through its own efforts, organizing, institutions and social consciousness.

NYT: The Affordable Care Act falls into that category [benefits enhancement]. It expanded Medicaid while using a combination of regulation and subsidies to make private insurance more available to families above the new Medicaid line. Warren's childcare proposal also fits. So would a "Medicare for All" proposal that involves allowing people to buy in to government insurance, rather than offering that insurance free of charge.

So you want some kind of pay-for [user fees or taxes]. [...] That is how Obamacare was financed: the revenue component came almost entirely from taxes on high incomes. [...] Warren has proposed additional taxes on the wealthy -- her proposed tax on fortunes over $50 million would yield something like four times the cost of her child care proposal. Benefit enhancement can be paid for with taxes on high incomes and large fortunes. It doesn't have to impose on the middle class.

Comment: This perpetuates the situation where social programs in general are viewed and treated as costs to the economy, do not add value and require imperialist taxation. Taxes on the rich can just as easily be eliminated as increased, as has often happened in the past with a change in government. Taxes on working people have become constant and ubiquitous, including now even the fraud of carbon taxes, a form of sales tax. Also, how government revenue is spent is not under the authority of the people. Like taxes, social programs can be put in place or eliminated according to whatever the financial oligarchy directs its governments to do. The anti-social offensive of the last decades bitterly teaches the people that truth.

The conditions cry out for social programs to solve society's problems but the people do not possess the authority to satisfy the conditions. The old established form of government deprives the people of empowerment and democratic renewal to constitute a new form of governance in conformity with the modern conditions. This brings to the fore a historic clash between the conditions and the authority, between the desired content and the established form. The people cry out against the anti-social offensive and yearn to solve the country's economic, political and social problems but they face the reality of an absence of their own authority and form where they can satisfy their claims and build the New. It highlights what the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist) says is the need in all spheres of endeavour to enunciate the claims of the working people on society and enforce arrangements based on the people exercising control over the decisions they take and creating an authority of their own.

Krugman's "some kind of pay-for (user fees or taxes)" diverts attention away from the fact that the social value embedded in the working people from social programs such as health care, education and pensions must become part of the realized value of the capacity to work of working people. Other sectors and enterprises of the socialized economy must pay for this social reproduced-value just as they pay for the value of fixed assets or material they use and consume in their operations.

The realization of the value of social programs must become an ingrained feature of the current system of production for exchange of commodities in a market. As long as the economic system does not primarily produce directly for use and continues to have a labour market where the capacity to work of the working class is bought and sold as a commodity, then social reproduced-value must be realized as part of the price (exchange-value) of the capacity to work.

NYT: ["Major system overhaul" is the third classification according to Krugman of how social spending proposals might be paid for.] Major system overhaul -- The archetype would be replacing employer-based private health insurance with a tax-financed public program -- the purist version of Medicare for all. A really major expansion of Social Security might fall into that category too, although smaller enhancements might not.

Private health insurance currently amounts to six per cent of GDP. To implement these proposals [tax-financed public program of Medicare for all and other policies of the Green New Deal], then, we'd need a lot more revenue, which would have to come from things like payroll taxes and/or a value-added tax that hit the middle class.

Comment: The melodrama is misplaced. The "purest version of Medicare for all" needing "a lot more revenue" reflects how important social programs, public services and public infrastructure have become in the modern economy. Their enormous role and reality are deliberately confused to allow the financial oligarchy and the particular enterprises it owns to avoid directly paying for the social value workers produce, which all enterprises consume. "The purist version of Medicare for all. A really major expansion of Social Security" collapses into the fraud of a "tax-financed public program [...] like payroll taxes and/or a value-added tax that hit the middle class."

"Replacing employer-based private health insurance with a tax-financed public program" is what the financial oligarchy has done in Canada. In the latter part of the 20th century, this was attractive to the U.S. auto monopolies that wanted to avoid "employer-based health insurance." To take advantage of this, along with Canada's unemployment insurance regime, which allowed auto monopolies to lay off their workers but keep them on standby with public benefit payments during the layoff, the financial oligarchy established the U.S./Canada auto pact and increased vehicle production in Canada. Since then, the anti-social offensive in the U.S. has passed much of the burden of employer-based health insurance on to the employee so the advantage of a "tax-financed public program" is less attractive to the financial oligarchy.

Workers in education, health care and generally in social services add value to the capacity to work of working people, both to the value of their specific capacity to work and to their reproduction and existence at a certain standard from birth to passing away. The value exists in their capacity to work and its exchange-value, which is equivalent to the average value that has gone into producing and reproducing it. When the exchange-value of the capacity to work of workers is exchanged and realized (sold and bought), a part of the income should be returned directly to those social sectors and enterprises that produced the social value of the capacity to work in the first place. This is not taxation but an exchange of money for a portion of the value of a commodity, in this case a human commodity, its capacity to work, similar to the buying of electricity, iron ore or any other material necessary to operate an enterprise. The money from the realized exchange should not go into general government revenue but directly to the sectors and enterprises producing the value according to the calculations and assessment of workers involved in those enterprises and sectors.

The capacity to work when used during work-time (its use-value) reproduces an equivalent to its exchange-value called reproduced-value, and in addition produces an amount called added-value. The use-value of the capacity to work of the human commodity, the new value it produces, is greater than its exchange-value, the value that has gone into producing the capacity to work.

Part of the reproduced-value goes to the individual worker as individual reproduced-value (wages and benefits) and part goes (or should go) to the social enterprises as social reproduced-value.

Those who own and control the productive forces expropriate the added-value as profit and divide it up amongst themselves.

Together, the reproduced-value and added-value equal the new value workers produce, its use-value, which is greater than its exchange-value, the amount the employer pays for the capacity to work of its employees.

The necessity of social programs, public services and public infrastructure arises objectively from the complexity of the modern productive forces and the great advancements in productivity and trade requiring an educated, healthy and reliable working class and a vast array of services, machines, material, financing and means of transportation. Public services, public infrastructure and public financing (including pay-the-rich schemes for the more powerful enterprises) reflect the interconnected and cooperative nature of the socialized economy. Without them and the human factor, individual enterprises could not operate or even exist.

From the point of view of the working people, the necessity of social programs is to guarantee their existence as workers from birth to passing away at a standard of living determined by their class struggle and the development of the productive forces. This necessity arises from workers' social being as the essential human productive force within the socialized economy of industrial mass production that must sell its capacity to work to survive and to ensure its reproduction and the continuation of society. Social programs are the material expression within the socialized economy that rights for all and a certain standard of living throughout life can only be guaranteed socially, collectively and cooperatively within modern human relations.

The socialized economy has advanced to and is based on industrial mass manufacturing, resource extraction and transportation, social programs, public services and public infrastructure and financing. The whole requires cooperation amongst all its sectors and parts for mutual benefit, development, and extended reproduction to guarantee the well-being and rights of the people, the humanization of the workplace and the social and natural environment, and the advancement of society. The working class has the social responsibility to activate the human factor/social consciousness to bring into being new economic, political and social forms and relations that conform to the socialized nature of the modern economy and society, and establish an authority of their own creation.

Part Two

If most social programs and public services were recognized and accepted as producers of value, as they rightly are, then the produced value could or rather should be exchanged for equivalent value with other sectors and enterprises in the economy.

The consumption of value by unproductive programs such as the military, spy and police agencies are a cost to the economy, a burden that must be borne by other economic sectors and enterprises. The working class must challenge the assumption that social programs and public services generally are unproductive similar to the clearly unproductive sectors such as the military whose existence and use consume value produced elsewhere in the economy.

The outlook of the ruling elite on how to fund social programs and public services and infrastructure is in contradiction with the modern socialized economy. Their outlook arises from their social being, rooted in their private ownership and control of the socialized productive forces, and their privileged class position allowing them to expropriate as private profit the added-value the working class produces collectively within the socialized economy. Their consideration of most social programs and public services as unproductive allows the enterprises they control to use and consume socially produced value without paying for it in a proper exchange as should be the norm in an economy rooted in production for exchange and not direct use.

The following excerpts are from a second New York Times article accompanied with comments.

Your Grandchildren Are Already in Debt: It's irresponsible to pretend that America can add splashy new social programs without finding a way to pay for them
- Steven Rattner, New York Times, February 11, 2019.[2]

NYT: It's irresponsible to pretend that America can add splashy new social programs without finding a way to pay for them.

With each new entrant into the Democratic presidential sweepstakes comes a fresh cascade of ambitious social programs to entice and excite would-be supporters.

Comment: Policy objectives such as those contained in the Green New Deal are standard fare in imperialist elections to "entice and excite would-be" voters. Policy objectives are not meant to be all-sided solutions that consider the socialized economy as a whole and challenge entrenched class privilege and the control of social wealth and the economy by private interests. The government does not control the economy. Competing private interests within the financial oligarchy control the economy and any policy objective that in practice harms their private interests would be fiercely opposed.

The disparate private interests in control of parts of the economy compete for what is best for their separate competing interests and do not necessarily consider or even think about what is best for the whole or how their particular private interests should relate to other private interests to serve the whole.

As well, policy objectives collapse when it comes to how to pay for them. Payment for social programs demands a broad vision of how the policy objective fits into the whole, and the whole is not under the control of the government but under the control of competing private interests who fight tooth and nail for what is best for their particular private interests. Their social wealth and connections and control of the mass media and state institutions block the development of public opinion in favour of solving, in a concrete way, the problems the economy and society face, for that would mean restricting their monopoly right as owners of property. A valid reform that favours the people requires mass political mobilization of the working people to force it into being.

Under the current conditions, private interests enact so-called reforms that in some way favour their private interests such as pay-the-rich schemes that channel state funds to their enterprises, give them guaranteed state contracts and allow them to lend their accumulated social wealth to the state in return for interest profit.

The monopoly right of owners of parts of the socialized economy is sanctioned in law in opposition to the affirmation of the rights all people have by virtue of being human. For example, both the current North America Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) and its proposed replacement, the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement, outlaw state-owned enterprises competing with private enterprise or in any way harming private interests and their ownership of parts of the economy, no matter how lofty and desired the reforms and goals of the state-owned enterprises may be and whatever problems they may be designed to solve.

Policy objectives are broadly meant to propel the cartel political parties and their candidates into government positions. Policy objectives become sound bites in electoral campaigns. Policy objectives cannot be all-sided in the manner Rattner suggests by explaining in detail how the reform would work in practice and affect the overall economy. If the advocates of policy objectives presented an all-sided view on how to guarantee and deliver health care for all, this would necessarily mean stepping on the toes of various private interests such as private hospitals, private hospital suppliers, private insurance and pharmaceutical companies and getting involved in how other sectors and enterprises in the economy should realize the value health care workers produce.

A true reform favouring the people in the delivery and production of health care and production of associated products would recognize how the sector relates to the rest of the economy. In effect, this would mean explaining in detail how other sectors of the economy interact and benefit from the value of healthy working people. It would expose how most social programs and public services and infrastructure lift up and add value to the economy and the concomitant necessity for other sectors and enterprises to pay in exchange for that value when they use and consume it.

Official politicians within the imperialist system are hamstrung in advocating and putting into practice policy objectives that favour the people because government does not control the economy and broader state machine. Competing private interests and their enterprises control the imperialist economy. Policy objectives and the reforms they advocate come up against a wall of private interests and monopoly right. Any reforms must manoeuvre around these private interests and monopoly right to avoid affecting negatively them or even to serve them. Policy objectives cannot delve deeply into the problems they propose to solve because that would mean confronting powerful private interests and their monopoly right to do whatever favours their private interests and class privilege. Those private interests and monopoly right often profit from and cause the social and economic problems that are crying out to be solved.

NYT: The list of "payfors," to use a bit of Washington jargon, grows more slowly. They'll pay for this how, again? Tax the rich, tax the rich -- or take cover behind a convenient bit of progressive dogma: Don't worry about the fiscal impact because America's rising budget deficits and debt levels don't much matter.

That's a scary drift of thought, and it should set off alarm bells for all Americans. Vast increases in debt will ultimately compromise Washington's ability to maintain its current array of spending programs, let alone add new ones, and threaten our standard of living.

On present course and speed, the United States is on track to experience the highest deficits in its history, reaching more than $2 trillion a year by 2029. Those annual gaps are projected to bring America's total debt to nearly $33 trillion by that date, according to the Committee for a Responsible Budget. That's double today's level and more than the size of our economy, a peacetime record.

America is simultaneously indulging in two deficit-busting desires: for lower taxes and for robust government programs. Eventually, the interest on all the debt will force the governments of future generations to reverse those fiscally imprudent policies in order to pay for today's profligacy.

Comment: Rattner obfuscates state debt to private moneylenders. State borrowing from private moneylenders is an obscene pay-the-rich fraud. A modern state does not need to borrow from any institution but itself. A solution or reform of the existing state debt is to put a moratorium on servicing it and launch an investigation into its origin and legitimacy with an eye to cancelling most of it, at least the part that has already been repaid many times over through the deceit of compound interest.

Aside from putting a moratorium on servicing the existing state debt and ending state borrowing from private interests, other aspects of how the state could raise funds to increase investments in social programs must be investigated.

The state borrowing from itself to invest in social programs and public services and infrastructure, and to enhance the economy and increase productivity is similar to corporate borrowing to boost production. Repayment of the debt comes from the future realized added-value workers produce. A problem for productive social programs and public services and infrastructure is that other sectors and enterprises in the socialized economy refuse to recognize the social value those programs produce and pay for it in a proper exchange similar to the purchase of any other commodity. When that socially produced value is used but not realized in a proper exchange of value, the social value from social programs and public services and infrastructure becomes an enormous gift to the financial oligarchy to increase the profit it expropriates and the social wealth it owns at the expense of the people and their well-being and that of the economy, and render more powerful the class privilege of the ruling oligarchs.

A moratorium on servicing the existing state debt and ending any state borrowing from private moneylenders would require restricting monopoly right, as any true reform under imperialism must do. It would also put an end to the lie that social programs and public services and infrastructure in general need taxes or state borrowing from private moneylenders for investment. If the value they produce were properly realized, social programs and public services and infrastructure would be able to increase investments using the revenue they receive from the sale of their social value, and when needed, borrow funds from a state financial institution. The return of borrowed funds would be guaranteed from the prospect of increased production of social value and the resulting income of the programs in question. Most individual taxation, payroll deductions, provincial premiums and tolls related to social programs and public services and infrastructure should be cancelled.

The working people should grasp firmly that the socialized economy is not a mystery or unknowable. Understanding the economy requires acts of finding out. Through acts of their own, workers are quite capable of finding out the amount of value they produce at a hospital, a school, any enterprise or construction project such as a bridge or subway and the total their particular social program or sector produces. Through additional acts of finding out, workers can discover where the value they produce goes to be used and consumed and how much value should be realized and returned directly to their hospital, school, construction project and sector, and how much more should be invested and produced to affirm the rights of all and their well-being and to play a positive role in the extended reproduction of the economy.

NYT: [...] But that's not all. The generally accepted measure of America's national debt doesn't include obligations for future retirement and health care benefits.

In a perfect world, those programs would function like insurance; each generation's annual premiums would pay for support received during its golden years.

Comment: Rattner introduces confusion on retirement and pensions and lumps them in with health care in an incoherent mess. The working class sells its capacity to work to employers in the socialized economy. This sale of workers' capacity to work must be recognized both in its particular and general form.

The particular form is the immediate job or employment of living active workers. The particular form exists only within the general, which is a living healthy educated worker as a member of the broad working class from birth to passing away and from generation to generation. Without successive generations of workers, no particular workers would be available to sell their capacity to work to those who own and control the socialized economy.

The particular or individual aspect of a worker cannot be separated from the social or general working class and the need to reproduce the next generation of the working class and guarantee its existence from birth to passing away as a right and necessity for the modern economy and society. The economy cannot function without a constant supply of workers from one generation to the next at a modern level of health and education with their rights affirmed and guaranteed.

Particular or individual workers receive wages and benefits that reproduce their capacity to work. Workers reproduce this value through their work-time, which is their individual reproduced-value. The individual reproduced-value is realized with the sale of the commodity and returned to the employer who has paid the wage.

The general working class receives its social programs, including pensions and health care to guarantee their existence at an agreed standard of living from birth to passing away as the producer of the value the economy and society require to continue. The working class in general through its particular or individual form reproduces this social value collectively through its work-time, which is the social reproduced-value. The social reproduced-value is realized with the sale of the commodity and returned to the employer who has paid the amount to the proper social institutions in exchange for the consumed value.

NYT: [...] Meanwhile, progressives argue that certain kinds of spending are, in reality, investments that will bring large dividends in the future. With interest rates still near historic lows, they contend that the returns from borrowing for these investments would greatly exceed interest costs.

Comment: Investments in social programs and public services and infrastructure should come mostly from the realized added-value contained in the value social programs and public services and infrastructure produce, when the value is sold in a proper exchange with other sectors and enterprises in the economy, which use and consume the value.

Borrowing from public financial institutions, not private, could supplement the investment. No interest profit for private moneylenders is necessary when state borrowing is restricted to state or public financial institutions. The return of the borrowed funds should be equal to the principal amount plus administrative charges and come from the extended reproduction of the social program, public service or infrastructure and the additional value it provides.

NYT: While that's true [that investments will bring large dividends in the future], deciding what is an investment and what is just an expense with no potential return would inevitably become a political debate. Democrats and Republicans might quickly agree about investing in building roads and bridges but what about spending on education? Should that be considered an investment? What about work force training or research and development? I fear that in the end, many spending programs would be classified as investments simply to make the budget deficit appear smaller.

Comment: Oh what an incoherent mess he makes of the socialized economy, but we are not afraid because we have brains and initiative to act, and through acts of finding out we can understand anything.

Rattner fears and refuses to recognize that social programs and public spending on services and infrastructure are both necessary and, importantly, produce value that other sectors of the economy and enterprises must recognize and realize when they use and consume the value. Perhaps he fears such a restructuring of the economy would bring it more closely into conformity with the socialized productive forces. The obvious interrelatedness of the sectors would open the eyes of working people to go further and act upon the necessity for cooperation and planning and, worst of all for the oligarchs, actions with analysis to socialize the relations of production if problems are to be solved in a manner that favours the people.

Where will it all end, Rattner worries. It could all become too obvious. Perhaps conscious demands would arise for a revolutionary new direction for the economy where the relations of production are brought into conformity with the already socialized productive forces, and the actual producers gain control over the socialized economy and, crucially, the distribution of the added-value workers produce and its concentrated expression in political power and empowerment of the people.

Rattner thinks that all can agree that investments in "roads and bridges" "bring large dividends in the future" but disagreements abound regarding social programs and other public services and infrastructure. But who would disagree, one could rightly ask, when the socialized nature of the economy has already become starkly evident. Could it be that the fraud of state borrowing from private moneylenders would be at risk if the socialized nature of the economy became part of the social consciousness of all? Could it be that the necessity of realizing the value of social programs and public services and infrastructure in proper exchange with other sectors and enterprises in the economy must be avoided to protect private interests and their economic and political control and class privilege? My goodness, would threats arise to eliminate the control of the economy and politics by a tiny elite of rich oligarchs who cherish above all else their private property and class privilege and control?

Comment: This is the outdated assertion from the point of view of those who own and control the socialized economy and refuse to acknowledge their private business interests operate in a socialized economy. They must pay in proper exchange for the value they use and consume from social programs and public services and infrastructure they use and consume on a daily basis. These payments should go directly to the sector or enterprises providing the social goods or services, such as the education or health care sectors, or roads, bridges and subways. These payments in exchange for the value they use and consume should not go through government as taxes. The payments are not taxes and should not be seen as taxes just as much as the payment a steel mill makes for the iron ore it consumes is not taxes.

Urban mass transit is but one example that deserves attention. A huge kerfuffle exists around mass transit over who should pay for it and who profits from its delivery and operation and the production of its fixed assets in subways, trains, roads, bridges and buses. The working class is forced to pay large fares to travel to and from work, to and from school and to and from shopping when this necessity is not a means of consumption but a means of production, and payment should come from the economy itself and its sectors and enterprises and not individuals.

Mass transit exists as means of production serving the economy. How would workers go to and from work without mass transit in the metropolitan regions? The other sectors and enterprises of the economy need to buy workers' capacity to work and for the most part that means those workers must present themselves at a place of work for their use-value to be consumed.

How would students travel to and from schools, colleges and universities without mass transit? Education is crucial to the modern socialized economy. Education raises the level of the capacity to work of individual workers and the working class as a whole to what sectors and enterprises in the modern economy demand.

How would shoppers go to and from the major stores without mass transit? Mass transit is also seen as necessary for a modern economy to combat the negative consequences of the car culture and pollution, and reduce congestion and delays while travelling, which are obstacles to productivity of workers and the efficient transport of goods.

Mass transit is a form of means of production that all productive forces should view as such and pay for in the course of pursuing their business similar to any other fixed and circulating means of production, such as machines, buildings, parts, minerals, electricity, water, sewage and waste services.

The role of mass transit as means of consumption for the people is minimal to non-existent. Even most recreation requires going to and from a business such as a professional sports venue, restaurant, theatre or amusement park. This means individuals should not pay for mass transit or any other infrastructure that exists mainly as means of production for the economy.

The large urban economy cannot function without its means of production in the form of mass transit. Private businesses must recognize and realize by proper payment in an exchange of value for how much each sector and enterprise consumes of the means of production of mass transit, both fixed and circulating value and all the other public services and infrastructure the economy needs to function.

Also starkly revealing in Rattner's lament that "Regardless, taxes need to go up" is his refusal to even mention the largest and most unproductive, parasitic and draining program spending of all -- the U.S. military, spy agencies and other institutions of the immense police powers of U.S. imperialism.

NYT: [...] On the spending side, unfortunately, taking a hard look at the entitlements programs is essential. I'm not suggesting eviscerating them, but ideas like modestly raising the retirement age or scaling benefits based on need should be explored. Even implementing all these adjustments won't prudently provide room for expansive new social programs. Adopting those would require still tougher choices about raising taxes and trimming spending.

Comment: The anti-social offensive to serve powerful private interests and class privilege is where Rattner's backward and outdated thinking ends up. This anti-social outlook is directed at attacking the rights people possess by virtue of being human.

For example, eliminating universality, or "scaling benefits based on need" as he puts it, is a way to weaken, if not destroy, social programs that realize the right to education and health care for all. Once a social program as a reform faces competition from the private sector, such as private education or private health care, the rich abandon the public sector in favour of the more privileged private sector, where they receive preferential treatment based on possession of social wealth. This leads to the degrading of the public sector because the rich ruling elite have no need for the public service and resent any money being directed at it, which besides, they argue, should be made available for pay-the-rich schemes.

Rattner's suggestion of "trimming spending" on social programs, "taking a hard look at the entitlements programs" and "scaling benefits" is a recipe for the anti-social offensive.

The imperialist outlook refuses to recognize the problems facing modern humanity, let alone show any interest in resolving them in a manner that favours the people. Working people themselves must organize and prepare their own forces, institutions and consciousness to deal with the problems they and society face. These problems and their resolution revolve around questions of who controls political power, who decides how the issues and problems affecting people and society should be resolved and in whose interest, and how modern enlightened people affirm in practice the rights they possess by virtue of being human.

Part Three

The refusal to pay for the social value produced by social programs, public services and infrastructure allows other sectors and enterprises in the economy to consume the value without directly paying for it in most cases. This greatly weakens social programs and their extended reproduction and hinders their capacity to guarantee the well-being and rights of the people.

This final part of this article contains excerpts from and comments on a third New York Times article:

"Medicare for All": The Impossible Dream,"
- David Brooks, New York Times, March 4, 2019.

NYT: Medicare for All only works if politicians ruthlessly enforce spending cuts.

Comment: The article begins with a brutal assertion: social programs drain funds from each other and from the productive sectors of the economy. Brooks contends that the only way to guarantee the right to health care for all is to deny other rights. He poses the problem of affirming the right of all to health care and other social programs as a lack of money. This view derives in part from the conception that social problems such as poverty, homelessness and the power of the ruling elite to deprive people of their right to health care and education and other rights are not results of the prevailing social conditions and human relations, and the actions of the financial oligarchy and its state to block the working class from modernizing those conditions and relations but rather a lack of money.

NYT: [...] So single-payer health care, or in our case "Medicare for all," is worth taking seriously. I've just never understood how we get from here to there.

Comment: Brooks postures as someone in favour of Medicare for all rather than being in outright opposition. From this position he finds the concept "worth taking seriously" but cannot understand how to bring it into being. He then blocks discussion on how to move forward by dismissing as impossible even the hesitant steps and views of several cartel U.S. politicians on the issue. He becomes the flip side of the same coin as those political forces completely opposed to affirming the modern rights of all. Together they seek to stop any development of public opinion on how to build the New.

Medicare for all in essence should encapsulate the concept of health care for all as a modern right. Brooks reduces this to "single-payer health care" where the public treasury buys the social value created within the privately-controlled health care sector but receives nothing in return when that value is consumed in the economy. For his version of Medicare for all as a public single-payer insurance system to exist, it must suck funds from other social programs and the public treasury because the single-payer insurance system has no other source of income.

This misconception or misrepresentation of the economy and in particular the health care sector hinders people from viewing the problem as it poses itself as one of guaranteeing health care for all as a modern right and that the health care sector adds value to the economy and in no way drains value from it. His view attempts to block people from taking action to force resolution of the problem. It obscures the health care sector's vital contribution, interconnection and relation with other sectors of the economy and enterprises, and how all the productive parts must enter into exchange with and realize each other's value.

Brooks is being disingenuous by saying he has "never understood how we get from here to there." He does not understand because he does not want to understand. He does not want to take the first step from here to there. The first step -- the first action taken -- upon reflection would reveal the next step and the next in the journey from here to there.

To "get from here to there," the aim has to be to "get from here to there" as an imperative, to affirm the right of all to health care and to advance along the path of affirming all the rights people have by virtue of being human. This requires building public opinion in this direction and creating the forms for people's empowerment so they can build the New.

Brooks substitutes the objective world, where health care for all is a right that must be affirmed, with his lack of understanding of how to get there. He makes the issue one of not understanding when in fact he understands all too well within his own outdated outlook of refusing to affirm the rights of all. This outlook leads him to deny the objective necessity of affirming the right of all to health care and complain of not knowing how to "get from here to there." To bolster his refusal to recognize the necessity to affirm the right of all to health care he concocts a mental construct of a public single-payer insurance system to pay for health care value, and in conjunction with his view of health care producing no realizable value, becomes dumbstruck when, according to the public accounts, not enough public funds are available, forcing the government to increase taxation and "ruthlessly enforce spending cuts."

Brooks asserts that social programs such as health care and education drain funds from each other and from productive sectors of the economy. Steal from Peter to pay Paul becomes his mantra and explanation for his refusal to recognize the necessity of the objective world to affirm the right of all to health care. Brooks attempts to drag his readers into his outlook, aim and lack of understanding, where no alternative is possible.

The outlook is not to affirm the rights of all because that would require changing the social conditions and direction of the economy, including how people relate to one another within it. This he does not want to do because the ruling elite are satisfied with their social being, class privilege and relations of production, which they dominate and do not want disturbed. Their social being of privilege and wealth blinds them to the recognition of necessity.

Brooks is determined to convince others not to think about any alternative, or even worse, step out boldly in acts of conscious participation in finding out how to "get from here to there" by acting upon the modern aim of affirming the rights of all and taking that first step.

NYT: [...] Despite differences between individual proposals, the broad outlines of Medicare for all are easy to grasp. We'd take the money we're spending on private health insurance and private health care, and we'd shift it over to the federal government through higher taxes in some form.

Then, since health care would be a public monopoly, the government could set prices and force health care providers to accept current Medicare payment rates.

Comment: Interesting that Brooks first makes the issue not understanding "how we get from here to there" yet suddenly emerges as an expert declaring "the broad outlines of Medicare for all are easy to grasp." He then proceeds to tell us what those outlines are, which stumble from a lack of money.

Brooks makes Medicare for all about money and the need to shift it around from one social program to another by having "politicians ruthlessly enforce spending cuts" and increase taxation. With this, the principle and aim of affirming rights are obscured and submerged in the problem of how to shift "spending on private health insurance and private health care [...] over to the federal government through higher taxes" and "ruthlessly enforce spending cuts."

Brooks does not see or rather refuses to see how absurd his line of lack of money in the health care sector becomes. Why would all these private companies be involved in the health care industry for decades if they are up against a lack of money? Private interests and enterprises dominate the entire U.S. health care system, most importantly hospitals, medical clinics, hospital supplies, pharmaceuticals, laboratories and insurance companies. Shifting spending from private to public to buy the privately-controlled health care value does not change the aim of that industry from one of making as much money as possible in the fastest time to one of affirming the right of all to health care. In fact it would strengthen the right of the private health care companies, except the insurance companies, to guarantee their aim to make as much profit as possible because public funds would underwrite their aim.

Those who own and control the health care enterprises enrich themselves by expropriating profit from the added-value health care workers produce in all their divisions. Payment for the value their workers produce mainly comes now from "private health insurance and private health care." Obviously, this arrangement has not solved the problem of guaranteeing the right of all to health care. The refusal to change the social conditions and human relations to guarantee the right of all to health care stems from the social being and outlook of those in control of the economy, state, media and politics, those who profit from the current conditions and are determined to defend their class privilege at the expense of working people, the economy and society.

A step forward in affirming the right of all to health care requires moving the health care industry from its current aim of maximum profits for private interests to the modern aim of affirming the right of all to health care. The private interests in control have shown concretely that the issue is not one of lack of money or the need to cut spending on other social programs, as they have been enriching themselves for decades on the value their health care workers produce. Those decades of taking private profit out of the health care sector have not affirmed the right of all to health care, as the social conditions clearly reveal. It proves that a lack of money is not the problem in the health care sector but rather the outdated aim and relations of production.

The money to increase investments to affirm the right of all to health care has always been available from the added-value health care workers produce. A consistent problem has been the expropriation of this added-value by the private interests in control who then take much of the value out of the sector.

In fact, many of the private enterprises in the health care sector would welcome a change to a public single-payer insurance system as one that would not only guarantee their current profits but would extend their potential gross income to the tens of millions of people who now cannot afford private health care or do not have private or company-supplied health insurance or their insurance is inadequate and does not include essentials such as pharmaceuticals and certain treatments or has restrictions on coverage.

To change the conditions within the industry so that it can affirm the right of all to health care requires two significant changes amongst others:

- using the sector's own added-value for extended reproduction, which requires wresting control of health care away from those in the financial oligarchy who currently dominate all aspects of the sector and expropriate the produced added-value to serve their private interests; and

- adopting measures that assure other sectors and enterprises in the entire economy realize (buy) the produced health care value (broadly speaking the capacity to work of a healthy and educated working class capable of working and reproducing itself) in a proper exchange of value and hand over the realized value in money to the health care enterprises and institutions that produced it or, in the event those enterprises remain in private hands, make payments directly to the public single-payer insurance enterprise, which then reimburses the private health care enterprises.

Brooks raises the spectre of having to bring in "higher taxes" and "ruthlessly enforce spending cuts" in other programs to pay for Medicare for all. He looks at the health care sector and Medicare for all in a very narrow way that includes only public guarantees of spending within a "single-payer system" of public insurance where taxes and possibly individual premiums and user fees are the only source of income for the public insurance company. He excludes any direct payments to the public insurance single-payer company from enterprises that use and consume the social value embedded in their employees.

In this truncated concept, public spending for health care faces the daunting task of paying the full price of production to the private enterprises for goods and services throughout the sector, including health care delivery at hospitals and medical clinics, nursing and seniors' care homes, hospital supplies, pharmaceuticals and laboratories. The single-payer public insurance system is expected to accomplish this realization of production without benefiting from the added-value workers produce in the sector and without receiving payment from those enterprises and sectors in the economy that consume the value produced within the health care sector which is, broadly speaking, the capacity to work of a healthy and educated working class capable of working and reproducing itself.

This is not a conscious first step in an act to affirm the right of all to health care that the suddenly expert Brooks is proposing, but a backward step to pay-the-rich by making spending on health care public, but keeping the entire sector under private control and not receiving any money in return for the social health care value that all enterprises consume within the economy. This puts the burden on the public treasury for the realization (payment) of the full price of production of privately-controlled and produced goods and services within the health care sector, which includes profit from the added-value. Brooks' version of a public single-payer system is denied any subsequent payment in return for the health care value contained within the working class and its capacity to work when bought from the labour market and subsequently used and consumed in work-time.

His public single-payer system is forced to take money from general tax revenue to pay for social value workers produce who work for the private health care enterprises and then see that social value handed to the enterprises in the economy that consume it without the single-payer public insurance system or public treasury receiving in return any direct payment from those enterprises for what should be a proper exchange of a commodity for money.

NYT: [...] If this version of Medicare for all worked as planned, everybody would be insured, health care usage would rise sharply because it would be free, without even a co-payment, and America would spend less over all on health care.

Comment: Companies now purchase most private health insurance for their employees along with co-payments from their workers. Brooks says, "We'd take the money we're spending on private health insurance and [...] shift it over to the federal government through higher taxes in some form." The "we" doing the spending or paying at this time is mostly companies buying private health insurance for their employees, usually with co-payments. He proposes shifting or eliminating the private health insurance companies and turning their businesses over to a public single-payer enterprise. But through sleight of hand, he also proposes shifting the paying for health care insurance from the companies, the "we" which presently buy most of the private health insurance, over to the federal government that would have to raise taxes to do so and "ruthlessly enforce spending cuts."

Many enterprises would welcome this transition as it would free them from directly paying for private health insurance for their employees. In this case, the switch to a public single-payer insurance system would entail using mostly public funds from general government revenue, bolstered with user fees and individual health premiums rather than direct payments from companies. It should be noted in this scenario that the global monopolies, which now pay for private health insurance for their employees are notorious for evading corporate taxes. Taxation in its many forms is now mostly individual rather than coming directly from production and circulation of value at enterprises in the socialized economy.

The delivery in the U.S. of an almost completely privatized health care system through single-payer public insurance would immediately confront the necessity to pay for the value produced within the privately-owned and controlled hospitals, medical clinics, nursing and senior care homes, labs, and for pharmaceuticals and other goods and services.

Many immediately question this concept from Brooks that completely frees companies from paying for public single-payer health care insurance. Why would Brooks and others not at least propose that companies should continue paying into the single-payer system in the same way and rate they are currently paying for private health care insurance?

Such a reform, if it wants to be taken seriously as a positive reform, which favours the people, could simply shift the company payments for private insurance into the single-payer public insurance system and eliminate all individual co-payments and other forms of private insurance and health care payments. All individuals would be covered equally within the public health insurance system without discrimination based on wealth.

Those medium and large companies currently not contributing anything for their employees' private health insurance would be enrolled as well into the single-payer insurance system and be required to pay their pro-rated share. For example, those companies employing over 20 workers or reaching a certain threshold of annual gross income would be enrolled and required to pay a pro-rated public health insurance amount directly into the plan. This would include health insurance payments from the head offices of all state-wide and national chains such as Starbucks, Subway and McDonald's, not from the individual franchises or outlets. With this surge of income into the single-payer system well beyond what even private health insurance now receives, the only federal public funds required would be to make up whatever shortfall emerges in the initial stage once Medicare for all is extended to all those presently not covered. As the change takes hold, the full amount to make the single-payer plan universal and equal for all without privilege or discrimination based on wealth or any other consideration could be calculated and the amount companies pay adjusted on an annual basis eliminating any necessity for tax revenue.

Such a step forward would also open up discussion on the necessity to make the entire health care industry public and allow the added-value health care workers produce to be reinvested in the sector. The plan could then be fine-tuned to make it more exact in how much social value companies are directly consuming and required to realize, and the amount needed to ensure the health of all the people from birth to passing away.

With the growth of public health care, the social value realized could be returned directly to the public health care enterprises where health care workers themselves could become expert on assessing how much value they produce, where the value is used and consumed, and how much more should be invested to properly fulfil their role in guaranteeing health care for all as a right at the most advanced level. It would also stimulate discussion of the necessity to do the same in all social divisions, such as to fulfil the right of education for all to the highest level desired.

Regarding the private health insurance companies, they have no role to play in affirming the right to health care. They are obvious parasites that should be eliminated, with their employees transitioned to other employment. In fact, those in control of the private health care industry feed on the added-value workers produce rather than allowing it to be used to strengthen the sector. Those in control of the sector block much of the added-value from being invested in extended reproduction and where health care workers themselves determine as most necessary to solve pressing health problems. The people must face the reality of the modern socialized economy and the necessity for change with courage and determination to forge a new direction in a forthright way if the rights of all are to be affirmed as they must and that working people themselves gain control of their economy and the social product they produce.

On the front of doctors, Brooks paints a dark future and through fearmongering attempts to mobilize medical professionals against any movement or discussion towards public opinion supporting Medicare for all in any form. He suggests a public monopoly on insurance payments could mean hardships for doctors and other health professionals. Brooks writes, "[Doctor] salary losses would differ by specialty, but imagine you came out of med school saddled with debt and learn that your payments [from his version of a public single-payer insurance system] are going to be down by, say 30 per cent. Similar shocks would ripple to other health care workers."

The right of education for all is presently denied. Youth from the working class cannot afford medical school and other higher education without taking on tremendous debt to the financial oligarchy. Brooks uses the denial of the right of all to education and the current reality of suffocating student debt to block aspiring health professionals from participating in developing public opinion to affirm the right of all to health care, and education for that matter.

Adding to his list of impediments to taking any step forward and to further blunt the development of public opinion to affirm the right to health care, Brooks suggests the U.S. people themselves would be traumatized by change away from the current private health care and insurance system because, "Americans are more decentralized, diverse and individualistic than people in the nations with single-payer systems. They are more suspicious of centralized government and tend to dislike higher taxes." In this way, he poses a certain consciousness and lack of understanding in opposition to modern definitions and rights and to the development of public opinion in a pro-social direction.

Understanding and a corresponding consciousness develop in acts of finding out the solutions for existing problems through acts of solving those problems in practice. The broad areas of acts of finding out are the struggle for production, class struggle and scientific experimentation. If human beings throughout their development refused to solve the problems confronting them because of a lack of understanding or it offended their existing consciousness, many problems would have remained unsolved, greatly hindering their advance. Similar to everything else, human understanding and consciousness are in constant change, development and motion.

To solve the problems confronting humanity requires actions with analysis not diversions and superficial laments how difficult or impossible this may be according to our current understanding or how much solving the problems may offend a certain consciousness. Today the human factor/social consciousness is necessary to change the world towards social responsibility on all fronts. The human factor/social consciousness is constrained by imperialist consciousness. The starting point is to step forward to solve the problems confronting humanity through acts of conscious participation in acts of finding out.

NYT: [...] The [Bernie] Sanders plan would increase federal spending by about $32.6 trillion over its first 10 years, according to a Mercatus Center study. [...] That kind of sticker shock is why a plan for single-payer in Vermont collapsed in 2014 and why Colorado voters overwhelmingly rejected one in 2016. It's why legislators in California killed one. In this plan, the taxes are upfront, the purported savings are down the line.

Once they learn that Medicare for all would eliminate private insurance and raise taxes, only 37 per cent of Americans support it, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey. In 2010, Republicans scored an enormous electoral victory because voters feared that the government was taking over their health care, even though Obamacare really didn't. Now, under Medicare for all, it really would. This seems like an excellent way to re-elect Donald Trump.

Comment: Brooks' words are part of a scaremongering campaign to kill a social program before it starts and prevent any discussion as to what steps could be taken to solve an existing social problem in a way that favours the people. Brooks pretends to be in support of some sort of Medicare for all but presents the payment for the program in a distorted and apocalyptic way as harming the people and not assisting them. This is done to ensure favourable public opinion for a program to solve problems in the health care sector does not develop. His examples of voting results rejecting particular single-payer systems are meant to confirm his thesis that nothing can be done.

This attack on Medicare for all arises from a deep-seated aim of the ruling elite not to affirm the rights of all on any front. From this they refuse to accept the truth that most social programs produce value for the overall economy and its many sectors and enterprises. The private interests in control of the economy, enterprises and politics of the country do not want to pay for socially-produced value embedded in working people as that would transfer social wealth in a general way from the financial oligarchy to the people, in addition to improving the lives of many.

The affirmation of rights that the people possess by virtue of being human entails, in practice, a certain transfer of the social wealth the working people produce, from the financial oligarchy to the people. Through social programs, working people generally claim more of the new value workers produce, as social reproduced-value, while the financial oligarchy expropriates less added-value. The anti-social offensive of the past two decades has meant a reduction in the claim of working people for both social and individual reproduced-value and an increase in the amount of added-value the financial oligarchy expropriates as enterprise profit, interest profit, rent profit and executive profit.

Within this situation, those who control the social wealth and politics must see some sort of benefit for their private interests if they are to support a particular social program or public service, or be forced to give in to the demands of the working people for increased investments in social programs through mass political mobilization of the working people who demand the affirmation of their rights and nothing less.

NYT: The government would also have to transition. Medicare for all works only if politicians ruthlessly enforce those spending cuts. But in our system of government, members of Congress are terrible at fiscal discipline. They are quick to cater to special interest groups, terrible at saying no. To make single-payer really work, we'd probably have to scrap the U.S. Congress and move to a more centralized parliamentary system.

Comment: Brooks admits private interests dominate politics and Congress. However, if the problem were really an absence of a "centralized" system, the U.S. is almost there with power now concentrated more than ever in the President and the executive branch and its police powers. The problem is not Congress or lack of centralization of power but private political control of the entire system and the necessity for democratic renewal through empowerment of the people and new forms of governing and a modern constitution.

Brooks repeats his line to "ruthlessly enforce those spending cuts." He refers specifically to social programs and does not address spending on the military as something that should be cut. The U.S. House of Representatives approved a two-year federal budget of $2.78 trillion on July 25, that was then passed by the Senate on August 1 and signed into law by President Trump on August 2. Military spending receives the absolute majority of budgeted funds at $1.48 trillion while the entire rest of discretionary government spending, including Veterans Affairs receives $1.3 trillion. Two hundred and nineteen House Democrats and 65 Republicans voted to approve the budget. It should be noted that all but two cartel party politicians, who have expressed a policy objective for Medicare for all, voted for the war economy budget, including yes votes from Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib and Ro Khanna who is co-chairperson of Senator Bernie Sanders' presidential campaign.

The problem of rights poses itself in a straightforward way, something the ruling elite refuse to face or even discuss. Most social programs represent rights of the people in one way or another that the economy and society must guarantee in practice and which the current socialized productive forces of industrial mass production are quite capable of fulfilling. If private interests and enterprises stand in the way of satisfying those rights, they should be swept aside.

The necessity to affirm rights presents the working class with the task of building its own institutions, advanced social consciousness, democratic personality and mass movement for change through actions with analysis separate from and in contradiction with the financial oligarchy and its institutions, state and imperialist consciousness and agenda.

NYT: [...] If America were a blank slate, Medicare for all would be a plausible policy, but we are not a blank slate. At this point, the easiest way to get to a single-payer system would probably be to go back to 1776 and undo that whole American Revolution thing.

Comment: Not "undo that whole American Revolution thing" but move it forward into the modern world with a new constitution and political forms that guarantee the rights of the people and empower them to govern themselves and control those affairs that affect their lives.

Brooks asserts that Medicare for all is not to guarantee the right of all to health care but to bring in his own particular version of "a single-payer system." He debases the positive reform by making increased taxes the issue rather than finding ways to bring a reform into being that clearly favours the people. His assertion is based on the false assumption that the goal or aim of Medicare for all is his own mental construct of a single-payer system that would drain funds from other programs and would require spending cuts for other social programs, increased individual taxation, user fees and health care premiums. That is wrong. The aim is to guarantee health care as a right for all and to find a way forward to solve this problem in practice.

The social value produced in the health care system, which is essentially the consistent and continuing capacity to work of healthy human beings, has to be realized by other sectors and enterprises in the economy. How to do that is a problem that could be solved within a reform of the present economic system and should be taken up for solution immediately. Brooks declares that the original U.S. constitution and its political institutions are not suitable for bringing in such a reform. He seems to imply that people in the U.S. have not made any advance since 1776 and the original constitution. Such an assumption would negate the Civil War, the civil rights movement, the broad development of the working class movement, the victory over fascism and militarism of the Second World War, and the existence of a consistent anti-war consciousness and desire for political empowerment and the affirmation of rights.

The reform to bring in Medicare for all is possible within the present political arrangement through mass political mobilization of the people to affirm the right to health care. Instead of assisting in developing public opinion in such a direction, Brooks and the New York Times consistently throw up roadblocks.

He raises the red herring or diversion that another style of government is needed, "a more centralized parliamentary system" within the same basic form and content of the existing state and constitution that serves the interests of the ruling financial oligarchy. What he suggests has nothing to do with "go[ing] back to 1776 and undo[ing] that whole American Revolution thing." He suggests this as a cheap joke to prove how impossible affirming rights is within the current system, which he has no interest in changing or challenging just as he has no interest in changing or challenging his class privilege, social being and imperialist consciousness, and affirming the right to health care for all.

The ruling elite in the U.S. have zero interest in a revolutionary restructuring of the system to put the people in power and make them sovereign. They want to keep the people subjects of an artificial person of state who is the sovereign police power ruling over the people on behalf of the most powerful private interests, the financial oligarchy.

The issue is not to "undo that whole American Revolution thing" but to move the political thinking, constitution and institutions into the 21st century with revolutionary new forms and content on every front making the people sovereign through their political empowerment.

The fight to affirm the right of all to health care is a front of struggle along the path to fundamental revolutionary change. Working people must organize their own independent institutions within the present to gain control over their own social wealth, thinking and agenda, and engage in constant struggles to affirm their rights and develop their collective strength, empowerment, social consciousness and democratic personality. The struggles in the here and now serve the collective and individual interests of the working people in defence of their rights in the present by raising up their material, cultural and spiritual well-being. Importantly, the battles to affirm rights in the present when consistently fought with their own thinking, theory and organizations also prepare the working people, their consciousness, leadership and democratic personality for the coming revolutionary storms so they are able to guide the mass movement in a direction to ensure the economy, politics and society are transformed consciously with modern definitions and new forms in conformity with the advanced productive forces and social conditions.

Conclusion

Imperialism is the highest and final stage in the period of transition from small scale production to industrial mass production before the coming necessary revolutionary change in the relations of production to bring them into conformity with the socialized nature of the modern productive forces.

The unresolved contradiction between the modern socialized productive forces and the old relations of production is accelerating several dominant trends of imperialism. The old relations of production are personified in the dialectic between the rich oligarchs of the financial oligarchy and the working class. The rich oligarchs own and control the socialized productive forces and social product. They buy the capacity to work of the working class so as to preserve and enlarge the social wealth they control. To survive and acquire a living, the working class sells its capacity to work to the financial oligarchy that owns and controls the socialized productive forces. The working class is in the throes of a historic battle of democracy to gain control of the socialized productive forces, its capacity to work, the social product it produces and their concentrated expression in political affairs. Imperialist trends consist in part of the following:

- the trend towards a war economy, greater global arms sales and the instigation of regional wars and ever larger wars, and the destruction of those nations the big powers, especially those U.S. imperialism cannot control;

- the trend of the concentration and control of social wealth in fewer hands and the use of that greater social wealth to expand their control globally and to hire police and military mercenaries and bribe political representatives to serve their private interests and attack competitors and working people;

- the trend of more aggressive competition amongst the global cartels degenerating into reactionary civil war and other wars as they fight to dominate all public and state institutions globally and make them serve their private interests;

- the trend of the uneven development of the productive forces under imperialism leading to inter-imperialist war for control of the international working class, markets, economic sectors, natural resources, and regions, and the use of economic sanctions and blockades to strengthen the control of the U.S.-led imperialist system of states and punish all those who refuse to submit;

- the trend of intensifying struggles of the working class to defend its rights and standards of living and to change the direction of the economy and revolutionize the relations of production bringing them into conformity with the socialized productive forces of industrial mass production.

The rich becoming richer and the concentration and control of social wealth in fewer hands can be seen in the dictate of those in control of private monopolies and public institutions attacking the workers' movement and exerting downward pressure on wages, benefits, pensions and working conditions. It can be seen in the cutbacks of public spending on those social programs and public services that favour the people, and directing the private and public sectors of the economy to pay the rich. It can be seen in the continuing wars of aggression, especially those of U.S. imperialism against other nations and its economic wars using sanctions and blockades against all who do not bow down to its will and takeover.

The financial oligarchy now controls almost all social wealth in the economy whether it directly owns it or not. The pension and saving funds of the people are under the control of the financial oligarchy, which uses them for its narrow private interests. It controls as well the public borrowing and debts of governments at all levels, using them as sources of guaranteed additional private wealth. It also controls the public revenue of all levels of government and uses those public monies for its private benefit and war economy. Much of the public revenue withdrawn from social programs now flows routinely from the public treasuries of all levels of government to the most powerful enterprises and global cartels as pay-the-rich schemes handing public monies and contracts to the most dominant private interests as subsidies, research grants, guaranteed government contracts, public-private partnerships, government loans to private enterprise that are subsequently written off without repayment such as with the auto sector, and government buyouts such as the Canadian federal government purchase of the Trans Mountain Pipeline. In countless other ways the entire economy is geared towards paying the rich and their expropriation of the new value working people produce.

To affirm the right to health care is an aspect of the struggle for political empowerment and democratic renewal in preparation for the revolutionary transformation of the relations of production to free the socialized productive forces from the destructive grip of the financial oligarchy and its constant wars, crises and wrecking, and place them under the control and direction of the working people.

Notes

The New York Times says Paul Krugman joined the paper in 1999 as an Op-Ed columnist. He is a professor at City University of New York and Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School. In 2008, the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel was awarded to Mr. Krugman for "his work on international trade theory."

2. Steven Lawrence Rattner is a member of the U.S. ruling elite. Following the economic crisis of 2008, Rattner served as lead adviser to the Obama Presidential Task Force on the Auto Industry preparing a pay-the-rich bailout of the U.S. auto industry, which was in disarray with investor oligarchs poised to lose considerable fortunes. The subsequent Obama auto and bank bailouts channelled billions of dollars to the financial oligarchy saving the private social wealth of many rich oligarchs. The pay-the-rich bailouts closed the door on any discussion or opening towards a new direction for the economy.

According to Wikipedia, "[Rattner] is currently Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Willett Advisors LLC, the private investment group that manages billionaire former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg's personal and philanthropic assets. He continues to be involved in public policy matters as the economic analyst for MSNBC's Morning Joe, and as a contributing opinion writer for the New York Times Op-Ed page."

3. David Brooks currently writes for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Weekly Standard, Newsweek, and the Atlantic Monthly, and appears as a commentator on NPR, PBS NewsHour, and NBC's Meet the Press.

Note to Readers

With this issue, TML Weekly completes its publication for 2019. It will resume on January 26, 2020. We wish you a safe holiday and encourage everyone to take the time to consider and discuss with others the serious developments taking place in Canada and around the world, and how to effectively intervene in the new year.

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Who the Economy Should Serve