Comment by geysersam
5 hours ago
Productivity gains don't only come from technological progress. Accumulation of capital, such as infrastructure, education, access to healthcare etc, also increase productivity.
5 hours ago
Productivity gains don't only come from technological progress. Accumulation of capital, such as infrastructure, education, access to healthcare etc, also increase productivity.
Claiming "access to healthcare" is capital is a novel idea. It's a social infrastructure. It doesn't directly lead to production, any more than lunch breaks do.
Capital is not simply "anything that I can tie to improving my work output".
If you view the humans actually producing stuff as human capital, which many economists have done, then keeping that (human) capital in decent enough form by allowing it to have access to decent enough healthcare is a logical step forward.
We could then go a step or two forward and posit that a sick populace means a sick consumer class means reduced demand for goods that generate growth, but those are just details.
Of course I agree with this, but without technological progress this "saturates" rapidly. Only long-term durable productivity growth per unit of labor comes from technology - i.e. better ways of doing stuff.
All healthcare beyond the village witch doctor was technological progress at one time.