Remember the question ‘How much do you cost?’ It is quite logical nowadays to think in terms of money, since money is everywhere – it is a means of payment, measurement of success, indicator of social status, and so on. Fairly so. If we look around ourselves, everything could be turned into money. I could sell the laptop I wrote this piece on for a certain amount of money. You could sell the device you are reading this piece on for a specific price. You could perhaps sell your capacity to work (labour power) and earn money for the 5 minutes which you will spend reading this piece.
Your time is money. Depending on how you spend it, you either earn money or lose money. (Technically, there would be no neutral time in which you would neither earn nor spend money.) At least from an economic perspective. And the ones that earn money also make money – for themselves, for their employers, for the economy. Some people can both spend and make money, others cannot make anymore, or are too young to do that. Others yet have never been able to make money because of various reasons. What is the difference between money-makers and non-money-makers in conventional economic discussions is a question important to unpack if we want to understand if we are just money.
Following the no money, no importance logic, we could say that according to conventional economic debates, society could be split between money-makers and non-money-makers. Simply put, money-makers would be the ones that directly contribute to the development of the money-making process. They are active participants in the economy in one way or another. The non-money-makers, then, are the ones that do not actively contribute to the money-making process. With relation to work as a money-making process, there are generally three groups that fall within the non-money-makers category – future workers (children, who would enter the labour force once they can, and unemployed people), former workers (for instance, pensioners)and non-workers (who are physically and/or mentally unable to perform work). This distinction (exemplified in the scheme below) is particularly useful when we try to figure out who remains hidden from the economy.
So who remains hidden from the economy? Active workers are by no means excluded from economic debates, as they are the backbone of the economy. Logically speaking, then, it would seem that if money-makers are important, non-money-makers are not important. Yet, within non-money-makers there is a group of people who are yet to be exploited by the economy – these are the future workers. They currently do not actively participate in the economy, do not make money, but have the capacity to do so in the future. They are viewed as long-term investments which will at some point be as valuable as current workers. If not even more important than them.
There is a popular term in conventional economics called human capital which represents the economic value of a person because of their skills, knowledge, abilities and status. In simple terms, as human capital could be viewed this part of society which directly contributes or can contribute to the development of the economy. This helps further divide society from a conventional economic perspective. What is interesting about this term is that it only includes people who have value for the economy. Then human capital would be this part of society which is useful for the economy when it comes to the money-making process. Then part of the non-money-makers are considered more important than the rest – children and the unemployed.
Human capital is usually used to justify investment in people who can and/or will be able to make money. After all, we know that investments are only made if they are to bring more than what is invested. Then, it only makes sense to invest in people who would make money. Even though the investment in a person (say, in the form of education or training) might not directly lead to profit and money-making, in the future chances are that this person become more qualified and skilled and thus more productive for the economy. Human capital is then only this part of society that can make money (more than what has been invested in them) (see the scheme below).
This, then, brings another issue to the front – what about the rest of society? The one that does not actively make money? Here is the paradox – how come are they at the same time set aside by the economy (due to the lack of direct economic value), and also essential to the reproduction of it? Let us once again remember that the reproduction of society is a precondition for the reproduction of the economy. The reproduction of society as a whole, not just parts of society chosen by the economy. While some parts of society (human capital) is cared for by the economy and is indeed under the spotlight in all economic discussions, other parts remain hidden, despite their importance. If the economy does not care for the non-human-capital, then who does?
Who cares for the non-money-makers? – a question often disregarded because of embedded socio-economic traditions enrooted in years of normalised familial care. Yet, in years of market integration of all people, this question requires more attention than ever before. Despite the existence of various answers, depending on what part of the world (or even Europe) one might come from, one thing stands out – non-money-makers are cared for differently by different actors, mainly depending on their contribution to the economy. And usually the ones that contribute the least are the ones that require the most care. To this I turn in the article to follow.
