[Marxism] A cop is a cop is a cop (was: Sen. Obama voices "respect" for Bell verdict, repeats suggestion of "excessive violence")

[David Picón Álvarez]

"So what's about teachers in state-run schools or workers in the public 
health system? Obviously they dont produce surplus value. So arent they part 
of the working class either?"

In most states where these things can be obtained either from the State or 
from the market, it seems clear that these workers are producing exchange 
values. It is more open to question whether the State extracts surplus value 
from them, my intuition is probably yes, given that quite often there is 
very strong conflict between the State and its workers, and I doubt the 
State managers are particularly more altruistic than corporate ones, the 
only difference being that this capital belongs to the State at large and 
not to a particular capitalist, and so the State at large is the one which 
gains the surplus value, in this case through the ability to deliver 
services to people which would otherwise have a higher cost.

--David.