Rodrigo Finkelstein. Lost-Time Injury Rates. A Marxist Critique of Workers’ Compensation Systems [Studies in Critical Social Sciences, Vol. 216/ New Scholarship in Political Economy, Vol. 17.] Brill, Leiden [etc.] 2022. x, 236 pp. € 147.15. (E-book: € 147.15.)

Abstract

Finkelstein motivates this ambitious narrative by prefacing this exploration of injury rates with a consequential and personal anecdote involving a clash among political powers within Chile’s workers’ compensation system. Thus, this mostly theoretical analysis is rooted in practical first-hand experience. Immediately, the reader is forced to recognize that Finkelstein’s analysis requires the unpacking of tightly interwoven components that include economic logic, countervailing incentives, ethical behavior, and important historical background. This serious and logically rigorous book requires substantial attention to detail, so the intended audience is one well-steeped in Marxist theory. From the outset, there is concern about the optics. Finkelstein observes directly that the “no-fault” workers’ compensation system (at least in Finkelstein’s experience in Chile, and perhaps elsewhere) still finds ways to lay blame, and place subjective valuations on the reality of injuries. Finkelstein’s mission is to elevate workplace injury rates beyond mere indicators, and instead he labels them a “new problematic”. He argues that there is an essential connection between injury rates and capitalism itself. Injury rates are couched in terms of “lost labor power for sale”, and, moreover, there is conflict among the market forces and behavioral response perspectives. Unlike a traditional economic approach, Finkelstein prefers to focus on “value” rather than prices (of workers’ compensation premia) as it pertains to laborers, whom he sees as bearing the brunt of the burden imposed by workers’ compensation insurance that necessitates the recording of injury rates. Finkelstein claims to have discovered the theoretical notion of “surplus lost value”. Here, he argues that capitalism (as a system, rather than capitalists per se) thrives on underpaying for injuries. Initially, this does not seem novel, rather it combines the usual rent-seeking behavior found in situations where some players have market power and possess an underlying need to make compensation arrangements incentive compatible, e.g. by not compensating 100 per cent of losses in order to mitigate problems of moral hazard. To establish the historical basis for these observations, Finkelstein focuses primarily on nineteenth-century Germany and the laws and underlying economic “preconditions” that result in the “worker question” and related problems. Here, the backstory is well-researched. Bismarck’s Germany represents an economic shuffle that is analogous to shifting tectonic plates. The transition from peasants working land owned by feudal lords to workers moving to industrial establishments without a connection to (either commons or private) land leads to problematic consequences that include unemployment, poverty, and the rise of injury-related complications.