Re: the real wage, and the production of surplus value

From: michael a. lebowitz (mlebowit@SFU.CA)
Date: Mon Dec 01 2003 - 18:00:58 EST


At 21:46 28/11/2003 -0800, ajit wrote:
>-To say that a fall in the value of the given
>real wage basket because of rise in labor productivity
>must imply a rise in real wages is not very
>meaningful. Why couldn't it just mean that the rate of
>surplus value rises?

What would affect the outcome one way or the other?

>  Let us assume that you are
>working with commodity money. Now, let's suppose
>increase in labor productivity has led to fall in the
>value of all commodities by 50%, in this case the same
>amount of money wage would contain half the value of
>money wage it previously did.

I'm confused. The money wage is the same, and the value of wage goods falls
in half. Why not say the worker purchases twice as much wage goods (each
use-value containing half as much value), and the value of labour-power has
remained unchanged?
         in solidarity,
         michael


---------------------
Michael A. Lebowitz
Professor Emeritus
Economics Department
Simon Fraser University
Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
Office Fax:   (604) 291-5944
Home:   Phone (604) 689-9510


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