From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@msn.com)
Date: Tue Dec 03 2002 - 09:38:33 EST
Andy, responding to Paul C, in [8096] wrote: > Re your 8093. > > > (1) I would be very interested to know your theoretical explanation > > > for the correlations that you obtain. > > This is a very difficult question. > > At one level I would explain it by saying that labour is > > overwhelmingly the main non-produced input to capitalist commodities, > > and as such it will tend to drive the price system. It is the signal > > that shows through the noise of random market fluctuations. > Do you mean that wages are more stable than other major costs > due to the fact that labour-power is non-produced? The article by Paul and Allin, "Does Marx Need To Transform?" (http://www.wfu.edu/~cottrell/vol3.pdf), used input-output data for the UK economy in 1984 (published in 1988). It is not surprising that wages were more 'stable' than the prices of other commodities during that year. Remember Margaret Thatcher? (boo! hiss!) In the US, also, wages were relatively flat do in large part to the 'concessions movement' initiated by capital. Here we had Maggie's evil twin brother Ronald Reagan (boo! hiss!) as President and Neo-Liberalism was on the ascendancy internationally. In solidarity, Jerry
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