From: ajit sinha (sinha_a99@YAHOO.COM)
Date: Fri Nov 14 2003 - 01:52:02 EST
--- gerald_a_levy <gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM> wrote: > Replying to Mike L, Ajit wrote: > > > In Marx's theory real wages are > > taken as given at any point of time, as the real > wages > > are supposed to be determined in a long term > > socio-historical context (and not just class > > struggle). > > Let me ask you a 'non-Marx question' first: > If real wages only change in the long-term, then > when > the purchasing power of money wages changes over > the short-run or medium-term during inflationary or > deflationary periods, what is the name for that? > If 'real wages' haven't changed, then what has? > > In solidarity, Jerry ________________________ First of all, it is not true that money wages are always constant. Many wage contracts may be indexed to changes in cpi. Workers and capitalists do annually or biannually renegotiate their wage contracts. But in any case, if real wages change or may change over a long period of time, it must imply that there must be some changes in the short period of time. Long periods don't suddenly fall from heaven, they are made up of short periods only. So the long period point is that a perceptible or large enough change that would vitiate the predictions of the theory does not happen in a short periods of time. Taking real wages as given also mean that it is abstracting from market period fluctuations in it--nobody is denying that on daily basis economic variables could fluctuate due to infinite causes. Cheers, ajit sinha __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Protect your identity with Yahoo! Mail AddressGuard http://antispam.yahoo.com/whatsnewfree
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