From: ajit sinha (sinha_a99@YAHOO.COM)
Date: Fri Nov 21 2003 - 00:54:22 EST
Mike L. Wrote: > No, you have misunderstood me. I am not using > relative strength (or, as in > the book, the degree of separation of workers) to > determine first real > wages and then the rate of surplus value. That would > indeed be > questionable. Rather, I asked what happens to the > former if the latter is > given as the result of a given balance of class > forces (degree of > separation of workers) and productivity rises. But > the same point can be > approached in many ways: if we treat real wages as > variable, what happens > to real wages in a commodity money economy if > productivity in the > production of wage goods increases? What if that > productivity increase > drops from the sky (i.e., we are not considering the > effect of an increase > in the technical composition of capital)? > in solidarity, > michael ________________________ Good! Now the issue is becoming clearer to me. I don't see a great problem in posing the question this way. However, there is some problem, as I see it. At this time you do not seem to have a theory of wages. You seem to be dealing with three variables, namely real wages, degree of separation of the working class, and the labor productivity. It is not clear in what kind of relationship these three variables stand with each other. Apparently, your argument is that given the degree of separation fixed, there must be a straight line inverse relation between the changes in productivity and the real wage. This will be true in the world of three variables, with the rest of the world frozen. But this is nothing but simply another way of putting the proposition that given every thing else being constant, the real wage is a direct function of labor productivity. But this is not much different from the neoclassical proposition which says that with everything remaining constant, the real wage is a function of labor productivity. Your proposition is a bit more stronger than the neoclassical one, since the neoclassical one does not draw a proportionate relationship of real wages with labor productivity. This is not to say that this proposition is meaningless or wrong. Empirically it appears that the neoclassical proposition does better on this score than Marx's one. My point was that Marx did not think this way since he explicitly refused to draw a relationship between labor productivity and real wages. My sense is that your proposition will continue to appear to hang in the air till you develop a theory of real wage determination. _______________ > ps. nice to have you back on OPE-L, Ajit. Hope all > goes well with you. > --------------------- Thanks! I appreciate this. Cheers, ajit sinha > 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 __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Free Pop-Up Blocker - Get it now http://companion.yahoo.com/
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