(OPE-L) Re: indirect labor, the real wage, and the production of surplus value

From: gerald_a_levy (gerald_a_levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Fri Nov 21 2003 - 15:39:49 EST 

Mike L wrote:

> But, Jerry, yesterday you wrote the following:
> >Assuming that commodities are sold at their value and assuming
> >competitive  conditions,  productivity increases should result in
> > declining
> >commodity prices, including declining prices for means of consumption
> >for workers. A given real wage, under these circumstances,  requires
> >*declining money wages*.

Right.  My (implicit) point was that the assumption of a given real wage
when  productivity was increasing produced an *absurd* result:  falling
money wages.

> Under these conditions (ie., falling commodity prices), won't real wages
> grow with productivity--- unless something has produced a fall in money
> wages?

I don't think this is a meaningful result as it is entirely dependent
on the assumption that the composition of capital remains constant.

One need only contrast the 'picture' in   Chapter 25, Section 1  of
Volume 1 of _Capital_ to the 'picture' that emerges (beginning in
Section 2) in the rest of that chapter to see how critical this
assumption becomes.  If we want to explain changing wages within a
*dynamic* context then I don't think that the TCC, the VCC, and
the OCC can remain constant.  Even before the degree of separation
of workers becomes a variable, the theory must explain the
general movement of wages where the composition of capital
changes.

In solidarity, Jerry

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