From: Ian Wright (ian_paul_wright@HOTMAIL.COM)
Date: Thu Dec 11 2003 - 17:48:02 EST
Hello Jerry, >The claim that Paul C (following Farjoun and Machover) made >concerns an _empirical_ trend (indeed what he called a "basic and >consistent feature of capitalism"). When one examines empirical trends >(particularly the wage share of national income!), one can not do this >"absent the class struggle" because the class struggle was not absent. But you are begging the question by assuming that the class struggle is an important factor in determining shares in national income, rather than an unimportant one. I agree with your general point that it is not possible to understand the meaning of empirical data without a theoretical point of view. According to Foley and Michl's book "Growth and Distribution" the profit share is normally lower than the wage share, and varies between 0.25 to 0.4 of GDP, although it occasionally can be as high as 0.5 (data from US, UK and Japan spanning a period of over 100 years). Other authors put it around 0.5. According to my readings, the consensus is that shares remain fairly stable, despite undergoing yearly fluctuations. These fluctuations might be due to the political strength of labour, or they might not. I would be interested to know if anyone has tried to pin that down, and made some comparative studies of countries that have different levels of organised labour. I must admit that I find it unlikely that the share is determined in any important way by the class struggle, just as I do not think the detailed income distribution (e.g., lognormal lower regime, Pareto property-income regime) is much affected by it. That is why I'm interested in systemic explanations, rooted in the relations of production, such as that advanced by Farjoun and Machover, rather than explanations rooted in conjectural political interventions collected under the rubric of the class struggle. But I have an open mind on the question. Saying that, it is suspicious that the ratio is around one half. ATB, -Ian. _________________________________________________________________ The new MSN 8: advanced junk mail protection and 2 months FREE* http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail
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