From: Gerald A. Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Wed Apr 21 2004 - 20:20:29 EDT
Two stylized, simplified stories: Both stories include the following narrative: As the valorization process continues and the rate of accumulation (as measured by temporal changes in money-capital advanced for c and v) increases, a consequence is an increase in the centralization and concentration of capital. Story I continues: This causes an increase in the relative size of the working class, including an increase in the size of productive labor because smaller units of capital are unable to compete with larger units, and hence those who were self-employed (especially in agriculture) are proletarianized. Fluctuations in the demand for commodity output and labor-power -- and the consequences of technical change -- can cause _cyclical_ changes in the size of the industrial reserve army and the quantity of wage-workers employed by capital who are productive of surplus value, but the _long-term trend_ is for the quantity of productive wage- workers to increase. Story II offers an alternative scenario: Those who were self-employed (especially in agriculture) are increasingly impoverished and non-viable and, consequently, move -- primarily to urban areas -- in search of jobs. Meanwhile, a stagnant demand for output and productivity-increasing technical change can decrease the demand by capital for labor-power and some proportion of these workers are expelled into the industrial reserve army. When neither capital nor the state is capable and willing to employ the formerly self-employed peasants, artisans, and small-business owners and those who formerly worked for capital and are now part of the IRA (and when there is no significant income and welfare support for these groups by the state and capital), these masses are left to their own devices to survive and this increasingly takes the form of employment in the petty commodity sector. When there is mass poverty, the mass of people who are in the petty commodity (informal) sector can be huge and the pace of growth of this sector can radically increase and the size of the employed, productive labor force can shrink. One could argue that _both_ stories are valid. I.e. Story I describes -- in a stylized way -- the process of proletarianization experienced throughout most of capitalist history. Yet, Story II could well describe -- in simplified form -- global trends in recent decades. Is there any reason to think that Story I will reassert itself more powerfully and overcome Story II? Or, will Story II predominate in the foreseeable capitalist future? Or, what else is likely? In solidarity, Jerry
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