From: Ian Wright (iwright@GMAIL.COM)
Date: Fri Dec 03 2004 - 12:20:52 EST
Hi Anders, I agree that class-conflict can be modelled, and I also agree that there is no connection between a factor's technical contribution to output and its distributional reward. > This is the important point, to see wages and profits as the result of the > fight over a surplus, the distribution of which is fundamentally open, > undecided, that is acts of pure will, attitudes, strength of unions, of > left wing groups etc. will fundamentally influence this distribution. What would happen if workers were largely atomised and did not form coalitions against capital? This has pretty much been the case in the UK for over a decade. I would like to abstract from defensive political activity, such as unions. My feeling is that distribution is determined absent such events, and that some kind of self-organization is at work in the economy that constrains shares in national income. And then political activity of the kind you mention occurs within that framework. This is just the methodological device of separating out the economic from the political. Both happen together of course, and I note your example from Norway. ATB, -Ian
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