From: Jerry Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Sun Jan 01 2006 - 11:16:47 EST
Hi Alejandro, > Jerry, you know about the issue more than me by far. I doubt that! > However, I have a basic commentary: Most discussions about > UE ignore SNLT as you say. SNLT is different between rich (RC) > and poor countries (PC) because skilling and intensity but also > because organic composition of capital are unequal too. All theese > differences are put together in productivity differences; RC are more > productives than PC. Yes, but _if_ workers in PC tend to experience a higher intensity of labor than workers in RC and if we understand productivity in this context as output/worker/period of time, then that would tend to _reduce_ the productivity inequality between the two regions, ceteris paribus. If that were the case then there could still be UE, but that the rate of UE would be reduced. (This is another way of saying that the rate of UE would be reduced if workers in the PC were exploited _more_!) > Selling at (roughly) same prices at world market implies than one > working hour of RC count more than one working hour of PC. > Is this UE? If the answer is yes it means that UE is the regular way > of capitalist market operation and it is impossible to change it without > eliminate capitalism. Hence UE is not a problem. If the answer is no; > you need to eliminate productivity differences to analyse UE. I think > that UE should be defined excluding productivity differences between > RC and PC. Some UE theorist (Prebish) suggest that fair relationship > betwen RC and PC could be reached within capitalism. I a sure that > fair capitalist relaitions implies that poor countries reach RC > productivities or Or? You didn't finish your sentence. You say that you think that UE should be defined excluding productivity differences between RC and PC. Yet, aren't productivity and cost differences the underlying causes for why there is UE? Explaining the underlying social mechanisms that give rise to UE is, I think, the best way of explaining why UE is not accidental or haphazard and can not be reformed away under capitalism. One of those underlying mechanisms that you mention above are changes in the composition of capital. Another related mechanism is the size of the industrial reserve army, which is often rather dramatically different between many RCs and PCs. The size of the IRA, in turn, tends to influence both productivity (e.g. by influencing the intensity of labor) and wages (and, of course, as Jurriaan rightly points out, non-wage costs such as worker benefits). To pose the issue in a different way, is UE largely a consequence of the operation of the 'absolute general law of capitalist accumulation' on a world scale? In solidarity, Jerry
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