From: Dave Zachariah (davez@KTH.SE)
Date: Wed Dec 12 2007 - 13:05:40 EST
Hi Jerry,
I think the concept of "value of labour-power" is a bit problematic.
Would it not be better to explicitly distinguish:
(a) the labour-value of the real wage
(b) the total labour (social *and* domestic) necessary to reproduce
the capacity to work
Therefore if "the price of wheat goes up in the next 3 months but falls
afterwards, then during those 3 months real wages would decline ceteris
paribus", and so would (a), which I intepret as the "value of labour-power".
//Dave Z
on 2007-12-11 15:31 GERALD LEVY wrote:
>
> What we can empirically measure, is such things as:
>
> - the (total) costs to capital of labour employed (not just the
> gross wage, but also various levies)
> - the (total, i.e. current disposable income + deferred income) of
> the worker
> - the expenditure of the worker's labour income on goods and services
> - the goods and services purchased by the worker
> - the difference between direct and indirect taxes and levies
> charged, and social security benefits received
> - the costs of replacing the worker (including the costs of
> raising children)
> - the paid and unpaid labourtime involved in reproducing the
> worker to arrive each day fit to work
> ======================================
> Hi Jurriaan:
>
> What statistics are available which allow us to make international
> comparisons for the last two things identified above?
>
> ======================================
> - the realised income differential of skilled labour resulting
> from education & training, or seniority
> - the financial benefit deriving from skill monopolisation
> - the economic rent that ensues from labour scarcity
>
> Insofar as the VLP includes, as Marx says, a "moral-historical
> element", no complete measurement of the VLP is ever possible
> which is incontestable,
> ========================================
>
> Agreed. the difficulty of estimating the "moral-historical
> element" is
> also compounded by the fact that in some social formations,
> firms pay-out to workers in direct compensation and benefits
> monies for goods or services which in other social
> formations are paid by the state and represent a sort of "social
> wage".
>
> As for the question which you originally raised (before I
> side-tracked it), whether changes in food prices cause a
> change in the VLP (or a change in real wages) depends on
> whether the change in food prices is short-term and
> temporary or long-term. If the price of wheat goes up
> in the next 3 months but falls afterwards, then during those
> 3 months real wages would decline ceteris paribus but this does
> not mean that the VLP itself will change.
>
> In solidarity, Jerry
>
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