---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 12 Oct 1995 14:39:57 -0400 (EDT)
From: Duncan K Foley <dkf2@columbia.edu>
To: glevy@acnet.pratt.edu
Subject: Re: [OPE-L:219] another answer for duncan foley (fwd)1
On Sun, 8 Oct 1995 glevy@acnet.pratt.edu wrote:
> Duncan: FYI -- Jerry
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> Date: Sun, 8 Oct 1995 17:29:00 -0700
> From: Michael A. Lebowitz <mlebowit@sfu.ca>
> To: Multiple recipients of list <ope-l@anthrax.ecst.csuchico.edu>
> Subject: [OPE-L:219] another answer for duncan foley
>
>
> From: Duncan K Foley <dkf2@columbia.edu>
>
> >the
> > prospectus as drafted seems to me exactly the wrong way to approach the
> > issues of pushing Marxist insights further.
>
> > To put my 2 cents in, I'd like to know from a Marxist/Classical point of
> > view why the real wage in capitalist economies tends to rise roughly at
> > the same rate as the productivity of labor, so that the labor share
> > remains roughly constant.
>
> As I've noted before, if we drop Marx's CAPITAL assumption that the
> standard of necessity is given for a given country, period, etc and permit
> it to vary, then all other things equal the real wage will rise with
> increases in productivity (directly and indirectly) in the production of
> those items entering into the worker's consumption basket. So the problem
> appears not to be a problem at all--- when we take this approach to pushing
> Marxist insights further. 8-)
I don't understand this point. An increase in labor productivity in wage
goods will lower the wage share if real wages remain constant.
> Of course, insofar as the question is not simply
> one of increasing productivity as such but the mechanism is through the
> substitution of machinery, the displacement of workers, etc, then the
> increased separation of workers, that weakness resulting from an increased
> reserve army, will keep real wages from rising as rapidly as productivity
> (as we see at present)---unless workers through their struggles are able to
> counter this. This is the point that Jim D makes about the importance of the
> organisation and consciousness of workers.
> in solidarity,
> mike
> ---------------------------
> Michael A. Lebowitz
> Economics Department, Simon Fraser University
> Burnaby, B.C., Canada V5A 1S6
> Office: (604) 291-4669; Office fax: (604) 291-5944
> Home: (604) 255-0382
> Lasqueti Island (current location): (604) 333-8810
> e-mail: mlebowit@sfu.ca
>
>
>
>