At 09:38 AM 4/10/97 -0700, Patrick Mason wrote:
>On real wages and Marx question.
>
>1. As a pure history of thought question, Ajit may well be correct that Marx
>thought real wages were following.
>5. Hence, a necessary and sufficient condition for the real wage rate to
>rise is for the average level of productivity to increase and for worker
>bargaining power to increase. The "ability to make pay" must rise with the
>"ability to pay" if workers are to get a higher real wage.
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Sure! And that 'ability' crucially depends (at least for Marx, it did) on
the rate of unemployment in the system.
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>8. I would like to know if Ajit or some others on the list have anything
>they wish to say on the issue of wage differentials.
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To the best of my knowledge Marx, following Ricardo, pushed this question
under the rug. Of course, they were not raising the question of racial
discrimination etc. but both of them needed to at least acknowledge the
theoretical question of reducing skilled labor to unskilled labor. A
question Michael Pareleman is repeatedly asking but not getting a meaningful
answer from anyone. All the points you have made, I agree with, and, of
course, they do not contradict any of the points I have been making. Cheers,
ajit sinha
>
>
>peace, patrick l mason