Ajit,
How can you disagree with the final sentence Michael writes below? You
deeply respect Althusser. Althusser asserts that class struggle is at
the center of Marx's thought.
Paul
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Paul Zarembka, supporting the RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY Web site at
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/PZarembka, and using OS/2 Warp.
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On Sat, 12 Apr 1997, Michael A. Lebowitz wrote:
> In message Fri, 11 Apr 1997 01:29:49 -0700 (PDT),
> Ajit Sinha <ecas@cc.newcastle.edu.au> writes:
>
> > The question is this: did Marx think that the trade union struggles would
> > lead to a rising real wages in the future? Michael Lebowitz's position is
> > that yes, Marx did think that, but did not discuss this issue in his
> > published or even his unpublished writings because he had planned to
> > write a whole book on this issue, which he never got around to writing.
>
> Actually, it was Engels' position that trade unions "tend to keep up and
> raise the standard of life" and that in "trades without organization of the
> work-people," the result is that "the work-people gradually get accustomed
> to a lower and lower standard of life. While the length of working day more
> and more approaches the possible maximum, the wages come nearer and nearer
> to their absolute minimum...." [Both quotes are from 1881 articles
> reproduced in W.O. Henderson, Engels: Selected Writings.] My position (which
> I think was Marx's) is that wages are determined by class struggle, which
> means they can go up or down even with the existence of trade unions (and,
> of course, are constrained at the top by the requirements for the
> reproduction of capitalist relations of production).
>
> in solidarity,
> mike
> ---------------------------
> Michael A. Lebowitz