<about yachts, Cadillacs and cats>
Whatever happened to the Power of Abstraction? All Paul needs
is some commodity X, the consumption of which is almost
exclusively restricted to capitalists, and an improvement in the
technology of production of which therefore has a negligible
impact on the cost of reproduction of labour power. If you
don't think yachts fit the bill, substitute Lear Jets (or almost
anything from the pages of the Sharper Image catalog). I'd like
to see the steel worker who could afford a Lear Jet, even if he
was prepared to starve his cat. BTW, the cat starvation was a
sadly egregious example of a false economy. You could dine your
cat on salmon fillet for months for the cost of one visit to the
average US vet.
Allin Cottrell
Department of Economics
Wake Forest University, NC