>Brad refers to the empirical refutation of Marx's immiseration theory,
>though does not specify what he understands by it.
The phrase "immiseration of the proletariat" is often attributed to Marx, though I have not found it in any of his writings. It suggests increasing poverty for the working class. The ususal claim for the source is the chapter on "The General Law of Capitalist Accummulation" in Volume 1 of Capital:
"But the greater this reserve army in proportion to the active labour army, the greater is the mass of a consolidated surplus population, whose misery is in inverse ratio to its torment of labour. The more extensive, finally, the lazarus-layers of the working class, and the industrial reserve army, the greater is official pauperism. This is the absolute general law of capitalist accummulation."
In other words, the absolute general law of capitalist pauperism concerns the unemployed (the "industrial reserve army", the "surplus population", the "lazarus layers" of the working class), not the working class generally. -- Lew