Krugman on Marx

[Rakesh Bhandari]

Brad nowhere denies
1. that in Capital, vol 1 Marx specifically includes a moral-historical
element to the wage--this is the very tricky element to Marx's wage theory
which Paolo Giusanni seems to be the first to have thought through
carefully. "Value of Laobr Power and the Wage" International Journal of
Political Economy, vol 22, no 3 Fall 1992
2. that  in Value, Price and Profit Marx insists that real wage increases
must be fought for  as a defensive measure by which the working class
ensures its reproduction *after* the intensification of labor. Marx
certainly did not rule out real wage increases, and it follows from Marx's
theory that real wage increases do not necessarily represent an
attentuation in the rate of exploitation or an improvement in the
condition of the working class. As I noted earlier, the question is not
only what the working class gets from capital but what it must give in the
form of the expenditure of energy. 

 3. that throughout Marx attempts to study the logic of
capital free from several kinds of intereference: foreign trade and trade
union pressure. That is, the tendency to reduce wages to an absolute
minimum inheres in the logic of capital, though it can be modified by
trade union resistance. Marx's method of idealization is investigated by
Leswak Nowak, the great Polish philosopher of science; critiques
of Marx for focusing on the logic of capital only include Michael Lebowitz
Beyond Capital and Felton Shortall The Incomplete Marx. 
4. that Marx showed an increasing rate of exploitation is  both
consequence and cause of capital's development. This has been empirically
confirmed by Fred Moseley The Falling Rate of Profit in the Post War US. 
I also recommend Geoffrey Kay's Economic Theory of the Working Class.

best, rakesh