>No, indeed, I am sure that no facts of any kind would dislodge your
>strongly held views.
Hardly, Jim. I was indeed stunned to find how much life expectancy has improved in many countries since 1970 according to WB data; moreover, you are right--and I am wrong--that dire projections are dishonest and even play into racist images of the incompetence and overfecundity of third world people. I appreciate your insistence on the truth. However, as I searched the WB website, I was having trouble finding data that disaggregated by income group (much less class)--where did you find your data (website please). I looked up the Dreze and Sen book as quoted by Dasgupta, and here they take the approach that while there has been progress on key social indicators over the last several decades, it has been piddling compared to China and Kerala in particular and marred by great inequality. The World Bank predicts stagant income for India, by the way, it is obviously too optimistic about China. Throw in Indonesia's stagnation. And there's--what?--over 50% of the world's population.
>No, I think Grossmann is referring here to an increase in wages
>consequent on an increase in the value of labour power, due to the
>intensification of labour. If he was referring to increased
>productivity, that would normally be associated with a fall in the value
>of labour power, but may be associated with an increase in the use
>values the wage purchases.
This is almost correct. His point is that the rate of exploitation can remain the same though the real wage has increased due to effects of increased productivity on the unit values of the commodities that enter into the workers' consumption. Of course if real wage gains are restricted such that the rate of exploitation increases, then breakdown is deferred. Grossmann underlines this, but his point is that the real wage is not so elastic. Labor power has an objective value determined not by the laws of supply and demand but by both the intensification of labor and a historico-moral component. The latter is no less an objective component of the value of labor than the physical minimum without which labor power could not be reproduced. Hence, pushing wages below the value of labor power increases misery no less than a wage too low to meet some minimum caloric intake.
>
>The key point, which I am surprised you don't want to get hold of is
>this: That the worker's wage can fall as a proportion of the total
>product, but it can, at the same time, represent a greater mass of use-
>values, when total production has been increased.
Well, Grossmann first fixes the rate of exploitation; that is, he assumes that as a consequence of intensification labor must secure real wage gains such that rate of exploitation does not increase as productivity improves in the course of accumulation. It would not be possible for the rate of exploitation to decline consequent upon real wage gains if Grossmann did not consider the effects of productivity.
Again, a rising rate of exploitation or declining relative wage is first eliminated by assumption to study the breakdown tendency in pure form. The use of such an artifice has provoked the greatest criticism of Grossmann (Mattick also justifies the use of such an artifice). I think it throws things into bold relief. Again remember that the rate of exploitation cannot so increase that the real wage falls below the value of labor power without increasing the misery of the working class.
Yours, Rakesh