replies to Rakesh, Wojtek, Charles, Chris Anarchism / Marxism debates

Roger Odisio rodisio at igc.org
Tue Aug 24 14:52:57 PDT 1999


Jim heartfield wrote:


> Roger Odisio writes
> > Rather, it
> >turns on what happens to both money wages and the configuration of jobs
> >(together they comprise the main determinants of income available for
> >consumption) relative to v. Even a falling v would prove nothing by itself. I
> >asserted that in the last 25 years wages and work changes have combined to
> >produce disposible income that at times lagged the rise in v. If so, this is
> >*absolute* immiseration--less money to buy a worker's social subsistence.
>
> Indeed, falling wages would generally indicate a worsening situation,
> and in all cases indicate relative immiseration. But where the prices of
> consumer goods fall faster, then relative immiseration coincides with
> absolute improvement. I realise that comparisons are difficult, but I
> find it hard to believe that you are unaware of the greater range and
> amount of consumer goods available to our generation, compared, say, to
> our parents'.

My point keeps eluding you, Jim. Perhaps that's partly due to the fact that you keep responding to bits and pieces of what I say, while ignoring the rest, including parts that offer answers to the point you want to make (as happened in the passage above). Maybe a brief summary of what I have said will help.

I claim the following to be true. (1) The general standard of living has been rising over time (your pointing out this mundane fact, again, answers nothing; it only begins the analysis.) (2) Productivity increases cheapen the elements of labor's subsistence consumption basket. (3) Despite this cheapening, the reproduction cost of labor (its social subsistence) has also been rising over time, in part to reflect the rising living standards you cite (they're some of the social part of the social subsistence). (4) Wages are determined separately from the determination of v--capitalists neither know or care much about what labor's social subsistence is. (5) What jobs and hours of works are available is also determined in the labor market bargain, and together with wages they determine labor's disposable income available to buy its subsistence. (6) It is therefore possible for the change in labor's disposable income to lag changes in its social subsistence consumption basket, resulting in immiseration--labor is able to buy less of its subsistence. (7) In the last 25 years, that's what has happened in the US for some periods and for some workers (individual wages being tied to neither the value of labor power, nor some measure of labor productivity).

Roger



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