>please don't stick him
>with an iron law of wages. Grossmann was not Lassalle.
>Jim, you are missing Grossmann's argument.
I don't really have an argument with Grossman. I have an argument with the 'immiseration thesis' that was popular in the 1930s. You agree with me on that, so let's not make a disagreement where there is none.
I think that we have established the theoretical possibility that workers living standards - measured in use values - can rise, even while the value of labour power falls. Now the only question remaining is is that the case. I would say that it was the case in the first world over the post war period, albeit that it is punctuated with periods of stark decline.
The position in the third world is mixed. Sub-saharan Africa suffered absolute immiseration. But in East Asia, high rates of investment did lead to rising wages. -- Jim heartfield