Jim heartfield wrote:
> Roger seems to be talking a different language. Do working people have
> some other source of income from which they meet their needs than wages?
> There is benefits, but this is really negligible.
>
I'm curious, Jim. Don't you think people who have followed our exchange know that it was I, not you, who said workers are paid wages, not some amount from a subsistence consumption basket, in response to your claim that my assertion about the different movements of wages and consumption needs makes no sense because "labour's income is the social subsistence consumption basket"? Don't you think people realize that it was I who said that wages and subsistence needs are determined separately, creating the possibility of those wages buying less subsistence, and it was you who initially claimed that there could be no immiseration because living standards were rising, the assertion with which Rakesh first took issue (you have since softened that by allowing that wages, in some cases, could fall below subsistence, but you still don't understand that we are talking about social, not physical, subsistence; all wages could sink below social subsistence without *immediately* destorying labor)?
>Roger talks as if the value of labour power were some ideal standard
> with no bearing upon real life. He talks as if it were "a number created
> by analysts". Who knows what he is talking about. Marx's view is that
> the value of labour power is a real and objective magnitude.
Marx said that social subsistence needs are commonly known. And, because those needs were so basic in his time, this was largely true. With, for example, the proliferation of consumer goods, determining needs is now a much more difficult task. Workers' consumption needs are determined socially separately from the labor process that is a main determinate of wages. They must catalogued by analysts--you and me, Jim; they don't exist in the NIPA. Wages are not a proxy for them.
Contrary to your claim that I "talk as if" such numbers are "some ideal standard with no bearing on real life", I have repeatedly emphasized the opposite. Quantitatively, until you understand what is labor's subsistence needs, you can't know what surplus value is. Looking at wages won't get you there. Unfortunately some marxists either misunderstand or get lazy and obscure this difference between subsistence needs and wages. Pointing out the difference, and its implications for immiseration, was the reason I entered the discussion between you and Rakesh.
I'm left wondering who you think you're fooling with such obvious reversals of what I said. Don't you realize there is an archive now? You may reply anyway you wish to this post. You'll not get another response from me on this topic.
Roger