>
>The "immiserization thesis" predates the Cold War by a hundred years.
>Why do you falsely claim that it is a legacy of the Cold War?
>
>>> *Sigh*
>>>
>>> You should then go read _Wage-Labour and Capital_:
>>
No you should read Wage Labour and Capital, where Marx makes it abundantly clear that he is talking about the workers' income *relative* to profits, which he says falls.
He makes the point at the start of part IV:
'when productive capital grows, the demand for labour grows; consequently the price of labour, wages, goes up.'
Marx continues with this analogy:
'A house my be large or small; as long as the surrounding houses are equally small it satisfies all social demands for a dwelling. But let a palace be built beside the little house, and it shrinks from a little house to a hut. The house shows now that its owner has only very slight or no demands to make; and however high it may shoot up in the course of civilisation, if the neighbouring palace grows to an equal or even a greater extent, the occupant of the relatively small house will feel more and more uncomfortable, dissatisfied and cramped within its four walls.'
The point of the analogy is clear enough: wages increase, but not at the same rate as profits. The worker is impoverished relatively, just as his absolute wage increases. Or as Marx writes in the following passage to the above:
'A noticeable increase in wages presupposes a rapid growth of productive capital. The rapid growth of productive capital brings about an equally rapid growth of wealth, luxury, social wants, social enjoyments. Thus although the enjoyments of the worker have risen, the social satisfaction that they give has fallen in comparison with the increased enjoyment of the capitalist which are inaccessible to the worker, in comparison with the state of development of society in general.'
Also in the Grundrisse, Marx writes similarly
'On the other side, the production of relative surplus value, i.e. production of surplus value based on the increase and development of the productive forces, requires the production of new consumption; requires that the consuming circle within circulation expands as did the productive circle previously. Firstly quantitative expansion of existing consumption; secondly: creation of new needs by propagating existing ones in a wide circle; thirdly: production of new needs and discovery and creation of new use values.'
Hence increasing absolute wages accompany relative impoverishment. Marx never had an 'immiseration thesis' in the sense attributed him, that workers wages fell absolutely, or as measured in use-values, only relatively, or as measured in value, or against profits.
-- Jim heartfield