New Economy rant

[Jim heartfield]

In message <p0433011ab5f68bc514d4@[216.254.77.128]>, Doug Henwood
<dhenwood at panix.com> writes
>Nonbrand capital - a factory or a piece of software, say - 
>contributes to social wealth, even though much of that contribution 
>is appropriated by capitalists. Brand capital contributes to the 
>returns of the trademark holder, but doesn't increase social wealth 
>in any meaningful sense; the inflated markups are a diversion from 
>money that could otherwise have been spent elsewhere. The first kind 
>of capital increases the volume of income and goods; the second just 
>redistributes it.

On that score I couldn't help but notice that Cox and Alm's
demonstration of the increased productivity of labour (showing the
changing amount of time it takes to earn enough to buy a commodity) goes
into reverse when measuring a pair of levis:

1900 9hrs 42
1910 9hrs 30
...

1960 2hrs 36
1970 2hrs 18
1980 2hrs 48
1990 2hrs 48
1999 3hrs 24

The latest upturn in price, one imagines, a measure not of the declining
productivity of labour, so much as the artificial inflation of price
that 
>doesn't increase social wealth 
>in any meaningful sense

-- 
James Heartfield

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