stupid question

Eric Beck rayrena at thing.net
Mon Feb 12 16:35:29 PST 2001


Doug Henwood wrote:


>What made
>recent times relatively good is that wages were creeping up a bit,
>and it was a lot easier to find a job than, say, 5 years ago. It's
>looking like those relatively good times are over. How bad they'll
>get is the big question right now.


>From a book I just read most of:

"The fact that commodities are unsaleable means no more than that no effective buyers have been found for them, i.e. no consumers.... If the attempt is made to give this tautology the semblance of greater profundity, by the statement that the working class receives too small a portion of its own product, and that the evil would be remedied if it received a bigger share, i.e. if its wages rose, we need only note that crises are always prepared by a period in which wages generally rise, and the working class actually does receive a greater share in the part of the annual product destined for consumption. From the standpoint of these advocates of sound and 'simple' (!) common sense, such periods should rather avert the crisis. It thus appears that capitalist production involves certain conditions independent of people's good or bad intentions, which permit the relative prosperity of the working class only temporarily, and moreover always as a harbinger of crisis."

Eric



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