Wojtek wrote:
As to your comment that productivity increase is just another word for exploitation of labor - not necessarily. It depends how the value added is distributed. If it is used to finance mostly socially useful products - schools, hospitals, transportation, culture, etc. - it is not exploitation at all.
I would go as far as arguing that if that value was distributed in the form of higher wages that are then spent on socially wasteful products - such as inefficient and costly transportation, wasteful land use, grossly overpriced education and health care, various transaction costs (lawyers, realtors, and kindred intermediaries), military adventures or crime prevention measures - this is more exploitative than lower wages and higher profits (perhaps taxed at nearly confiscatory rates) spent on socially useful products. *******************************************************
IMO, labour productivity--whether liberal ruling classes choose what is socially useful or whether conservative ruling classes choose what is socially wasteful--is exploitation because the class which creates the wealth doesn't socially own or control it.
Best, Mike B)
===== "Has du Verstand und ein Herz so zeige nur eines von beiden. Beides verdammen dir zeigst du beides zugleich."
Good advice by Hoelderin
http://profiles.yahoo.com/swillsqueal
__________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com