From: Doug Henwood
The standard measure of productivity is per hour worked. There are also output per worker calculations, but those are often done when comparable hourly data isn't available.
Many European countries have hourly productivity stats matching or exceeding the U.S. - but we have more people working longer hours, so our aggregate GDP is higher.
-clip-
^^^^^
Marx categorizes the increased surplus value extracted from longer hours as absolute surplus value, that from higher productivity as relative surplus value. I'm not sure what the "absolute" and "relative" mean, but if "absolute" sort of means "the main way to exploit" , then it is interesting that the main rawdog ,capitalist country uses the absolute form to get ahead. Increased productivity can increase profits only so much , then it runs into the law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, because increased technological efficiency increases the organic composition of capital; and surplus value derives from variable , not constant capital (from labor not machines).
Doug's comment above also implies that some of Europe is evolving to socialism, somewhat, in that improved technological efficiency is allowed to shorten work time, increase leisure, and assuming less difference between rich and poor, less operation of the absolute general law of capitalist accumulation there than here.
In this regard ,we might argue ( without falling into barracks/hairshirt communism) that fastest growing GDP ( in the US) is not necessarily the economic optimum.
Maybe both Lenin and Kautsky were right- modifying Malcolm X, first the bullet then the ballot. Maybe The Great October Revolution _was_ the insurrection for _all_ Europe, and the other countries' bourgeoisies got the hint in the long run. Is this Dennis Redmondism ?
What does PEN-L say ?
Charles