[lbo-talk] Krugman

Charles Brown charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us
Wed Dec 19 12:04:02 PST 2007


A footnote: all the productivity gains in retail came from new stores, not existing ones. It was basically Wal-Mart putting mom & pop out of business.

Doug

^^^^

CB: Without making a moral judgment , and with Wal-Mart famous for low prices, could this be a classic case of cutthroat price competition ? Also, do the productivity gains come from high tech cash registers and stocking machines and tools, just in time delivery, or from speedup and low wages ? Or both ? If the boss gets as much or more work from a worker for less pay, that's a "productivity" gain for the company. Productivity is number of commodities made ( sold in the case of WAL-MART) per pay to workers, no ?

The Marxist proposal is, of course, use technological productivity gains to give a shorter work week with no cut in pay; hire more people.; hell raise the pay and give more benefits, and cut profits. I know American enterprise ain't thinking about that, but the left is supposed to keep it in the universe, so come the revolution , people know what to do.



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