Yes capital discovered more riches in general machino-facture due to the relative surplus value it made possible than had all the plunderers of yore, and due to its intensity machine production and Fordism are only sustainable on the basis of limited work day and a greater consumption of use values.
The political victory of the limited working day was in the interests of both classes, though imposed by the exploited one. But this is only where Marx's theory begins, and it's where you Jim F. end!
Further increases in productivity bring diminishing rises in s/v while they are achieved at the expense of a faster growing organic composition of capital (see Pietro Basso's Modern Times, Ancient Hours)
Capital thus comes to limit further working class gains in regards to the length and intensity of the working day and the real wage. Indeed there now arises the possibility of irreconciliable contradiction as to achieve a rising s/v to compensate for the rise in the OCC, capital may even push the wage below the value of labor power; needless to say the relative wage will fall and must necessarily fall sharply. Wage gains will have to lag behind advances in productivity.
Krugman's nostalgia for the Treaty of Detroit only interferes with a sober understanding of the new conditions as capital accumulation runs up against its objective limits once again. Sarkozy may straighten him out, perhaps not as he is an economist.
Left wing Keynesians will also be denied entry to the halls of the government.
Unpleasant perhaps but not false for that reason.
The New Deal did not save capitalism; war did via the destruction of capital and death proved itself as Paul Mattick put it the greatest of all Keynesians.
Abu Hartal
_________________________________________________________________ Invite your mail contacts to join your friends list with Windows Live Spaces. It's easy! http://spaces.live.com/spacesapi.aspx?wx_action=create&wx_url=/friends.aspx&mkt=en-us