[lbo-talk] A venture communist reviews basic macro

Barry Brooks durable at earthlink.net
Tue Mar 13 11:11:44 PDT 2012


Getting the most basic things sorted out is too rare.

http://www.dmytri.info/its-the-macroeconomy-stupid/

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To start with, P + W = C + I is a combination of the two identities above, since both equal Y, they must also therefore be equal to each other. So the sum of profits and wages is equal to the sum of consumption and investment.

Renowned economist Mikhal Kalecki isolated profit from this identify by breaking down consumption into consumption by capital and consumption by workers, resulting in P + W = Cp + Cw + I. Reasoning that workers, as a class, spend all the income they make, Kalecki equated W and Cw, resulting in P = Cp + I. Meaning Profit is equal to the sum of capitalist consumption plus investment. This means that wages are essentially meaningless when it comes to profits when wages eventually return to capitalists by way of worker’s consumption.

Yet, the assumption the workers consume everything they earn as a class is based on wages being determined by an efficient labour market. Workers can, as a class, use their social power to work against the workings of the labour market.

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