[Edited Message Follows] [Reason: Added a reference to the "Volcker shock"]
On Wed, Feb 28, 2024 at 01:20 PM, Mark Baugher wrote: > > I remember the 70s in the US as a time when economists invented a new > term, "stagflation," i.e. not buoyant. Yes, the term derived from economic stagnation and wage nflation. Economists bemoaned the slowing of economic growth from the preceding postwar decades on so-called "wage push" inflation caused by the unions. Cost of living clauses (COLA's) were a feature of union contracts. Volcker's hiking the Fed Funds Rate to 20% in 1980 also has to be seen in this context. It produced a recession designed to constrain the unions. It wasn't a response to a quiescent labour movemnt. I beleive you were in the SWP in the 70's. Wasn't the long UMW strike in '77-'78 a precipitating factor in the SWP's "industrial turn"? I had left the Trotskyist movement by then, but I recall my criticisms and those of other comrades at the time was that the implementation rather than the timing of the turn was ill-conceived. If you correctly guaged then that union bargaining power was on the threshold of a major decline, you were more prescient than most. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#29166): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/29166 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/104608543/21656 -=-=- POSTING RULES & NOTES #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. #4 Do not exceed five posts a day. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/21656/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
