>On the other hand, Jim, here's this delightful quote from the _New
>Republic_, September 1945 ("The Road to Freedom: Full Employment"):
Oh yes, back when TNR was a good magazine.
>"Our experience with periods of labor shortage indicates that its first
>effect is greatly to increase the bargaining power of labor, both
>individually and collectively. This results in steady improvement of wages
>and working conditions, up to the limit set by productive capacity. It
>means that employers must seek to make employment attractive, since the
>workers are no longer motivated by the fear of losing their jobs. A shift
>of workers from the less pleasant and remunerative occupations occurs, so
>that standards are raised at the lower levels....
>
>"The status of labor will improve, since employers can no longer rely upon
>the discipline of discharge to enforce authority. The
>tendency will be for labor to have more participation in industrial and
>economic policy."
>
>Why supplement such clarity with a ambiguous bumper sticker slogan that
>'full employment is not enough'?
of course the slogan was ambiguous since I using it to summarize the other
things I said, which (I hoped) were less ambiguous. In any event, full
employment doesn't solve the environmental problem. It doesn't end the
exploitation of labor. If it even leans in that direction, capital goes on
strike (or inflation encourages the rentiers to go on strike). I think I
respect Kalecki's analysis more than I do the NEW REPUBLIC on this one.
> >Greenspan is not simply an evil man.
>
>I could be wrong, but I don't think Greenspan is an evil man.
I was overstating it, to make a point (i.e., that if he didn't exist, he'd
have to be invented). He may not be _personally_ evil, but I think that in
terms of his objective impact on the world, he is. He's an ideological
leader of the neoliberal upsurge, struggling to force the world into a
preconceived straight-jacket of the market ideal.
> >He's also a politicized version of the dynamic that Marx pointed to in
> >ch. 25 of volume I of CAPITAL.
>
> >From which (since you mention it) may I quote:
>
>"If the means of production, as they increase in extent and effective
>power, become to a lesser extent means for employing workers, this
>relation is itself in turn modified by the fact that in proportion as the
>productivity of labour increases, capital increases its supply of labour
>more quickly than its demand for workers. The over-work of the employed
>part of the working class swells the ranks of its reserve, while,
>conversely, the greater pressure that the reserve by its competition
>exerts on the employed workers forces them to submit to over-work and
>subjects them to the dictates of capital. The condemnation of one part
>of the working class to enforced idleness by the over-work of the other
>part, and *vice versa* becomes a means of enriching the individual
>capitalists, and accelerates at the same time the production of the
>industrial reserve army on a scale corresponding with the progress of
>social accumulation."
I'm quite familiar with that quote, though I don't think that it's relevant
to 2000 in the US. Rather it's more relevant to 2000 for the world
capitalist system as a whole. Overwork seems the rule in the US, while
idleness is being enforced on much of the rest of the world.
>Ironically, economic growth may indeed expand the demand for workers but
>not as much as it expands the supply of labor power. Thus the treadmill
>aspect of capitalist growth as a formula for reducing unemployment. Marx's
>implied response to such a treadmill, a few pages later in the same
>section -- "planned co-operation between the employed and the unemployed
>to obviate or to weaken the ruinous effects of this natural law of
>capitalist production on their class. . ."
that's a good idea. However, the premise of what I said was that capitalism
isn't about to fall apart.
>A course of action inevitably denounced by "capital and its sycophant,
>political economy [as an] infringement of the 'eternal' and so to speak
>'sacred' law of supply and demand."
and it is. A justified one, perhaps, but it goes against supply & demand,
which are a result of the existence of capitalist institutions. For it to
work, there'd have to be much more of a societal movement against
capitalism to pull it off. That's hard when internationalism is needed.
> >How does this [reducing working time] work? I haven't studied this as
> >much as you have, Tom, but wouldn't reducing working hours per worker
> >increase the demand for individual employees, which would lower the
> >unemployment rate further into the capitalists' perceived danger zone?
>
>I suppose Marx had in mind something like the above when he describe
>limitation of the working day as "a preliminary condition without which
>all further attempts at improvement and emancipation must prove abortive."
I'm all in favor of lowering the length of the working day. The issue is
how it avoids inflation, profit squeeze, or a combination of those?
>But you don't have to take Marx's word for it. The following was the view
>of an Industrial Inquiry Commission established by the U.S. Congress,
>which reported in 1902:
>
>"A reduction of hours is the most substantial and permanent gain which
>labor can secure. In times of depression employers are often forced to
>reduce wages, but very seldom do they, under such circumstances, increase
>the hours of labor. The temptation to increase hours comes in times of
>prosperity and business activity, when the employer sees opportunity for
>increasing his output and profits by means of overtime. This distinction
>is of great importance. The demand for increased hours comes at a time
>when labor is strongest to resist, and the demand for lower wages comes at
>a time when labor is weakest. A gain in wages can readily be offset by
>secret agreements and evasions, where individual workmen agree to work
>below the scale; but a reduction of hours is an open and visible gain, and
>there can be no secret evasion. Having once secured the shorter working
>day, the question of wages can be adjusted from time to time according to
>the stress of the market."
again, lowering working hours is a good thing. But when the capitalists in
the US are hiring all sorts of people they normally wouldn't hire, isn't
there a real limit on the ability to hire more (which would be the obvious
effect of limiting each worker's hours)? or wouldn't each worker take on
more than one job, so that limits on the work-week would have limited effect?
> >Alternatively, wouldn't the capitalists see falling working hours per
> >worker as just a different form of higher labor costs? How do these avoid
> >kindling inflation?
>
>Here's where hypocrisy climbs on a high horse. Capitalist p.r. has spared
>no expense or scruple in publicizing claims that such is the case. Those
>claims are absolutely and demonstrably false. That is what my lump
>of labor paper is about and it is what I am continuing to document in
>historical research on the National Association of Manufacturers' campaign
>against the eight-hour day. The mendacity is breathtaking.
Accusing these folks of hypocrisy doesn't answer the question, even though
their hypocrisy is quite real.
>Undoubtedly an extreme reduction of working time would increase labour
>costs, but a reduction within the range sufficient to sustain full
>employment would, according to my calculations, *reduce* them. Again
>citing that 1902 Industrial Inquiry Commission, things don't appear to
>have changed that much in a century:
>
>"Of course, hours might possibly be conceived to be reduced to the point
>where the increased cost of production would overbalance these gains. If
>it were a question of reducing hours to absurdly low limits, nothing could
>be said in favor of the movement; but where -- as is actually the case --
>the goal set up by the working people is the 8-hour day, and there is
>no proposition of any weight for a 5 or a 6 hour day, the arguments for
>reduction need no qualification from the standpoint of the workers
>and little from that of employers."
>
>Of course, a reduction of working time, and subsequent reduction of the
>industrial reserve army could be expected to increase workers' bargaining
>power and, as a consequence, reduce the proportion of surplus value
>extracted by capital. That is where the squeeze on profits comes in -- not
>from increased labour costs.
that's a quibble.
>That's what the class struggle is about, after all, and one shouldn't
>expect representatives of capital to embrace the idea without reservation.
>The fact that capitalists may be expected to fight tooth and nail against
>an idea is no reason for workers to abandon
>it, though.
I wasn't advocating dropping the demand. However, we should be conscious of
the real constraints and struggle to undermine them.
BTW, I'd like to see economic analysis, not quotes from old books. And at
least for the issue that I thought we were discussing, it's useful to keep
our focus on the issue of what's happening now, not what was happening in
1902.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~JDevine
