Max Sawicky wrote,
>Secondly, why should capitalist accountants
>record the depreciation of an asset which they do
>not own? Presumably they can buy labor in
>whatever state they like.
This is precisely Clark's point, as I understand it second hand, by way of
Stabile. Capitalist accountants have no reason to record depreciation of an
asset they don't own. However they can only buy labor in "whatever state
they like" so long as it's being produced "elsewhere" in the necessary
quantities and qualities. Treating labour as an externality may create a lot
of room for capital to maneuver. It may even create a HELL of a lot of room
for maneuver. But it can't establish a new, sustainable basis for production.
Historical perspective is crucial here. Would the 'lean and mean' strategies
of capital have a (ghost of a) chance without the storehouse of social
capital built up through the 1950s to 1980s? If capitalist accountants think
they can get rich by selling off the farm, they may overlook the
inconvenient fact that they won't have a farm after they sell it off. When
capitalist accountants begin to tell us that everyone can stay rich
eternally by selling off the farm repeatedly, they are no longer
"accounting" they are fantasizing. When these fantasies are presented as the
only appropriate foundation for public policy (re: Greenspan) then the
proponents need to be called to account.
Here's how Donald Stabile argued for the renewed relevance of Clark,
>The 1920s were
>the last era when labor was without a social safety net. That lack of a
>safety net for workers was important to Pigou and Clark in their studies
>of work and welfare. As a result of New Deal legislation and the growth
>of industrial unionism in the 1930s and 1940s, a safety net for workers
>was put into place. It became easy to leave the costs of work out of
>modern welfare economics by taking the social safety net for granted.
>
>Business now threatens that safety net with cost cuts in the name of
>competitiveness. Pigou and Clark asked whether such cuts really improved
>welfare. From their perspective, higher wages for workers improved their
>capabilities and led to higher production, adding to economic welfare.
>Lower wages meant the impairment of the work force.
The sequence of 1. estabilishing a safety net 2. taking the costs of work
for granted because of the safety net and 3. dismantling the safety net
reminds me of the cartoon image of crawling out on a limb of a tree and
sawing off the limb.
Regards,
Tom Walker
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