Stiglitz rightly criticizes the dependence on monetary policy and would substitute enlightened fiscal policy. But neither he nor another "respectable"" economist will mention, let alone advocate, a third economic tool, reducing the work week to create jobs. That reduction will not only create jobs, it will be a solid basis for a national income-redistribution in favor of the workers, as more of production goes to wages and less to profits. That redistribution will, in turn, eventually change the culture itself as growth slows and jobs are plentiful. That is the shift that we need, not simply a large fiscal stimulus, however well directed.
Gene Coyle ^^^^^ CB: I agree ;with no cut in pay. Maybe the Occupations could hold May Day demonstrations for this. Share the gains in technological efficiency with the workers with the 99%, reduce toil, as the Sandwichman says. Of course, the increasing productivity means increased efficiency of the instruments of production ( as well as speedup , et.al) . Instruments of production are constantly revolutionized by the bourgeoisie as these capitalists pursue relative surplus value. The proportion of constant capital (instruments and means of production) is increased relative to the proportion of variable capital (labor), dead to living labor. This means labor gets laid off , added to the relative surplus population , the reserved army of the unemployed, much of whom dwell in pauperism and many forms of misery (les miserables). This unemployment and poverty as separation of the workers' from their means of livelihood is a major form of the alienation that Marx discussed in his early economic and philosophic manuscripts of 1844. ( know u all knew that already, although usually alienation is thought of as more abstract ennui or depression, not specifically plain ole unemployment) Recent headline reports are of poverty approaching 50% in the US . Factcheck, miccheck. Can that be true ?! Anyway, I read tht the poverty rate when LBJ initiated the War on Poverty was 19% in the US. My how the US has moved to the right. Marx's absolute general law of capitalist accumulation in effect, no doubt. Part of "structural" white supremacy in the US is that unemployment, poverty, misery and alienatation are concentrated among the populations of color. LBJ was responding (remarkably) to the urban rebellions of the 1960's ( there were scores of them), the ghettos, where pauperism and alienation were concentrated. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
