Sandwichman wrote: > What I am suggesting is an analysis that takes issue with the > intuitive/Marxist notion that it is the "reserve army of labor" that > disciplines labor, if only because the crucial moment when such discipline > is needed is when the threat of unemployment is least credible.
IMHO, it's a mistake to treat this as somehow a contradiction in Marx. The situation "when the threat of unemployment is least credible" is that where unemployment is low. Marx didn't see that as impossible; he clearly saw the situation as a possible source of a squeeze on profits, though his emphasis is on the role of wages as a cost instead of on the motivation of workers (in CAPITAL, vol. I, chapter 25). But if capital is left to its own devices, this situation leads to a cut-back in the rate of accumulation and a re-creation of a reserve army of labor. When capitalism is not left to its own devices, as when war spending prevents this mechanism from operating (cf. the late 1960s), then the problem of disciplining labor can persist. -- Jim Devine / "In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite." -- Paul Dirac _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
