Thanks, Gene. The "re-absorption of the unemployed" myth has been a staple of capitalist propaganda for over 200 years. A prominent manifestation of this myth has been the falsification of the history of the Luddites. Instead of acknowledging the real grievances of the factory workers who rose up and broke machines, the propagandists invented an entirely imaginary "false belief" that the Luddites supposedly had.
Back in April, Friedman wrote, "A nagging fear lingering in the back of most economists’ minds is that one day the Luddites may turn out to be right: that the labor freed up by technological progress may not find alternate productive work, at least not within a time frame—a generation or two, say—sufficient to matter profoundly for the vitality of the society. " Right about what? The Luddites were right all along that they were being exploited by factory owners who used the displacement of workers by machines as a cudgel to beat down wages. What does the "nagging fear lingering in the back of most economists' minds" have to do with that? Nothing. It's not so much that "one day the Luddites will turn out to be right" as that some day the economists' generative myth will be clearly seen for the vacuous, archaic bullshit that it is. The Luddites' unforgivable "sin" was that they disobeyed their masters. Period. On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 10:11 AM, Eugene Coyle <[email protected]> wrote: > A modest project for Pen-l: We should each go to the NYTimes article that > Proyect posted this morning and click on the button to send it to Krugman. > > Tom Walker has been trying to educate Krugman for a couple of years. If > Krugman gets a hundred or more copies perhaps it won't take him a decade to > wake up to the idea that the stimulus won't solve this problem. It won't, > not in a decade or two. Oh, you think maybe "in the long run" the stimulus > will restore full employment? > > Gene > > > On Oct 24, 2012, at 7:16 AM, Louis Proyect wrote: > > > From the article: > > > > One of the more striking recent developments in economics has been > > economists’ growing acceptance of the idea that globalization has held > > down pay for a large swath of workers. The public has long accepted the > > idea, but economists resisted it, pointing to the long-term benefits of > > trade. “That is starting to change only in the face of very strong > > evidence over the past decade,” said Edward Alden of the Council on > > Foreign Relations. > > > > --- > > > > NY Times October 23, 2012 > > Standard of Living Is in the Shadows as Election Issue > > By DAVID LEONHARDT > > > > WASHINGTON — Taxes and government spending. Health care. Immigration. > > Financial regulation. > > > > They are the issues that have dominated the political debate in recent > > years and have played a prominent role in this presidential campaign. > > But in many ways they have obscured what is arguably the nation’s > > biggest challenge: breaking out of a decade of income stagnation that > > has afflicted the middle class and the poor and exacerbated inequality. > > > > Many of the bedrock assumptions of American culture — about work, > > progress, fairness and optimism — are being shaken as successive > > generations worry about the prospect of declining living standards. No > > question, perhaps, is more central to the country’s global standing than > > whether the economy will perform better on that score in the future than > > it has in the recent past. > > snip > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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