right. I wasn't responding to your original message but to GK. I too
was amazed at the source.
On 3/29/07, Eugene Coyle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Jim,
My point in making the original post was not about the prediction
but about who was making it. Alan Blinder is a Princeton economist,
was on the Federal Reserve Board, and is the personification of a
mainstream economist. When he says that trade is going to cost jobs,
that is news. For Nafta it was Ross Perot predicting job loss. Not
the same thing.
Gene
On Mar 29, 2007, at 8:36 AM, Jim Devine wrote:
>> >But now he is saying loudly that a new industrial revolution
>> >-- communication technology that allows services to be delivered
>> >electronically from afar -- will put as many as 40 million American
>> >jobs at risk of being shipped out of the country in the next
>> decade or
>> two.
>
> Gernot Koehler wrote:
>> That warning is justified. On the other hand, the U.S. economy has
>> shown a
>> remarkable capacity over the last hundred years for also creating
>> new (and
>> alternative) employment. For example, the U.S. unemployment rate
>> in 1900 was
>> around five percent, and in 2001 it was also around 5 percent,
>> even though
>> tremendous restructuring and economic growth had taken place in
>> the hundred
>> years between the two dates.
>
> this is nothing new. Back when the NAFTA (and similar trade bills)
> were passed, people warned of job loss. The trouble with this
> prediction is that it misses the point. The _real_ issue is labor
> wages (relative to labor productivity). Though the process of
> adjustment may take a long time and be very painful for the workers
> involved, eventually most laid-off workers get jobs. Absent
> counteracting forces (i.e., ceteris paribus), the problem is that they
> don't pay very well compared to their previous jobs. (The rate of
> surplus-value tends to rise as a result of this process.)
>
>> I understand that Marx(ian)(ist) theory can
>> explain job destruction in connection with the process of the
>> accumulation
>> of capital. Is there also any Marx(ian)(ist) theory that explains job
>> creation? It seems to me, based on my admittedly limited knowledge
>> of that
>> vast body of literature, that there is a weakness in Marx(ian)(ist)
>> literature with respect to the theory of job creation in capitalist
>> economies, as opposed to theory of job destruction. (Or, which
>> pieces of
>> literature did I miss?)
>
> Marx's theory in CAPITAL (volume 1) is mostly about job destruction.
> This focuses on a representative industry, i.e., one that represents
> the abstract general laws of accumulation. But there are also
> processes of job creation in Marx: if aggregate accumulation is fast
> enough, that increases aggregate employment (which may or may not
> raise real wages enough to reduce the rate of surplus-value).
>
> --
> Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
> way and let
> people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let
people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
