May I extend the question to ask for a simple
version of how neoclassicals explain, in more
developed countries where output/worker has
risen, there has been a decline in wage
levels determined by the marginal product of
labour? Were past wages above MP, and more global
competition has pushed them down closer to their
real MP? Is it only the MP of only *some* types
of labour that has declined; for others it has
risen? Or is it false that real wages in rich
countries have declined (if so, why the gap with productivity)?
Bill Burgess
At 08:01 AM 06/09/2007, you wrote:
Hi, Mike!
On 9/6/07, MICHAEL YATES <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> How exactly do neoclassicals say that a nation discovers the outputs in
> which it has comparative advantage? Trial and error?
exactly: a country is supposed to open itself up to trade. That will
reveal its comp. adv. In fact, it would go against neoliberal ideology
to hire a bunch of technocrats to figure out what the country's comp.
adv. was in advance.
> In a world of unequal
> power, with a history of colonialism and imperialism, what possible meaning
> coud the term even have?
it's a totally abstract, static, and ahistorical term.
> Stiglitz says that globalization has been driven in part by the elimination
> of "artificial" barriers to international movements of goods, services,
> money, and people. What makes whatever these barriers are "artificial?"
> Isn't the "market" just as artificial?"
transportation costs and the like which are not due to state actions
are considered "natural." In neoliberalism, the market is considered
to be "natural," too. So when the state imposes markets (and rule by
the rich) with bayonets, that's simply revealing the inner nature that
was hidden by "artificial" institutions.
Market = natural
everything else = artificial (unless it promotes the market)
OM.
--
Jim Devine / "In the years since the phrase became a cliché, I have
received any number of compliments for my supposed ability to 'think
outside the box.' Actually, it has been a struggle for me to perceive
just what these 'boxes' were why they were there, why other people
regarded them as important, where their borderlines might be, how to
live safely within and without them." -- Tim Page (THE NEW YORKER,
August 20, 2007).
