Sandwichman wrote: > There are three strands of argument against shorter working time in > mainstream teaching. None of them is viable by itself. And their core > assumptions are inconsistent with each other. But the threesome are > routinely deployed tactically as if they were compatible. > > The first, perhaps "best" argument is that reducing the hours of work > drives up fixed costs relative to variable costs, i.e. capital > relative to labor and labor overhead costs (or quasi-fixed costs) > relative to variable labor costs. The most influential statement of > that argument would be by Walter Oi. His analysis is, in some respects > descended from John Maurice Clark's analysis of overhead costs. > However, Oi doesn't address Clark's fundamental point that labor can > only be considered a variable cost from the short-term perspective of > the firm and that ultimately there are fixed costs behind that > apparent variable cost that must be borne by society and by > individuals if they are "shifted" by employers. The fixed cost > argument stands entirely on an accounting fiction....
Alas, actual businesspeople -- especially ones with small businesses -- actually think in short-term terms and from the point of view of their own firms and act on both the political and economic levels based on this thinking. (It's not an accounting fiction to _them_ and they put it into practice.) The whip of competition means that they don't have the luxury that some larger companies in less competitive markets have, i.e., to think big. (BTW, it should not surprise us that neoclassicals such as Oi simply reproduce the perspective of small biz. That's what neoclassical economics is about.) -- Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
