Re: Measuring Exploitation

[Bruce Cronin <b.cronin@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Doug Henwood writes:
>The Moseley figs for the U.S. are a few percentage points lower than the 
>>World Bank's (converting minutes worked for self to a percentage), but they 
>>show almost the same trend over time. 

They actually show opposite trends. 

Moseley shows a rising ratio of Surplus Value to Variable Capital (S/V) through 
to the early 1960s, followed by a decline to 1975. Shaikh and Tonak extend this 
series, showing a further rise in exploitation from 1975 to the late 1980s. 
Overall their figures show a significant rise in exploitation through the 
postwar period.

The 'equivalent' bourgeois ratio of Operating Surplus to Wages (OS/W) shows a 
steady decline through the postwar period.

It is possible that the ratio Wages/Value Added may at times resemble the ratio 
Surplus Value/Wages, but that would be entirely coincidental as they are quite 
unrelated. Despite the claim that the former is only a few percentage points 
lower than latter, even these (unrelated) trends are different.
The wage share of value added rises to 1958, declines to 1965, then rises 
through to 1979, then declines through the 1980s. Overall the figures indicate 
a rising share of wages through the postwar period (opposite to the trend in 
exploitation).

>The WB figures are reported for 20-30 years and
>for over 100 countries; why bust your ass reworking bourgeois accounting,
>unless you have a dissertation to write? Let's not fetishize technique too
>much.

While the wage share reflects the distributional struggle in the US, it does 
really tell us much about exploitation. In fact significant rises in 
exploitation occurred in the mid 1970s, even while the wage share of value 
added was still rising. This suggests, for example, that changes to the 
production process in the mid 1970s  are probably more significant to the 
course of exploitation than the Reagan election (whereas a distributional view 
would tend to argue the reverse).

A concentration on the share of wages in value added in explaining economic 
behaviour leads to analyses such as that of Glyn & Sutcliffe or Bowles, Gordon 
& Weisskopf which see the current economic crisis in part caused by the rising 
share of wages in the 1960s. This is very similar to bourgeois explanations 
which is not surprising as bourgeois analysts similarly dwell on surface 
appearances.

Bruce


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