[PEN-L:1735] Re: Minimum wages (Pat Mason's take)

[JDevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (James Devine)]

Pat Mason suggests if "capital intensity" has risen, then maybe
there isn't as much room as one would expect for a minimum-wage
increase despite increases in labor productivity. (That is, wages
can't increase as much as productivity without hurting the profit
rate.)

Doug Henwood wonders how empirically relevant this is. So do I.

There's another way of looking at this, at a lower level of
abstraction (involving the distribution and realization of
surplus-value as profit): back in the 1950s, the relative
monopoly position of US capitalists in the world economy was
stronger than it is now. That means that the amount of money
profit income realized in the US has fallen relative to the
amount of surplus-value produced in the US, along with the
ability of US-based capitalist operations to push rising wage
costs onto consumers in the form of higher prices. This scenario,
if true, would also suggest that wages cannot rise as much as
labor productivity has risen without squeezing profits.

in pen-l solidarity,

Jim Devine   jdevine@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ.
7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA
310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950
"It takes a busload of faith to get by." -- Lou Reed.