[PEN-L:6045] Brad De Long on working hours

[Brad De Long <delong@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>I don't know about this. It seems to me that in historical
>>perspective--relative, say, to being a field slave at
>>Monticello--conditions of work here and now under modern industrial
>>capitalism are pretty good...
>
>I sent a post a bit ago on how here (Cochbamba) hours are getting longer,
>life is becoming one interminable jornada (period of labor) for LOTS of
>poeple.  This is capitalist modernity here.  How do you figure that into
>your comment?
>
>Tom
>
>Tom Kruse
>Casilla 5812 / Cochabamba, Bolivia
>Tel/Fax: (591-4) 248242
>Email: tkruse@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

That I should limit my statements to the "core" in a core-periphery model.

Increases in demand for the products made in the periphery do often
generate a substantial increase in hours of work and intensity of
supervision: in the context of the U.S. south, no British cotton mill would
have meant shorter workdays (and less "supervision," less whipping) for
American slaves. It's expensive to brutally exploit your workforce (rather
than turn them into sharecroppers or serfs), and bosses and owners often
find it worth doing only if demand from the industrial core is strong...


Brad DeLong