[PEN-L:6095] Re: Brad De Long on working hours

[Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol@xxxxxxx>]

At 01:46 PM 4/27/99 -0700, Brad DeLong wrote:
>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...


Not necessarily (for a theoretical argument to the contrary see W. Kula,
_An economic theory of the feudal system_, London: NLB, 1976).  In essence,
Kula argues that repression restricts labor's mobility which, in turn, sets
its marginal value to zero.  In that situation, the only labor cost is the
actual cost of physical subsistence.

Wojtek