Re: PK on the lump of labor fallacy

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

I find the "lump of labor fallacy" discussion to be a bit off the point. 

The discussion should be restated as simply saying that cutting the legal work-week can distribute more jobs among the entire working class, given the aggregate demand for products. PK seems to be assuming that Say's false Law applies (so that aggregate demand is irrelevant, as in his critique of William Greider in THE ACCIDENTAL THEORIST) or that our wise leaders will raise aggregate demand so we can have full employment. If the latter isn't available (because, say, in France, the European Central Bank is conservative and the stability pact prevents Keynesian expansionary fiscal policy), why not cut the work-week to distribute work?

Another thing is that the length of the work-week is very much a collective good for waged workers (proletarians), especially for blue-collar ones. If I were paid by the hour, how many hours I work would depend on how long the other workers at my work-place work, since there are strong interdependencies amongst different workers' efforts. There are also interdependencies -- societal standards -- between the work-week of one enterprise and those of others in the same society. With such interdependencies, purely individual bargaining -- as in the standard market story -- will not allow the production of the collective good, i.e., a humane work-week that allows sufficient leisure, etc. Collective bargaining is needed. On the level of society as a whole, this shows up as hours legislation.

what's strange about the previous paragraph is that it's neoclassical in spirit. The problem with the NCs here is that they don't study production, except on the most superficial level (and even then get it wrong). They also don't have any idea about societal standards and their role.

Jim