absolute general law of capitalist accumulation

[Charles Brown <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks for your comment, Gil. Please excuse a layperson's question, but I
have never quite been able to understand this economist's use of "secular".
What is the definition of "secular".

Charles

by Gil Skillman

You could certainly point to recent economic phenomena supporting an
affirmative answer to this question.  E.g., in the US, the fact that
significant increases in productivity have helped make it possible for
capitalist firms to make do with their existing workforces rather than
increasing employment in proportion to the increase in national
output.  However, I'd argue that such changes, where they occur, are not
*secular* as Marx's "general law" requires.

Specifically:  Marx understands his law to apply to the situation of
developed capitalist economies.  His statement of the law implies secularly
or tendentially increasing rates of poverty and unemployment in such
economies.  I don't think we've seen secularly increasing rates of poverty
and unemployment in developed capitalist economies (though I'd be
interested to hear others' assessments of the long-run  trends for these
phenomena), despite overall population growth and consequent increases in
the size of the working class.

-clip-