Re: super-profits

[Yoshie Furuhashi <furuhashi.1@xxxxxxx>]

At 5:48 PM -0400 9/14/04, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:
>
> > The mechanism is cheaper consumer goods, which depress wage demands.
>
> Then that's just a few percentage points on the CPI, not enough to
> explain a whole social structure.
>
> Doug

A few percentage points on the CPI makes a BIG difference from the
working class point of view.  For instance, many union contracts
involve struggles over a few percentage points in wages and pensions.
If the CPI is up 4.9% per year, unions (and unorganized workers)
would want to get raises that are higher than that or (failing that)
at least keep up with it.  If the power elite can depress wages in
poorer nations through political (e.g., conditionalities attached to
international debts) and military (e.g., suppressing union
organizing) means and make commodities produced in them (especially
the ones that are exported to richer nations) cheaper than otherwise,
to the point of depressing the CPI in rich nations by 2%, unions (and
unorganized workers) in rich nations would settle for raises that are
slightly higher than or at least keep up with 2.9%.  If capitalists
can *moderate workers' wage demands by a whopping 2% across the
board* in rich nations, without triggering a social conflict, that's
a HUGE boon to them.
--
Yoshie

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