Marx was right again

March 2024 Forums General discussion Marx was right again

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  • #81108
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    Forget all the snide asides in the article but it once again concedes the strengths of his ideas. When there is no reserve army of unemployed wage levels rise but when there is ample numbers, wages are low.

    http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2012/02/01/karl-marx-tells-us-about-chinese-manufacturing-wages-and-silicon-valley-interns/

    #87741
    alanjjohnstone
    Keymaster

    Co-incidently i cam across this interview with Fredric Jameson, who has written ‘Representing Capital: A Reading of Volume One’ which also highlights the importance of  the reserve army of unemployed. Aware that i am not a economic expert it also appears he is a proponent of the Luxemburgist under-consumptionism.( i could very well be wrong) “The breakdown of the system is given in the expansion of the system. You’ve used up your peasantry and made them into farmers, then they become unemployed, the system moves along trying to get cheaper and cheaper labour, finally it reaches a point where there isn’t any cheap labour any more, but at the same time there isn’t anyone to buy all these products…Once you touch the boundaries of the world market then capitalism can’t really expand any further. Now we are not at that point. Yet, better than in Marx’s own time we can see the limits of the situation approaching. That is the moment when the system becomes intolerable and it becomes clear that the system either has to break down or be replaced with something else.” But he quickly qualifies himself “..no, it is not inevitable, but it is where human action and political practice come into play…”

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