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On Dec 26, 2009, at 8:51 AM, Joaquin Bustelo wrote: > > Barry wrote: "Real income can not have a simple relation to > productivity. > Even if politics and policy allowed real wages to track worker > productivity > there are other limits to real income." > > Isn't "productivity" a completely bogus measure, from the point of > view of > Marxist economics? > > The bourgeois definition of productivity is the average monetary > value added > by one hour of labor. But Marx constantly speaks of the productivity of labor, which determines relative surplus-value. The formulaic Marxian definition of productivity is exactly the same as the "bourgeois" one--real output per unit of labor-time. The differences are: Marx counts net labor input (variable capital) as *productive* labor only, while "neoclassical" (not Smithian) bourgeois economics recognizes only gross input without any productive/nonproductive distinction; and Marx counts net real output (v+s) in units of concrete labor, *dated* labor time, (as in "real net output in year z was equivalent to the net product of y hours of productive labor time in year x") while bourgeois economics recognizes only gross output (c+v+s). As the share of nonproductive labor (the organic composition of the social capital) steadily increases in both fixed and circulating forms the gap between the two concepts of productivity grows ever wider. Shane Mage > This cosmos did none of gods or men make, but it > always was and is and shall be: an everlasting fire, > kindling in measures and going out in measures." > > Herakleitos of Ephesos ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
