>Sid Shniad quoted, > >>>"Karl Marx argued that capitalism needs a 'reserve army' of unemployed >>>labor to restrain wage demands and safeguard profits. Most economic >>>policy makers still think the same way, but recent experience in the U.S. >>>and Britain suggests the army might need fewer troops than it used to." > >And Doug Henwood replied, > >>Yes, I'd say this is the ruling class consensus now. And Tom Walker responded, > >Yeah, but. Stay tuned for "The End of NAIRU," coming soon to a listserv near >you. Two years from now you won't be able to find an economist anywhere who >will admit to having believed in the 'natural rate of unemployment'. Print >this prediction and paste it on your monitor, if it doesn't come true, send >me the paper and I'll eat it. And I ask, But why should this be so? I remember Yellen, Reich, and several others, last spring (as quoted in a WSJ article I could dig up but don't really want to), making the point that NAIRU is not given and unchanging but depends on the social context. So that in any given conjuncture there is some level of unemployment below which inflation will accelerate, but what that level is varies from conjuncture to conjuncture. One might think this vitiates the concept of NAIRU, but it allows an effective out from just the sort of squeeze Tom suggests is coming. Do I misunderstand something? Blair ********************************************************************* Blair Sandler "If I had to choose a reductionist paradigm, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Classical Marxism is a damned good one." *********************************************************************
