At 04:37 PM 06/06/2000 -0700, you wrote:
>I can't help mentioning an article that I view as the classic statement
>of the moral sentiment underlying NAIRU, J. Laurence Laughlin's "The
>Unions Versus Higher Wages," _Journal of Political Economy_, Vol. 14,
>Issue 3 (March 1906) pages 129-142.
How could this be a "moral sentiment underlying NAIRU" when the NAIRU
theory was developed only in the 1960s?
Further, why do you deny that there may be other theories -- with other
moral sentiments -- that could underlie the NAIRU?
For example, Marx might say that the NAIRU is simply another name -- a cold
academic name -- for the reserve army of the unemployed. It's an evil
that's only necessary under an exploitative social institution such as
capitalism. Only a system that dominates workers using hierarchical and
undemocratic systems of alienated labor needs to threaten them with
competition from unemployed workers in the reserve army of labor (NAIRU) or
some other punishment (direct coercion).
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~JDevine
