Jim Devine wrote:
>I wrote:
>>>BTW, it's not the decline of real wages that matters, as much as
>>>the decline of real wages _relative to labor productivity_.
>
>quoth Doug:
>>That's an old story.
>
>So what? old stories can be valid. Just because something is old
>doesn't mean it's wrong. the key point is a theoretical one, i.e.,
>that it's wages relative to productivity that matter in the course
>of macroeconomic events. Real wages alone don't mean much.
If it's an old story, then the currently fashionable explanations,
centering on "globalization," don't really apply.
>why is "human agency" so important to an analysis of what the ruling
>class does?
Because it's important to show that what humans can do, humans can
also undo - that the "laws" of capitalism are the result of a social
system and not more-or-less immutable physical forces. The ruling
class likes to talk about the inevitability of globalization - like
Bill Clinton, who said a few months ago: "Yet, globalization is not
something we can hold off or turn off. It is the economic equivalent
of a force of nature -- like wind or water."
Doug
