Tom writes:> We speak about productivity AS IF it can be expressed by a simple equation, Q/LP that _assumes_ precisely what needs to be questioned. ...<
it's true that both Q and LP are hard to calculate -- especially the former (output), which consists of all sorts of things that are measured in different units and thus have to be added up using fixed prices (or calculated in some similar way). Among other things, the output at time t is different from that at time t-1, so we are indeed comparing apples and oranges, especially as the length of time between periods being compared gets longer. However, it's an effort to get _some idea_ of what's going on empirically rather than simply giving up on the effort to measure economic phenomena.
>At one extreme, the reported productivity gains of the last decade might be
an expression of massive off-balance sheet accounting, including social and
environmental "externalities" as part of the off-balance sheet.<
absolutely! I never weighed in on that issue. In fact, I've been skeptical about the US productivity gains of late 1990s for awhile... I understand recent re-estimates have downgraded the measured productivity surge of that period.
> At the other extreme, the reported gains could represent a dividend from social infrastructure investments made decades ago like, say, flouridated water and SMSG math. Or they could be any combination of the two and some other things in between, not to mention the alignment of the planets. I'm not saying the issue is ultimately undecidable, I'm just say that there are not good grounds for jumping to the presumably obvious conclusion that speed up = productivity gains.<
all I would say is that _all else equal_ speed-up _leads to_ productivity gains.
>A cargo cult is a form of irrationality, in this case perhaps capitalist irrationality. The equation of speed up with productivity gains expresses the metaphor, "the economy is a machine." It's a lovely metaphor, but no more absolute than "my love is a red, red rose."<
I don't know why the the idea that speed up leads to productivity gains expresses the metaphor "the economy is a machine." If anything, it reinforces the point that the economy involves social relations of domination.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] & http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine
