"Devine, James" wrote: > >[clip] > We should make wages relative to labor productivity an issue, though. > -- > Yoshie > > --------------------- > > all else equal, if wages fall relative to labor productivity, the "rate of > surplus-value" rises. Or in econ-speak, unit labor costs fall. > Jim
The impact of the "race to the bottom" on u.s. conditions is "economic" only indirectly, and for that reason economic statistics can not really identify that impact. That is in part because what affects labor resistance is the _belief_ in runaway jobs. If the workers in a given enterprise (manufacturing, back-office, whathaveyou) _believe_ that their jobs can disappear to Mexico or Singapore, that puts them at a disadvantage against management whether or not there is a real danger of such a flight. The largest manufacturing firm locally, Eureka, did move to Mexico, and some years before the move tried to blackmail the local work force into taking deep wage cuts. The workers refused, and kept their jobs (at decent pay) for a few more years. Carrol
