Thanks for your comment, Gil. Please excuse a layperson's question, but I have never quite been able to understand this economist's use of "secular". What is the definition of "secular".
Charles by Gil Skillman You could certainly point to recent economic phenomena supporting an affirmative answer to this question. E.g., in the US, the fact that significant increases in productivity have helped make it possible for capitalist firms to make do with their existing workforces rather than increasing employment in proportion to the increase in national output. However, I'd argue that such changes, where they occur, are not *secular* as Marx's "general law" requires. Specifically: Marx understands his law to apply to the situation of developed capitalist economies. His statement of the law implies secularly or tendentially increasing rates of poverty and unemployment in such economies. I don't think we've seen secularly increasing rates of poverty and unemployment in developed capitalist economies (though I'd be interested to hear others' assessments of the long-run trends for these phenomena), despite overall population growth and consequent increases in the size of the working class. -clip-
