The link for a pdf copy of the Linder article is: http://ir.uiowa.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?filename=1&article=1007&context=books&type=additional
On Sun, Apr 27, 2014 at 11:53 AM, gary teeple <[email protected]> wrote: > Thanks for this reference Tom. I find it quite useful for some work I am > doing. > Gary > > > > On 2014-04-27, at 10:45 AM, Tom Walker <[email protected]> wrote: > > http://econospeak.blogspot.ca/2014/04/inequality-and-class-struggle.html > > In his discussion of the Cobb-Douglas production function and the presumed > stability of the capital/labor income split, Thomas Piketty references the > work of "the young German historian and economist Jürgen Kuczynski" (p. > 219). Readers of *Capital in the 21st Century* may be interested to learn > a bit more about this intriguing character, whom Marc Linder profiled in a > 1994 monograph, "From Surplus Value to Unit Labor Costs: The > Bourgeoisification of a Communist Conspiracy" published in the book, *Labor > Statistics and Class Struggle*. > > In the mid-1920s, the American Federation of Labor adopted a new wage > policy linking wage demands to productivity gains, which Linder described > as "strongly reminiscent of the reasoning that Marx had used in an address > to the General Council of the First International in 1865 to refute the > claims of one of its members, a carpenter named John Weston, that a general > increase of wage rates did not benefit the working class." An excerpt from > Linder's book: > > The reason that Green’s “Modern Wage Policy” Declaration seemed so > curiously suggestive of Marx’s own popularization of the theory of > exploitation is that it was, implausibly enough, written by a German > Marxist mole in the AFL. That person, who was also responsible for > developing the data on relative wages for the AFL, and thus for the > organization’s conversion to a crypto-Marxist strategy of holding the line > on the rate of surplus value, was twenty-two year-old Jürgen Kuczynski… > > In September 1926… Kuczynski departed for the United States, where his > father, who spent half of each year at the Brookings Institution and as > late as 1931 was a member of its advisory council, had secured him a > stipend at the short-lived Robert Brookings Graduate School of Economics > and Government. Through his father, Kuczynski again came into social > contact with many scholarly and political leaders in Washington, D.C., > including Justice Brandeis, a distant relative. > > Shortly before his departure for the United States, Kuczynski was struck > by Paul Douglas’s recent article comparing the movements of real wages, > production, and productivity. Although Douglas did not draw the parallel or > discuss its significance, he presented data showing that from 1899 to 1923, > the real earnings of manufacturing wage-earners had risen 28 per cent > whereas their per capita output or productivity had increased 52 per cent. > Kuczynski then published a piece in the *Finanzpolitische Korrespondenz*, > which his father edited, in which he methodologically went a step beyond > Douglas: by dividing the index of real wages by the index of production, he > generated an index of “the share of industrial workers in the total product > of industry.” This “social standard of living,” which Kuczynski conceded > was very rough and in need of refinements, had declined by 50 per cent > between the turn of the century and World War I and remained stagnant > thereafter. > > In the course of re-reading Douglas on the boat to the United States, a > “fundamental idea” dawned on Kuczynski -- namely, that the relationship > between production and real wages was nothing but Marx’s idea of relative > wages. Whereas only bourgeois theorists and especially social-democratic > revisionists contested Marx’s ‘“theory of absolute immiseration,’” relative > immiseration seemed, once the absolute variant was accepted, > self-explanatory. The reason that no one had thought of calculating > relative wages was the lack of relevant data. When Kuczynski realized on > the boat that statistics recently published in the United States had made > such calculations possible, he arrived in Washington with his “tongue > hanging out.” In November 1926, two months after his arrival, he published > two more articles in his father’s journal on relative wages, which were > both suffused with a primitive version of ameliorative underconsumptionism. > In one, expressly referring to Marx’s distinction between real and social > standards of living, he loosely defined the latter as (wage-working) > consumers’ share of the national product, In the other he presented the > first fruits of his calculations of relative wages in several industries as > the result of dividing real wages (measured both by a cost of living index > and an index of wholesale prices of the particular industry) by > productivity. In 1927 and 1928, Kuczynski published additional articles on > the same subject in Germany until the relative wage “had again found its > place as a category of Marxist doctrine." > > While refurbishing Marxism, Kuczynski also performed a much more > spectacular feat: ventriloquizing President Green. Although Frey’s efforts > at the 1925 AFL convention had “given a great movement a great idea,” > Kuczynski was disappointed that the Federation had “forgotten” about > computing the worker’s share of the product or implementing the new > principle. To be sure, Kuczynski overstated his own and underestimated the > AFL’s initiative: immediately after the Atlantic City convention, The New > York Times had published an interview with Green in which he anticipated by > a year Kuczynski’s call for a workers’ share index. Specifically, Green > stated that the AFL should do research to show workers and the public “how > the purchasing power of wages has varied . . . and what relation that curve > bears to the output per worker.” > > > -- > Cheers, > > Tom Walker (Sandwichman) > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > > > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l > > -- Cheers, Tom Walker (Sandwichman)
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