Re: Speed up!
I haven't been following the discussion closely, but on a tangent, the 35 hours week introduced by the socialist in France has had a favourable outcome for the white collor and a not so good outcome for the blue collor. Becuse employers demanded an intensification of the work effort. in short some have the right to be lazy and thers don't. --- Devine, James [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I wrote: so we need to think critically. so what's new? Tom writes: Commodity fetishism isn't new. Didn't somebody already write something about that once? Seriously though, is fetishism only a danger when it is eulogistic? I think not. Talking about speed-up (an increasing intensity of labor, as Marx would call it) is hardly eulogistic or fetishistic. In fact, the article was talking specifically about the hidden realm that is usually masked by commodity fetishism and the realm of freedom, equality, and Bentham that NC economists emphasize. I haven't the slightest idea how the concept of commodity fetishism is relevant to the article I posted. so the folks who slave away producing Nikes for dollars a day under poor conditions are engaging in discourse? Thats just it, Jim. It ain't the dollars making them slave away. It's the social relationship, which are relations between people disguised as relations between things. The alarm that I am trying to sound is about OUR (and it happens to me, too) tendency to give theoretical lip service to a level of analysis, commodity fetishism, that we then cavalierly dispose of when engaging empirical facts. Speed up is the cause of which productivity is the effect? Oh yeah? UNDER WHAT SPECIFIC CONDITIONS? I say NOT THESE! NOT THESE CONDITIONS! We have a question here, not a ready made answer. We have a whole suite of urgent questions that the proverbial no one wants to ask because the proverbial everyone thinks the answer is self evident. I really don't know where this comes from, why you're on _my_ case. _Of course_ it's capitalism's version of labor productivity that is raised when speed-up occurs (and I never said otherwise). That is, it's _saleable_ commodities produced per hour that is raised (ceteris paribus) when there's a speed-up. In fact, it's only the existence of saleable commodities that allows the aggregation of outputs so we can have some reasonable estimate of the numerator. However, we could think of another way to measure of labor productivity, which might be measureable, at least as a second approximation: labor productivity = (saleable output + workers' gains in pleasure during time the job - external costs to the environment and the like)/labor hours hired. If measured this way, labor productivity may fall with speed-up. JD __ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! - Official partner of 2002 FIFA World Cup http://fifaworldcup.yahoo.com
Re: Speed up!
I sense, Jim, that you and I basically agree about the empirical and methodological issues regarding productivity. Where we differ, perhaps, in is what I consider to be the urgency of the excluded and largely unexamined remainder. You mention Q/LP as an effort to get _some idea_ of what's going on. I agree but caution that some idea all too readily calcifies into the idea. Let's say that at one point some idea describes 50% of the phenomenon and 75% of what drives change. At that point some idea gives a pretty good picture. Then let's say at a later date some idea describes 40% of the phenomenon but only 25% of what's driving change. At that later point some idea has become more of an obstacle to understanding than an aid. Jim wrote: all I would say is that _all else equal_ speed-up _leads to_ productivity gains. 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. The easiest way to test the economy is a machine metaphor is to propose another metaphor. Let's say the economy is a discourse (not economics, but the economy). Under rules of discourse, there may well be circumstances in which a greater intensity and/or duration of messages contributes to increased understanding or meaning. Obviously, there are other circumstances where the proliferation of messages detracts from understanding. Tom Walker 604 255 4812
Re: Speed up!
Title: Re: Speed up! Tom Walker writes:I sense, Jim, that you and I basically agree about the empirical and methodological issues regarding productivity. Where we differ, perhaps, in is what I consider to be the urgency of the excluded and largely unexamined remainder. You mention Q/LP as an effort to get _some idea_ of what's going on. I agree but caution that some idea all too readily calcifies into the idea. Let's say that at one point some idea describes 50% of the phenomenon and 75% of what drives change. At that point some idea gives a pretty good picture. Then let's say at a later date some idea describes 40% of the phenomenon but only 25% of what's driving change. At that later point some idea has become more of an obstacle to understanding than an aid. so we need to think critically. so what's new? I wrote: all I would say is that _all else equal_ speed-up _leads to_ productivity gains. 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. The easiest way to test the economy is a machine metaphor is to propose another metaphor. Let's say the economy is a discourse (not economics, but the economy). Under rules of discourse, there may well be circumstances in which a greater intensity and/or duration of messages contributes to increased understanding or meaning. Obviously, there are other circumstances where the proliferation of messages detracts from understanding. so the folks who slave away producing Nikes for dollars a day under poor conditions are engaging in discourse? JD
Re: Re: Speed up!
Re: Speed up! - Original Message - From: Devine, James The easiest way to test the economy is a machine metaphor is to propose another metaphor. Let's say the economy is a discourse (not economics, but the economy). Under rules of discourse, there may well be circumstances in which a greater intensity and/or duration of messages contributes to increased understanding or meaning. Obviously, there are other circumstances where the proliferation of messages detracts from understanding. so the folks who slave away producing Nikes for dollars a day under poor conditions are engaging in discourse? JD === Nay, *excluded* from discourse due to command and control communication structures within firms. Ian
Re: Speed up!
On Sat, 22 Jun 2002, Devine, James wrote: so we need to think critically. so what's new? Commodity fetishism isn't new. Didn't somebody already write something about that once? Seriously though, is fetishism only a danger when it is eulogistic? I think not. so the folks who slave away producing Nikes for dollars a day under poor conditions are engaging in discourse? Thats just it, Jim. It ain't the dollars making them slave away. It's the social relationship, which are relations between people disguised as relations between things. The alarm that I am trying to sound is about OUR (and it happens to me, too) tendency to give theoretical lip service to a level of analysis, commodity fetishism, that we then cavalierly dispose of when engaging empirical facts. Speed up is the cause of which productivity is the effect? Oh yeah? UNDER WHAT SPECIFIC CONDITIONS? I say NOT THESE! NOT THESE CONDITIONS! We have a question here, not a ready made answer. We have a whole suite of urgent questions that the proverbial no one wants to ask because the proverbial everyone thinks the answer is self evident.
Re: Speed up!
I'm a bit slow in responding but it occurs to me that we've got a subtle post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy in the obvious assumption that speed up and increased workloads are the cause of (or even contribute to) productivity increases. What if... Well, what if the productivity increases come from outside the dynamic of intensity and duration of labour, qua the old 1867 book? It is a what if scenario that was anticipated in a slightly older book called the Grundrisse. What if the speed up and increased workload is a RESPONSE to the productivity increases and moreover, what if it is a conditioned response -- a reflex -- that doesn't add anything to the productivity increase and perhaps dampens it? What if all that hard work is a cargo cult ritual performed to familiarize an otherwise incongruous phenomenon? I'm not about to offer evidence for these counter propositions because there is no evidence for either argument. We are not dealing with a double-blind control group experiment. There is simply a consensus for the conventional view and it is a consensus that spans right and left, with disagreement only about whether or not it is a good thing. I object. If we put aside the propter hoc fallacy it would be possible to entertain a very plausible explanation about the ideological need to explain social productivity gains in terms of individual effort. The less that productivity gains are a result of individual effort the greater is the ideological need to assert that they are. Need for Speed Has Workers Seething Labor: Production pace is emerging as a top health concern for low-wage employees. By NANCY CLEELAND Times Staff Writer June 19 2002 A decade-long obsession with productivity has been healthy for the corporate bottom line, but workers say they are paying for it with exhaustion and pain... http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-speedup19jun19.story Jim Devine commented: hey, didn't I read about this in some old book, published in 1867? Tom Walker 604 255 4812
re: Speed up!
Title: re: Speed up! Tom Walker writes: I'm a bit slow in responding but it occurs to me that we've got a subtle post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy in the obvious assumption that speed up and increased workloads are the cause of (or even contribute to) productivity increases. What if... Well, what if the productivity increases come from outside the dynamic of intensity and duration of labour, qua the old 1867 book? It is a what if scenario that was anticipated in a slightly older book called the Grundrisse. It's true that the older book has more emphasis on intensity (speed-up), while CAPITAL emphasizes stretch-out. In terms of simple definition of labor productivity per year labor productivity = (output per year)/(sale of hours of labor-power per year) = Q/LP Q/LP = (Q/labor effort)(labor effort/LP) the LAT article is about the rise of labor effort per hour of labor-power sold (speed-up). Marx's main concern in CAPITAL was with the rise in LP relative to the total time available to workers (stretch-out). NC economics mostly concerns the rise of output per ounce of labor effort (the effectiveness of labor), emphasizing technical causes. What if the speed up and increased workload is a RESPONSE to the productivity increases I don't understand this. By the definition above, speed-up raises labor productivity. and moreover, what if it is a conditioned response -- a reflex -- that doesn't add anything to the productivity increase and perhaps dampens it? What if all that hard work is a cargo cult ritual performed to familiarize an otherwise incongruous phenomenon? I wouldn't think of this as a cargo cult but as a form of capitalist irrationality: capitalists have been known to speed up work in a way that actually hurts labor effectiveness (Q/effort). JD
Re: Speed up!
Papa Karl deals admirably with both duration and intensity in Capital, vol. I. Chris Nyland reviewed Marx's position back in the late 1980s. I won't recapitulate because it's somewhat beside my point. First of all, I would consider productivity to be something measured by a rubber yardstick. An hour of socially necessary labour time is an hour of socially necessary labour time is an hour of socially necessary labour time. Presumably increases in physical unit output per hour of labour time would be reflected in both the numerator and denominator of the productivity equation, with the difference being restricted to changes in the rate of surplus value. We know this is not the way it is done. Therefore let's suggest that productivity growth also involves a tacit comparison between a historical determination of value and a current one. Strictly speaking, productivity growth doesn't compare apples to apples (leaving aside the question of whether they are good apples or bad apples). Now that I've made THAT perfectly clear ;-)... what I want to say in my defense is that what I say may not be perfectly clear because the relationship we are talking about is itself not perfectly clear. I am simply trying to dispell an illusion of clarity. That illusion of clarity prevents us from even thinking about these matters. We speak about productivity AS IF it can be expressed by a simple equation, Q/LP that _assumes_ precisely what needs to be questioned. I don't have the answer to my what if question but I do have the question. 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. 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. 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 wrote, What if the speed up and increased workload is a RESPONSE to the productivity increases Jim Devine wrote, I don't understand this. By the definition above, speed-up raises labor productivity. I wrote, and moreover, what if it is a conditioned response -- a reflex -- that doesn't add anything to the productivity increase and perhaps dampens it? What if all that hard work is a cargo cult ritual performed to familiarize an otherwise incongruous phenomenon? Jim Devine wrote, I wouldn't think of this as a cargo cult but as a form of capitalist irrationality: capitalists have been known to speed up work in a way that actually hurts labor effectiveness (Q/effort). Tom Walker 604 255 4812
RE: Re: Speed up!
Title: RE: [PEN-L:27101] Re: Speed up! 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
