Brad DeLong on Productivity Growth and Kalecki

by Dollars and Sense

Here's a post from Brad DeLong's blog, with DeLong using lots of all-caps and some abbreviations I can't figure out (what's "Z" for? Zounds? Zowie?--but I get the gist), and revising his view of the great Polish Marxist economist Michal Kalecki (he revised the spelling of Kalecki's first name, too, I noticed).

I am not quite sure why he's so surprised--productivity has to do with output per worker, and lots of people have been fired, and the ones who haven't are worried about losing their jobs. So--stands to reason. I guess it's that the growth is *so* large. Hat-tip to Larry P.

ZOMFG WTF!!!!! 9.5% THIRD QUARTER PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH NUMBER!!!!

I WAS EXPECTING A 6% PRODUCTIVITY GROWTH QUARTER, BUT THIS IS RIDICULOUS!!!

Productivity increased 9.5 percent in the nonfarm business sector during the third quarter of 2009 as unit labor costs fell 5.2 percent (seasonally adjusted annual rates). In manufacturing, productivity increased 13.6 percent while unit labor costs fell 7.1 percent...

Back in the 1930s there was a Polish Marxist economist, Michel Kalecki, who argued that recessions were functional for the ruling class and for capitalism because they created excess supply of labor, forced workers to work harder to keep their jobs, and so produced a rise in the rate of relative surplus-value.

For thirty years, ever since I got into this business, I have been mocking Michel Kalecki. I have been pointing out that recessions see a much sharper fall in profits than in wages. I have been saying that the pace of work slows in recessions--that employers are more concerned with keeping valuable employees in their value chains than using a temporary high level of unemployment to squeeze greater work effort out of their workers.

Read the original post.

Labels: Brad DeLong, Michal Kalecki, productivity, unemployment

 

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11/05/2009 06:24:00 PM