What is meant by productivity, the contradiction it creates, and the great money trick?

https://irs.princeton.edu/sites/irs/files/event/uploads/robots_and_jobs_march_3.17.2017_final.pdf This new study suggests for every automated task in a particular area of automation, 6 jobs were lost over the 20 year study period (1993-2007) and a correlated depressing of wages. (They limited the study period to before the crisis it seems to disentangle the effect that the crisis had on depressing wages) The great money trick is a reference to a depiction in the 1908 book by Robert Tressell - Ragged Trousered Philanthropist - http://www.freeclassicebooks.com/Robert Tressell/The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists.pdf

Official response from submitted

Productivity simply refers to the quantity of output a worker 's labor generates per unit of time (an hour, a week, a year, etc.). The "money trick" refers to how capitalism organizes and distributes the fruits of rising productivity (i.e. a rising quantity of output per unit of workers' labor efforts over time). Basically the capitalist organization works to raise the productivity of labor in order to generate an increase in the portion of workers' outputs that is taken or appropriated from them as capitalist's profits. As is usually the case in capitalism, the more the capitalist can take of the rising productivity, the less is given to the worker. In recent decades in the US, nearly all of the gains in productivity ended up in capitalists's pockets as rising profits, while workers wages stagnated. This was and remains a clear, present-day illustration of what Robert Tressell's book described in 1908 and what Marx analyzed so clearly in 1867.


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  • j b
    commented 2017-04-01 04:41:21 -0400
    so, since productivity is abstracted from value it wouldn’t be easy to relate productivity to workers pay as falsely written in this article… , https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/mar/25/brexit-eu-nationals-exodus-jobs-recruitment

    Instead there are potentially many different types of productivity that an employer could target,- (some strategies to increase production and others to reduce hours)
    …but the likely default position for an employer is to reduce cost due to the profit drive as it is maybe a preferred option than over-production when they know there isn’t a well reimbursed workforce to buy there produce.
    Are there any examples of why employers might adopt increased production over reducing hours?

    Increase productivity is the buzz phrase in Britain at the moment, but i suspect this is a code word for disciplining workers.
  • j b
    tagged this with Important 2017-04-01 04:41:20 -0400
  • Richard Wolff
    responded with submitted 2017-03-31 09:04:11 -0400
  • j b
    published this page in Ask Prof. Wolff 2017-03-31 03:23:57 -0400

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