tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post6506634663857753867..comments2024-03-19T02:17:41.699-04:00Comments on The Philosopher's Stone: DEEP THOUGHTS ON AN EMPTY STOMACHRobert Paul Wolffhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-13784239976947342932014-02-21T03:05:30.656-05:002014-02-21T03:05:30.656-05:00I enjoyed your article and I started your Understa...I enjoyed your article and I started your Understanding Marx; but I had some health and personal problems and had to stop for a while.<br /><br />Have you made progress with Kliman's book?Magpiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07528637318288802178noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-88807199475503843162014-02-20T07:23:20.122-05:002014-02-20T07:23:20.122-05:00Magpie, thank you for the link. It is a very inte...Magpie, thank you for the link. It is a very interesting piece, and adds one more dimension to the ways in which labor is treated theoretically as a commodity like any other while in fact it is not at all like other "commodities." That is the idea I was trying to get at in my essay "A critique and Reinterpretation of the Labor Theory of Value."Robert Paul Wolffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11970360952872431856noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-53951625623365141242014-02-20T00:35:20.049-05:002014-02-20T00:35:20.049-05:00@GTChristie and all
Yes, Paul Krugman has written...@GTChristie and all<br /><br />Yes, Paul Krugman has written a lot on inequality and, to his credit, he may have been the first public intellectual to bring the subject to the fore, at least in the U.S.<br /><br />Unfortunately, he has been rather inconsistent on his opinions.<br /><br />----------<br /><br />Mike Konczal is regarded as a knowledgeable and serious commentator on economic issues in the U.S. Maybe you guys would find interesting his article for the New Republic, on wage manipulation in Silicon Valley:<br /><br />http://www.newrepublic.com/article/116608/silicon-valley-labor-scandals-prove-minimum-wage-hikes-dont-cost-jobsMagpiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07528637318288802178noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-20882974515999004062014-02-17T23:07:29.862-05:002014-02-17T23:07:29.862-05:00http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/08/rise-o...http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/08/rise-of-the-robots/<br /><br />There may be some older Krugman articles on impact of automation, but this is his latest take as far as I know (he has changed his views at some point, I am told)<br /><br />But he's saying in this article pretty much what you are saying, especially that automation has skewed the possibilities for upward mobility in income (or reduced income disparity) so badly that the ordinary worker (including the university educated worker) is becoming superfluous. GTChristiehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14390368105725901371noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-23731991064711366922014-02-17T20:57:49.250-05:002014-02-17T20:57:49.250-05:00While I agree with you for the most part, Professo...While I agree with you for the most part, Professor Wolf, I think you could probably do to put more emphasis on something brought up in your last point, which is that the economy is changing (and has been changing for the last twenty to thirty years) in ways that go beyond the 19th century conception of capitalism. <br /><br />Simply put (and it will have to be, because as a non-economist I can't pretend to have a particularly deep understanding of how this all works) since the end of the Glass-Steagall act, most, if not all, the major growth in the economy has been made in a sector of Wall Street that has little to do with material production. Along with the increased specialization of finance you get things like fast as light trading that can only be done by computer programs, the buying of sub-prime mortgages which are passed around and made profitable until someone realizes that they're actually worthless, and so on. It's why Mitt Romney made so much at Bain by taking over companies, making them look good to investors, and selling them to huge profits while the companies them selves often failed because they had become atrophied versions of what they were before. It's how we get to the extreme inequality between the 1% and everyone else. <br /><br />All of this can be extrapolated from what you've said, of course, and it may just be my extreme dissatisfaction with the state of things that leads me to emphasize this point. Still, I can't help but note how absurdly strange our economy is, and how devastating that seems to have made it. Michaelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05781744385645937568noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-56488622602780466382014-02-17T18:37:21.511-05:002014-02-17T18:37:21.511-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15335140323209251086noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5687347459208158501.post-72459807116356412132014-02-17T18:36:36.814-05:002014-02-17T18:36:36.814-05:00I believe you made an excellent synthesis of the p...I believe you made an excellent synthesis of the paradoxes.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15335140323209251086noreply@blogger.com