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- Title
A Microeconomic Reconstruction of Marx's Labour Market Theory.
- Authors
Mumy, Gene E.
- Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to show that there is a more consistent implied microeconomic model of wage and hours determination in Marx's Capital than is usually recognized. The argument is that, rather than merely assuming wages equal to an exogenously given value of labour-power, Marx's labour market model actually describes how the market evolves to a lower-bound frontier of wages as a function of hours worked. This frontier is the real-wage equivalent of the value of labour-power, and is generated from average-cost-minimizing considerations by business firms. Likewise, the same market process also determines hours, rather than having them depend on some primitive level of class struggle. Labour market outcomes depend on worker preferences over wages and hours, thus giving rise to political class struggle over hours when labour market outcomes evolve in utility-reducing ways.
- Subjects
MATHEMATICAL models of economics; WAGES; WORKING hours; LABOR market; MARXIAN economics
- Publication
Economica, 1990, Vol 57, Issue 225, p91
- ISSN
0013-0427
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2554083