Monday 24 December 2018

Kalecki on High Wages — High Employment, Low Wages — Low Employment

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Why has economics split up into microeconomics and macroeconomics. Because it was discovered that what is true for an element, even all elements, of a system may not be true for the system. The need for a field of study separate from microeconomics became clear in the face of fallacies of composition such as these two:

The paradox of thrift: If I save a lot, I will become more wealthy. If everyone saves a lot, all will become less wealthy. For aggregate demand will sink, companies will sell less, have poorer prospects, reduce investment and employment. Everyone's income is lower; there is less money to be saved. 

The paradox of high wages leading to high employment: If everyone including wage earners have a higher income, more will be spent, companies sell more, invest more, employ more at higher wages — if part of the growth in productivity is passed on to wage earners whose higher propensity to spent (than the very rich) helps boost aggregate (effective) demand. 

Writes Ramanan:

… a wage rise showing an increase in the power of the trade unions leads-contrary to the precepts of classical economics-to an increase in employment. Conversely, a fall in wages showing a weakening in their bargaining power leads to a decline in employment. The weakness of trade unions in a depression manifested in permitting wage cuts contributes to the deepening of unemployment rather than to relieving it. 
– Michal Kalecki, 1971 in Class Struggle And The Distribution Of National Income, in Collected Works Of Michal Kalecki, Volume II. Capitalism: Economic Dynamics, 

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