tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312853715123370916.post715662867344658990..comments2024-03-17T00:10:44.022+00:00Comments on From Arse To Elbow: The Significance of TrivialityDavid Timoneyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03568348438980023320noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312853715123370916.post-91478789248478333832013-06-21T10:56:20.563+01:002013-06-21T10:56:20.563+01:00As a follow-up ... Paul Krugman has an article in ...As a follow-up ... Paul Krugman has an article in the NYT today that discusses the low level of capital investment in terms of <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/21/opinion/krugman-profits-without-production.html" rel="nofollow">monopoly rents</a>. Those monopolies (Apple, Google etc) are increasingly the product of technology.<br />David Timoneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03568348438980023320noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5312853715123370916.post-54413065864054270672013-06-20T19:40:50.837+01:002013-06-20T19:40:50.837+01:00[Comment originally posted while Google+ comments ...[Comment originally posted while Google+ comments were turned on. Turning this off, as I have now done, causes the comment to disappear on Blogger, so I've reposted along with my reply]<br /><br />-------------------------------<br /><br />From ArthurBough:<br /><br />David,<br /><br />Usual high quality blogging. However, I'm not sure about a couple of points. Firstly, I think there is a good possibility that the use of these new technologies WILL be to replace high paid, high skilled jobs where possible. They have always been the ones Capital has had most incentive to deskill, because they represent the greatest savings for each individual capital. I think Aglietta's view that Neo-Fordism would be about precisely that in relation to a series of service provision is exactly what we see, and is the real material force behind privatisation. After all, Capital can deal with the low paid, low skilled work by a variety of methods - absolute surplus value, low paid immigrant workers, off-shoring of production to low wage economies etc.<br /><br />I also don't agree with the view of a "growing dearth of capital investment opportunities, which has in turn led to more and more capital being pumped into property and resource speculation, incidentally expanding financial markets faster than the fixed capital base."<br /><br />I think there has been, and continues to be no end of profitable investment opportunities. When I think about all of the innovations that have occurred over the last 20 years, I think they have been staggering compared even with some of the most vibrant periods of industrial history. That is why in the first 10 years of this century the output of goods and services was equal to 25%, of the total for Man's entire history!!! It is not that there has been a shortage of investment opportunities that has led to a build up of huge money hoards that have found their way into blowing up asset price bubbles, but the fact that the rate and volume of profit over the last 30 years has been so huge, and in part that itself has been a function of the massive rise in productivity, and the shortening of the turnover period of capital.<br /><br />The notion that current innovations are not significant compared to those of the past is driven by the unthinking adherence to what is thought to be Leninist orthodoxy, that Capitalism is in its death throes, and therefore incapable of dynamism, and further revolutionising of the productive forces.<br /><br />I prefer to use the method of Marx, Engels and Lenin, and look at the facts first, and then analyse the reality rather than to simply try to make the facts fit some 90 year old mantra.<br /><br />-------------------------------<br /><br />Reply from Dave Timoney:<br /><br />Boffy,<br /><br />I agree that technology will replace high-pay/high-skill jobs, I just think it will start with the low-pay/low-skill roles first. As you note, automating the former would actually deliver the greatest benefit to capital, but we need to factor in the political power of that bloc, i.e. the middle class, to delay and divert the process.<br /><br />Re the dearth of invetsment opportunities, this is (paradoxically) the product of the staggering advances in technology and productivity. As profit (the returns to capital) has expanded, it has become more difficult to recycle. Not because there is a decline in the quantum of opportunities - quite the reverse - but because the unit cost has plummeted.<br /><br />The property bubble is symptomatic of profit not finding sufficient productive opportunities, as much as it is of relative asset class returns.David Timoneyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03568348438980023320noreply@blogger.com