#reserve army

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Comité de recrutement de la Réserve," Le Soleil. October 24, 1942. Page 3. ---- Photographie prise hier après-midi aux quartiers généraux du district militaire No 5. lors de la 1ère réunion du Comité civil en aide au recrutement de l'armée de réserve, De gauche droite: le colonel G.-E.-A. DUPUIS, officier commandant du 35e Groupe Brigade de réserve le lieut-colonel J.-A.-Y. BOUCHARD et monsieur R.-P. KERNAN, présidents conjoints du comité: le lieut-colonel R.-F. STANTON. officier de liaison pour les unités de réserve: monsieur A.-V. De VAELE. Debout: monsieur ARMAND VIAU, monsieur W. LEIGHTON, secrétaires du comité: monsieur A.-C. PICARD, vice-président et directeur-général de la Rock City Tobacco Company, et monsieur GERARD PICARD, secrétaire de la Fédération des travailleurs catholiques. Monsieur MORTON qui fait aussi partie du comité n’apparaît pas sur cette photo,

[yfneconomist]

What Krugman doesn’t say is WHY Republicans hate the idea of the government providing an effective universal safety net such as medicare: it reduces the power of corporations to discipline their workforce. If seniors have well-funded Social Security and Medicare, they won’t need to work into their retirement years, reducing the ranks of the unemployed and the pressure on the employed to do whatever it takes to keep that job.

[fyeahcomps-blog]

PE 1 Jan 2010 Q4: COMMENTZ

4. “The reserve army of labor plays an important role in three parts of Marxist theory: the theory of appropriation of surplus value, the theory of capital accumulation, and crisis theory.” Discuss. 

reserve army of labor: strategic levels of unemployment amongst the working class

theory of appropriation of surplus value: reserve army allows for capitalist to set the wage (i.e. the price of labor power, its exchange value) lower than its use value, giving rise to surplus value in the production process which is then appropriated by the capitalist. without other willing workers wanting to take over the jobs, then solidarity amongst workers isn't as much of a worry for the capitalist. 

theory of capital accumulation: the capitalist can use surplus created in the work process to continue purchasing more means of production; better technology or just more of it then has a tendency to replace labor by workers as the organic composition of capital increases. by replacing labor with capital, this increases the level of the reserve army and balances out the expenditure on C by lowering V (labor power) as the reserve army increases, lowering wages. 

crisis theory: the reserve army plays a critical role in crises of capitalism. if the reserve army becomes too small, then the wage V (labor power) may increase causing a downturn in the profit rate and total surplus created. this is problematic for the capitalist. on the other hand, if the reserve army is too big then V may be so low that the workers themselves do not have enough wages to purchase the commodities produced, leading to a realization crisis (or insufficient aggregate demand) for the capitalists.