File spoon-archives/marxism.archive/marxism_1995/95-03-31.000, message 26


Date: Thu, 2 Mar 1995 19:49:20 -0800
From: Tom Condit <tomcondit-AT-igc.apc.org>
Subject: Inflation


Dear comrades:

I'm posting the text of a leaflet on inflation and the so-called
"wage spiral" produced by the Labor Committee of the Los Angeles
Peace & Freedom Party. This is intended to be a propaganda
leaflet of the type put on literature tables, rather than an
agitational leaflet for mass distribution.  Needless to say, we'd
like it to be factually and theoretically "correct" insofar as
possible.

In reading over the leaflet, I have an uneasy feeling that
something isn't quite right, but I'm not sure what and I don't
know whether it's just a stylistic problem.  Any expert
criticisms?

I should say that the authors are "ordinary" (whatever that
means) rank and file workers in Los Angeles.  I live in the San
Francisco Bay Area myself, so I don't know the full composition
of the committee, but I know that it includes at least one member
each of the Communist Party, Socialist Party and Solidarity, and
an ex-member of the Internationalist Workers Party (Fourth
Int'l), the U.S. "Morenoite" group.  They're not there as
representatives of their parties but as individuals.  if we're
ever going to have left unity in this country (or anywhere), this
type of work on joint projects, rather than grandiose unity
conferences, is where it's going to come from.

Please direct any comments to me at tomcondit-AT-igc.apc.org.

Thanks in advance,

Tom Condit

***

"The Wage-Spiral Theory"
A new ideological assault upon Labor and the working class

By L.A. County Peace & Freedom Party Labor Committee

Alan Greenspan, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, has stated
repeatedly in recent months his opinion that with underemployment
dropping below 7% brakes should be applied to the economic
engine. He warns that if the official unemployment rate should
fall below 6.2% the economy will "overheat" and lead to a rise in
the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and then, Greenspan says, interest
rates should be hiked to "slow the rate of growth.

The Clinton Administration agrees in principle but would set the
rate of considered "healthy" unemployment at a slightly different
mark. Laura D'Andrea Tyson, Chair of the President's Council of
Economic Advisors stated, "Once source of inflation could be the
rate of growth of unit labor cost...but unit labor costs have
been decelerating, not accelerating..." She goes on to say,


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