Labour market

Jacobzone, S. (2000), Pharmaceutical policies in OECD countries reconciling social and industrial goals , labour market and social policy occasional paper no 40, Paris OECD. 

Mongiovi, G. (1991) Keynes, Sraffa and the labour market , Review of Political Economy, 3(1) 25-42. 

Jacobzone, S. 2000. Pharmaceutical Policies in OECD Countries Reconciling Social and Industrial Goals. Labour Market and Social Policy. Occasional Paper No. 40. Paris OECD. 

Vol. 568 M. Caliendo, Microeconometric Evaluation of Labour Market Policies. XVII, 258 pages. 2006. 

Bovenberg, A.L., van der Ploeg, F., 1994. Environmental policy, pubhc finance and the labour market in a second-best world. Journal of Public Economics 55, 349-390. 

The term (severe) disability was defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 1980. It contains guidelines for protecting severely disabled persons by law. The principle of abstract damage assessment applies when determining the degree of disability. A small part of the labour market should be kept open for severely disabled persons. 

I shall rely heavily on the models of labour-market exploitation offered by John Roemer. These appear to me faithful to the central intuitions in Capital, white also sufTidently precise to allow us to detect and discuss problems that could not come to the surface in Marx s own analysis. In his book, Roemer offers one model in which the agents minimize their labour time subject to a constraint on consumption ("a capitalist subsistence economy") and one in which they maximize their revenue subject to a constraint on their labour time ("a capitalist accumulation econom/ ). In what follows 1 focus mainly on the latter, which is closer to actual capitalist economies. 

Imagine a set of individuals all equipped with the same amount of labour-power (of the same skill), but differently endowed with other factors of production. In addition to the individuals we must postulate the presence of a state that guarantees property rights and enforces contracts. There are well-derined techniques for producing all goods except labour-power which is assumed to be the only non-produdble good. Since there is a labour market,... 

On the other hand there can be no doubt that imperfections of competition are massively important in actual capitalist economies, and that the Marxist theory of exploitation ultimately will have to consider the implications of this fact. 1 shall not here pursue the issue, but indicate where some further discussions are found. In 4.1.4 I consider collective bargaining as a determinant of the rate of exploitation. In particular, I discuss a passage from Capital III that has been adduced as evidence that Marx believed the wage bargain to rest on bilateral monopoly. In 4.3.3 I propose a distinction between force and coercion in the labour market, the latter involving the exercise of (economic) power. And in 6.2.1 I discuss how capitalist divide-and-conquer tactics may also affect the rate of exploitation. 

Exploitation can arise in several markets. In an analysis of class that also applies to exploitation, Weber wrote that "the struggle in which class situations are effective has progressively shifted from consumption credit toward, first, competitive struggles in the commodity market and then toward wage disputes on the labour market". Roemer similarly distinguishes between exploitation arising in labour markets, commodity... 

I have already discussed exploitation through the labour market as the canonical form of exploitation, yet some further nuances may be added. In Roemer-like models capitalists exploit workers by virtue of their control over capital goods, but this is not the only source of capitalist exploitation. Capitalists can also exploit workers by virtue of the isolation and lack of organization of the iatter. Consider the following passage from the chapter in Capitat / on "Cooperation" ... 

In many traditional societies, exploitation through the credit market has been the central form of surplus-labour extraction. Roemer has shown that credit market exploitation and labour market exploitation are isomorphic in a precise sense, thus confirming the neoclassical adage that it does not matter whether capital employs labour or labour capital. Marx makes essentially the same statement in The Class Struggles in France ... 

Simple commodity production is a more fragile structure. As explained in 4.1.3, with unequal endowment of resources this system would involve exploitation without class formation, thus showing the logical separability of these two phenomena. Marx argued that in actual cases a society based on simple commodity production would soon develop a credit market or a labour market, thus transforming it into capitalism or one of the transitional forms discussed below. Whereas formerly all worked for themselves with their own capital, there now emerge buyers... 

The general trend towards activation has been one of the major issues in recent welfare and labour market reforms in Europe and the US. In many of these countries this issue has dominated the socio-economic and legal debate. Despite considerable variation across national models with respect to the scope and intensity of activation, it is evident that redefining the link between social protection and labour market policies on the one hand and employment on the other has been a common issue in labour market reforms. 

Activation does not necessarily imply benefit cuts or the introduction of new active labour market policy schemes, but crucial is the fact that benefit receipt is made more conditional upon job search activities, acceptance of available job offers or participation in active labour market policy schemes both in formal terms and actual implementation. First movers in the field of activation were the Anglo-Saxon welfare systems of the United States and the UK, followed by Denmark, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Germany. More recently, France and Sweden have been catching up. It thus seems fair to say that activation has now become a common orientation in labour market and social policies that not only spreads across countries but also covers more and more benefit schemes. 

On the macro level, the effect of activation policies is largely mediated through the labour market environment, but activation strategies are designed to lower unemployment or non-employment, raise overall employment and improve the fiscal balance of the welfare state at least in the long run. Hence, increasing labour market entry and participation is the major concern of activation policies, and for this purpose options of unconditional benefit receipt for the working-age population are to be closed. 

Duration and level of benefits 1. Classical active labour market ... 

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