I see the BBC is pumping out its usual ruling class crap about the alleged shortage of workers in the UK, Spain etc etc. This is just a particular variant of the general garbage the BBC pumps out about labour markets and wages. The BBC has been crowing for 20 years about our deregulated, flexible labour markets. According to the bourgeois ruling class propagandists the labour market is a market just like any other-labour is a commodity whose price is to be determined by supply and demand and behind the demand for labour we have the famous bourgeois marginal productivity theory much favoured by the BBC. A "shortage" merely indicates that the capitalists are not in equilibrium-they have compared the marginal product of labour with the wage rate and found that at the current real wage the workers add more to their output than they cost. The capitalists can have all the workers they require at the market clearing wage. If they are short of workers it is because they are offering less than the market clearing wage and we all knopw what fans the BBC are of wage movements to clear labour markets as long as it is in the downwards direction. The capitalists could add to their profits by taking on extra workers at the current wage rate until equilibrium is restored when the wage equals the marginal product ie a fall in the marginal product of labour as workers are added until the lower marginal product equals the wage rate. If no more workers are to be found then the equilibrium is restored by a rise in wages until the wage reaches the value of the marginal product. So a "shortage of labour" merely signifies that real wages are too low. Given the rise in the average productivity and marginal productivity of labour over time then real wages must constantly rise or the capitalists would always be "short of labour". The BBC here tries not to mention wages at all and instead we have a manpower planning type of economy that requires certain numbers of certain types of workers. The BBC at this point produces a carefully selected bourgeois economist who will scream about the need for immigrants. The bourgeois wish to treat labour power as a commodity but they wish to exempt it from the laws of supply and demand which determine the prices of commodities-Karl Marx. The BBC has never run a story that said real wages need to rise to clear labour markets. So again the bourgeois can have all the workers they want at the market clearing wage. Does this cause inflation ? Not a bit!. According to the bourgeois own theory the output of the economy is divided into wages and profits according to the marginal contribution to the output by the factors of production and the relative wages are determined by the relative contributions of the skilled and unskilled. Profits are not added onto wages and the selling prices and the general prices level are not arrived at. If the capitalist could raise their prices whenever they so chose then they would do so anyway whether wages had risen or not-Karl Marx. The general price level and its rate of change is determined by the stock of money. Here are a few facts the BBC idiot reporters appear to have missed. The profit fraction of the output and the rate of return on capital has doubled in the last 20 years. The real wage of the top1% has tripled in 20 years. The real wage of the lowest 10% of workers has not increased in 20 years. The real wage of the working class has only increased at half the rate of the rise in productivity in the last 20 years.The relative wage of the unskilled in the UK has been falling for 20 years. So we have a fall in the wage fraction of the output and within the wage fraction a fall in the part of that received by the lowpaid and unskilled. The BBC uses the marginal productivity theory when it is a useful source of ruling class propaganda. If the story is about a rise in pay at the top then we get the straight marginal productivity story- the line about the reward for skill, enterprise and hard work etc etc-ie the individual and his market clearing wage. Here changes in the real wage at the top merely signify an increased relative contribution to the output by the highest paid. If the story is about unemployment, unemployment in Europe etc then again it is the marginal productivity story- the line about the high level of welfare benefits relative to the market clearing wage of the unskilled and how the voluntarily unemployed need to be "helped back into work" by having their benefit cut so they then add their labour at the margin and the real wage is allowed to find its own level. The BBC tells us all about how falling wages can clear labour markets in the downwards direction. If the story is the minimum wage then we again get the marginal productivity story and we are told "the minimum wage prices workers out of jobs","economists fear 2 million jobs may be lost","the factory that may be forced to close" etc etc. The minimum wage is here said to be an interference with the natural workings of the labour market. The minimum wage sets an artificial level above the actual market clearing wage of the unskilled and how the capitalist is forced to sack workers until the marginal productivity of the remaining workers rises until it equals their marginal productivity. Then the question is asked what is the right level for the minimum wage-and surprise surprise! the right level is the market clearing wage. The minimum wage then causes no unemployment if it is set at the level that would have prevailed anyway. So BBC stories about unemployment and the minimum wage are stories about how labour markets are not allowed to work properly. And the biggest lie of all is wage movements in a boom.The constant barrage about wage inflation, wage demands, inflationary wage deals, inflationary wage claims, chancellor gives a wage warning, bank concerned about wages, inflation busting pay rises, inflationary conditions in the labour markets, how workers must be reponsible, what the economy can afford, inflation alarm bells. We have here the idea that workers only have the right to last years wage and the rise in money wages should only be to compensate for the fall in the value of money. Or the idea that the wage fraction of the output must not rise-workers should have a rise in the real wage with the rise in average productivity and no more. The bourgeois misreporters here comletely forget that according to their favourite theory wage changes are determined by changes in marginal productivity. But of course the real wage of the working class has not risen with productivity in the last 20 years. The wage fraction of the output can fall so it can rise too. And if real wages were determined by the marginal productivity of labour then they are not determined by changes in average productivity. As the economy moves from a slump into a boom the BBC bourgeois propaganda shifts from marginalism to the wage causes inflation set piece. Productivity and marginal productivity, supply and demand and the free workings of the labour market and the market clearing wage are entirely forgotten about in a boom. Instead the worker appears not as a market agent but as a greedy worker,a wage cost, a burden, a mouth, a pesk on the economy. So we can see the BBC wage stories change according to the ruling class propaganda requirements of the moment.
 bargainhunter1234@yahoo.com