Marx, de klassiska ekonomerna och den ekonomisk-historiska diskussionen om levnadsstandard och reallöneutveckling

摘要

The essay is about the doctrines and estimations of workers’ wages during theIndustrial Revolution in the late 18th and early 19th century Britain. It explores, byway of textual analysis and ideology critique the doctrines of the classicaleconomists and Marx, and relates the results to the standard-of-living debate inEconomic History since the early 1980s. The overall result provides with theargument that the doctrines of the classics, and in particular Marx’s critique ofpolitical economy, offer an understanding of the determination of workers’ wages incapitalism adequate also for our time, and that quantitative basket-of-goodsmeasurement has its raison d’être in such an overall social and historical analysis ofwages, growth, and development.