Political Econ of Growth. Paul A. Baran

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СКАЧАТЬ the lawyers who are thus engaged. That is inconsiderable. But not inconsiderable is the social loss from such unproductive employment of many of the best brains. Considering how terribly rare good brains are, their shifting to other employment might be of more than infinitesimal importance.¹²

      What is crucial to remember is that unproductive labor as just defined is not directly related to the process of essential production and is maintained by a part of society’s economic surplus. This characteristic it shares, however, with another group of workers that would not fall under our definition of unproductive labor. Scientists, physicians, artists, teachers, and similarly occupied people live off the economic surplus but engage in labor the demand for which in a rationally ordered society, far from disappearing, would become multiplied and intensified to an unprecedented degree. Thus while it is perfectly appropriate from the standpoint of the measurement of the total surplus currently generated by society to include these workers in the class of individuals supported by the economic surplus, it would seem advisable to treat them separately if what is at issue is the assessment of the magnitude of the surplus potentially available for rational utilization. “Labor may be necessary without being productive.”¹³

      This distinction becomes particularly useful when not only the possibilities of economic growth but also the transition from capitalism to socialism is considered. For what is defined above as unproductive labor is bound gradually to disappear as a socialist society advances in the direction of communism. In fact, certain classes of unproductive workers are immediately eliminated with the introduction of a planned economy, while others remain for considerable periods of time in systems transitional from capitalism to communism such as, for instance, the USSR. It may well be said that the degree to which unproductive labor in our definition has been abolished, and institutions such as the army, the church, and the like have been dispensed with, and the human and material resources thus freed have been directed to the advancement of human welfare, represents the most important single index of a socialist society’s progress towards communism.

      The group of workers, on the other hand, that is supported by the economic surplus and that is not covered by our definition of unproductive labor expands greatly with the development of a socialist society. As Marx predicted, the part of the total product “… which is destined for the communal satisfaction of needs such as schools, health services, etc.… is … from the outset … considerably increased in comparison with present-day society and it increases in proportion as the new society develops … [while] the general costs of administration not belonging to production … will from the outset, be very considerably restricted in comparison with present-day society and it diminishes in proportion as the new society develops.”¹⁴ Thus the resources used for the maintenance of the individuals who draw on society’s economic surplus, but are not included in unproductive labor as I defined it, cannot be considered to represent a fund potentially available for purposes of economic growth.

      Once more: regardless of the difficulties that may be encountered in attempting to gauge accurately the volume of unproductive work performed in a capitalist economy, in times of emergency the nature of this task is no less clear than the need for curtailment, if not elimination, of nonessential consumption. Unproductive workers are drafted into the army while productive workers are deferred. Labor exchanges try to move people from unproductive to productive employment. Rationing boards issue different ration cards to individuals in different occupations, with productive workers receiving preferential treatment.

      Conceptually no more complex, although perhaps still more difficult to measure, is the third form in which potential economic surplus is hidden in the capitalist economy. The waste and irrationality in the productive organization that fall under this category can be observed in a great number of instances, and result in a reduction of output markedly below what could be obtained with the same input of human and material resources. There is first the existence (and continuous reproduction) of excess capacity unproductively absorbing a significant share of current investment. We do not refer here to manpower, plant, and equipment that are reduced to idleness in times of depressions. To that we shall come later. What we have in mind now is the physical capacity that remains unused even in years of prosperity, and not merely in declining but also in expanding industries.¹⁵

      An investigation of excess capacity in the United States in 1925-1929 was made by the Brookings Institution.¹⁶ “Capacity” of an industry is there defined as the output which it would turn out with the length of the working day and number of shifts ordinarily in use in the industry, and with a proper standard of plant maintenance (i.e. taking account of necessary shutdowns for repairs, etc.). Plants which are shut down have been excluded, so that they do not count as excess capacity. The capacity so (conservatively) defined is thus lower than the “rated capacity” usually given by trade statistics and based on technical estimates. The Brookings Institution found that “in general … in the years from 1925 to 1929 available plant was used between 80 and 83 percent of capacity.”¹⁷ The study cautions that “probably not all the additional productivity indicated as possible by the above figures could have been realized, for there were striking differences in the potential capacity of the different branches of industry, and if each industry would run to its full capacity, huge surpluses of some goods would no doubt soon pile up.”¹⁸ Yet as the authors of the study realize, “if new productive effort were directed toward coordinating the various industries,” this disproportionality could be markedly reduced, if not altogether eliminated. They do not estimate the volume of output that could have been produced given such coordination. Even in its absence, however, “an output of 19 percent greater than was realized would have been possible. Stated in terms of money, this increased productivity would have approximated 15 billion dollars”—i.e. nearly 20 percent of the national income in 1929.

      No excess capacity studies of a similar scope have been undertaken during the postwar period. From such scattered data as are available it would seem, however, that even in the unprecedentedly prosperous years following the end of the Second World War excess capacity in American industry assumed tremendous proportions. Calculations by one investigator suggest that merely 55 percent of capacity (conservatively estimated) was in use in the boom year 1952.¹⁹ This does not include the prodigious quantities of food, the production of which is prevented by various control schemes, or which is allowed to spoil, to be destroyed, or fed to animals.

      All estimates of capacity (and excess capacity) are highly tenuous. Apart from suffering from the inadequacy of the underlying statistical information, they depend on what definition of capacity is adopted, on the degree of utilization that is assumed as “normal,” and on the extent to which market, demand, and profit considerations are taken into account in deciding on the magnitude of the excess. Yet difficulties encountered in the measurement of a phenomenon should not be permitted to obscure the existence of the phenomenon itself; in any case, they do not matter in the present context where our purpose is not to assess the magnitude of the potential economic surplus in any particular country at any particular time, but merely to outline the forms in which it exists.

      Equally clearly discernible is the waste of resources caused by various aspects of monopoly and monopolistic competition. The potential economic surplus under this heading has never been analyzed in its entirety, although its components have been frequently referred to in the literature. There is first and probably foremost the output foregone in view of underutilization of economies of scale stemming from irrational product differentiation. No one, to my knowledge, has undertaken to calculate the aggregate saving that would be realized if a great number of purely nominally different articles were to be standardized, and if their production were concentrated in technically the most efficient and economic plants. Whether we look at automobiles and other consumers’ durable goods such as refrigerators, stoves, electrical appliances, and the like, or whether we think of products such as soaps, toothpastes, textiles, shoes, or breakfast foods, there can be little doubt that standardization and mass production could appreciably lower the unit costs of output. To be sure, instances can be found where even under monopolistic conditions firms are operating technologically optimal-size plants, where, СКАЧАТЬ