Capitalism, Unemployment and the Transition to the Contemporary Pattern of Growth

Howard Petith

No 194, Working Papers from Barcelona School of Economics

Abstract: A new model of unemployment based on an idea of Marx is presented and used to interpret the development of the British economy from the beginning of capitalism to the present. It is shown that unemployment may be created purposely by capitalists in order to weaken the bargaining position of the workers. This mechanism leads to complex temporal pattern of unemployment and can explain why wages took almost a century and a half to react to the growing capital to labour ratio that characterised early British capitalism.

Keywords: unemployment; Marx; Capitalism; Great Britain (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: E11 E24 N33 O41 O51 P1 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015-09
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