16.01.2013

Institutskolloquium: The (International) Political Economy of Falling Wage Shares

Wednesday, 23 Jan. 2013 · 16:00 c.t. · Room 124, Institut für Politikwissenschaft

INSTITUTSKOLLOQUIUM / DEPARTMENTAL SEMINAR

<link http: www.kcl.ac.uk artshums depts europeanstudies people staff academic rynerm.aspx external-link-new-window externen link in neuem>J. Magnus Ryner (King’s College London)

The (International) Political Economy of Falling Wage Shares: Situating Class Agency

Wednesday, 23 Jan. 2013 · 16:00 c.t. · Room 124, Institut für Politikwissenschaft

Though it was obvious to classical political economy that distribution between factors of production was central to social dynamics, the wage/profit ratio is notable by its absence in (post-) modern social analysis. Yet empirical economics considers it a ‘stylized fact’ that the wage-share has fallen in advanced capitalist societies over the last four decades. This paper argues that empirical evidence supports the neo-Gramscian hypothesis advanced by van der Pijl already in 1984 that the falling wage-share is due to transnational finance-led capitalism, which in the last instance is a construct of capitalist class rule. By juxtaposing econometric studies with neo-Gramscian IPE, the paper counters charges of tendentiousness that have been directed towards the latter tradition.

Magnus Ryner studied political science and economics at Trent University, Peterborough, Canada (1985-1988) before completing his MA (1990) and PhD (1996) at York University in Toronto. He was a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRCC) Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Amsterdam in 1996-97 and a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute in Florence in 1997-98. Magnus returned for a year to the University of Amsterdam before moving to the UK in 2000. Since then, he has worked at Brunel University (2000-02), Birmingham University (2002-07) and Oxford Brookes University (2007-12) before joining King’s College London. He has also been a Visiting Research Fellow at the Swedish Centre for Working Life Research in Stockholm, the German Open University in Hagen, and at the Copenhagen Business School.