Social Reproduction The Political Economy of the Labour Market [Hardcover]

Focuses on the relationship between the production of commodities and the process of social reproduction of the labouring populationThis book focuses on the relationship between the process of producing commodities and the process of social reproduction of the labouring population, and seeks to restore that problematic relationship to the central place it had in the analysis of Smith, Ricardo, and Marx.This book focuses on the relationship between the process of producing commodities and the process of social reproduction of the labouring population, and seeks to restore that problematic relationship to the central place it had in the analysis of Smith, Ricardo, and Marx.An important characteristic of labor that distinguishes it from capital is that it bears the costs of its own sustenance, the extent to which it does so varying with different institutional arrangements. Economic theory has generally overlooked this, one consequence being that it has neglected the distinctive role played by women. This book traces the deepening insensitivity of post-classical economic theory to this issue, taking the 1834 Poor Law and the reassessment of it in 1909 as illustrations of the social implications of this theoretical inadequacy. These examples reveal the general remoteness of housewives from market discipline, and the need for state intervention to offer them support. This book is a distinctive contribution to the development of a social-policy relevant theory of the labor market.Introduction; 1. Wages as exogenous costs of social reproduction; 2. The displacement effect of the wages fund theory; 3. The role of the state in the labour market: i.e. social insecurity; 4. Women and The Poor Law; 5. Women's work at the core of the labour market; 6. The supply of labour as process of social reproduction; Notes; Bibliography. A welcome addition to advanced undergraduate and graduate collections as an extension and additon to more wide-based readings in the history of economlÃn