The U.S. Welfare State: Rise, Fall, and Beyond (original) (raw)

Stefano Agnoletto, Brian J Griffith, and Cristina Palmieri, eds. "The Origins of the Welfare State: Global and Comparative Approaches" Zapruder World: An International Journal for the History of Social Conflict 3 (2016) ISSN: 2385-1171 View Volume: http://www.zapruderworld.org/volume-3/ "In focusing on the post-WWII Western Welfare in the U.S., it is useful to disaggregate this long-term period into two medium-term periods, or phases. Given the cardinal function of labour as the only value and surplus value producing factor (this is the crucial hypothesis that is supported empirically in Figure 3 below), employment, rather than GDP, has been chosen as the benchmark. The focus is on the productive sectors of the economy because they produce capital’s vital lymph: value and surplus value.1 In measuring, prices are deflated because they show the evolution of the value-generation in real terms. As Figure 1 and Table 1 below show, the first, upward phase in employment goes from 1947 to 1979, the peak year for labour power; then there is a downward phase that goes from 1980 to 2010. In the upward phase, employment grows from 17.56 million laborers in 1947 to 24.97 million in 1979, a rise of 42.3%. Given the strength of labour, the wage share holds its ground and falls only moderately from 42% in 1947 to 40.8% in 1979, after two all-times peaks in 1956 (45.7%) and in 1973 (44.7%), In the following downward phase, from 1979 to 2010, employment falls to 17.7 million in 2010, back approximately to the 1947 level, i.e. by -26.9%. The wage share plummets from 40.8% in 1979 to 24% in 2010, i.e. by -41.2%. This indicates the progressive weakening of the US working class."