Economists generally assume that wage differentials among similar workers will only endure when competition in the capital and/or labour market is restricted. However, using a classical Marxist analysis of real capitalist competition, Botwinick shows that substantial patterns of wage disparity can persist despite high levels of competition. Going against mainstream proponents of labour-management cooperation, the author calls for militant union organization that can once again take wages and working conditions out of capitalist competition.

Table of Contents:
New Preface (2017 Edition) Preface and Acknowledgements (1993 Edition) List of Figures List of Tables 1 Introduction  Breaking the Impasse  Toward a Theoretical Alternative  Implications for the Analysis of Discrimination  On Heterogeneous Labour  Comparing Our Results to Orthodox and Radical Economics  Solving Some Anomalies  Outline of the Argument 2 Continuing Attempts to Square the Circle (Or, Competitive Theory Confronts Differential Wage Rates)  Early Neoclassical Wage Theory  The Theory of Perfect Competition: Abstraction as Idealisation  The Inevitable Schism between Theory and Practice  The Theory of Imperfect Competition – Godsend or Albatross?  Postwar Institutionalists: An Initial Attempt at Alternative Theory  The Ascent of Human Capital Theory  The Real World Strikes Back  The New Institutionalists: The Dual Economy and Dual Labour Markets  Labour Market Segmentation and Monopoly Capital  The Initial Response to Segmentation Theory  The Second Wave of Segmentation Arguments  The Continuing Search for a Radical Alternative  Efficiency Wage Theory: The Latest Attempt to Square the Circle 3 Capitalist Accumulation and the Aggregate Labour Market  Marx versus Neoclassical Economics  The Special Commodity Labour Power  Primitive Accumulation and the ‘Doubly Free’ Labourer  The Unique Logic of Labour Supply  Capitalist Accumulation and the Reserve Army of Labour  Marx’s Reserve Army within the Modern Period  On the Necessity of Worker Resistance  Capitalist Accumulation and the Limits to Rising Wage Rates  Empirical Evidence for Limits to Rising Wage Rates 4 Wage Differentials and the Aggregate Labour Market  Capitalism’s Active and Reserve Armies: Differentiation and ‘Segmentation’ in Their Most Basic Forms  The Role of Workers in the Segmentation Process  A Dynamic Analysis of Labour Mobility and Wage Differentiation Under Conditions of Permanent Underemployment  Uneven Technical Change, Competition, and the Reserve Army: A Brief Glimpse of Marx’s Theory of Wage Differentials  On the Incompleteness of Marx’s Work 5 Capitalist Competition and Differential Profit Rates  Competition within Industries  Competition between Industries  Marx’s Concept of Regulating Capitals  Empirical Evidence of Monopoly  Chapter Summary  Appendix to Chapter 5 6 Capitalist Competition and Differential Wage Rates (I): The Analysis of Regulating Capitals  Overview of the Dynamic Adjustment to Changing Wage Rates  Deriving Determinate Limits to Rising Wage Rates  Limit One: The Immediate Profitability of Regulating Capitals  Limit Two: The Unit Costs of Subdominant Capitals  Further Implications for Inter- and Intraindustry Wage Patterns  Limit Three: The Differential Costs of Obstructing Wage Increases  Analysing the Effects of Uneven Worker Organisation  A Final Note on Workers’ Power and the Costs of Obstruction  The General Laws of Capitalist Accumulation 7 Capitalist Competition and Differential Wage Rates (II): Non-regulating Capitals and Differential Profit Rates  The Case of Less Efficient Capitals  Short-Term Effects of Rising Wage Rates  The Case of More Efficient Capitals  Implications of the Dynamic Equalisation of Profit Rates Conclusion  Capitalist Competition and Differential Wage Rates: Abundant Possibilities for Sustained Inequality  Capitalist Accumulation and the Aggregate Labour Market: Further Sources of Wage Variation  Comparing Our Results to Neoclassical Economics  Comparing Our Results to Radical Economics  Implications for Empirical Research  Implications for the Contemporary Labour Movement Afterword: The Past 20 Years Have Not Been Pretty  Where Do We Go from Here? Lessons from the 1930s  But Hasn’t Accelerated Globalisation Made the Old CIO Strategies Obsolete?  Given the Dismal State of the Left, How Can We Get There from Here? A Final Lesson from the 1930s References Index