Austere interwar policies raised measured rates of exploitation in both Britain and Italy

Evidence

In Britain, the series reached a new minimum in 1938 (73 percent), while in Italy the wage share saw its lowest level in 1942– 1944 (41 percent). 2 Th is working measure of exploitation does not consider “unproductive labor,” i.e., all the work of domestic servants and the like which in those years was a signifi cant part of the labor force in both countries. In principle the wages of unproductive labor ought to be added into the measure of surplus value; thus our working measure understates the rate of exploitation. In Britain, the rate of exploitation increased from 0.29 in 1921 to 0.36 in 1929. In Italy, in 1918 the rate of exploitation was 0.82 and in 1928 it was 1.25. — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order, 1731

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies the working definition of the exploitation rate and why it understates surplus value extraction by excluding unproductive labor.
• XREF: connects to: Britain pioneered austerity in 1920 and Mussolini’s Italy followed in 1922 — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 820; British austerity experts exported thrift propaganda to Brazil as colonial policy — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 900; Austerity reversed postwar labor income gains in both Italy and Britain by 1929 — Clara E. Mattei, The Capital Order: How Economists…, 1486 (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Austerity disciplines workers within both colonizer and colonized nations alike #expands (0.95) — Clara E. Mattei, Escape from Capitalism, 339
• Colonial and minority exploitation shared unrecognized structural similarities in interwar Europe #qualifies (0.75) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 2492