Mode of Societalisation and Consumption Norm

Abstract

The productivity growth associated with the achievement of economies of scale was a prerequisite for the simultaneous and proportionate development of the two departments of social production, namely production and consumption goods. The percentage of wages to total employers’ costs decreased (or, in Marx’s terms, the ‘organic composition’ of capital grew), but the real wages of workers also increased. Employment was able to grow since the total volume of capital rose by a greater proportion than the increase in the number of workers made redundant due to productivity gains in the work process. The cheapening of industrial products raised the purchasing power of wage labourers, so that both the employers’ profits and the employees’ real wages increased. The state benefited from this favourable situation and used its growing income from taxation for the expansion of a welfare state system, which, in turn, guaranteed a minimum standard of living for those who did not participate in the labour market. Not only was the working class actively integrated into the growth project of Fordism, but also, for the first time, the unemployed and the recipients of welfare entitlements, the pensioners and the students (in some countries) received independent incomes, which the state raised via taxation and subsequently redistributed to these groups (Koch, 2001).