Abstract
Marx set out the notion that a ‘reserve army’ of unemployed labour is more or less continuously maintained in the course of capitalistic development. In the initial phases, this reserve army may be created through the destruction of the pre-capitalistic modes of production while, in later phases, a systematic bias in favour of labour-displacing innovations could serve the same purpose. This entails a broad vision of capitalistic development under extremely elastic supply conditions for labour where the actual level of wage employment is usually demand-determined. This means that the supply of labour tends to adjust to its demand through various routes such as, higher participation rate (e.g. as more married women join the labour force or the average schooling period is shortened), interregional and international migration of labour etc., all this taking place against the background of continuous induced innovations. Under these circumstances, it is not very useful to think of a ‘natural’ rate of growth, set by the growth of labour force and of labour productivity, as the maximum feasible growth rate of a capitalist economy (Marglin 1984 pp. 103–8).
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Bharadwaj, K. 1974. Production conditions in Indian agriculture (A study based on farm management surveys). Occasional Paper 33, Department of Applied Economics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Bliss, C., and N. Stern. 1978. Productivity, wages and nutrition. Parts I and II. Journal of Development Economics 5(4): 331–398.
Lewis, W.A. 1954. Economic development with unlimited supplies of labour. Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies 22: 139–191.
Marglin, S.A. 1984. Growth, distribution, and prices. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Nurkse, R. 1953. Problems of capital formation in underdeveloped economies. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Robinson, J. 1956. The accumulation of capital. London: Macmillan.
Schultz, T.W. 1964. Transforming traditional agriculture. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Sen, A.K. 1967. Surplus labour in India: A critique of Schultz’s statistical test. Economic Journal 77: 154–160.
Takagi, Y. 1978. Surplus labour and disguised unemployment. Oxford Economic Papers 30(3): 447–457.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Copyright information
© 2018 Macmillan Publishers Ltd.
About this entry
Cite this entry
Bhaduri, A. (2018). Disguised Unemployment. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_64
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95189-5_64
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-95188-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95189-5
eBook Packages: Economics and FinanceReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences