Barton says the accumulation of capital only increases the demand for labour slowly, unless the population has grown rapidly in the previous period, so that wages are low. This applies also where the relative surplus population has grown, thereby reducing wages. In a period of crisis (Autumn phase of the long wave) the existing supply of labour-power may be largely fully employed, wages are high, profits are squeezed, and accumulation becomes restricted. Capital begins to look for new labour-saving technologies, not so as to accumulate and expand output (gross output/revenue), but so as to reduce costs of production of the existing output, and thereby expand the net product/revenue. With output sold at prices of production, rather than exchange values, the greater the proportion of the cost of production comprising constant capital rather than variable-capital, i.e. the higher the organic composition of capital (usually, therefore, with the larger capitals) the greater the incentive to seek means of reducing the prices of fixed capital, and material costs. The pressure to reduce labour costs falls more acutely on the smaller firms with a lower organic composition, i.e. those which are more labour intensive, and whose profits are squeezed more by high wages. Capital also tends to leave these latter spheres, as the rate of profit falls more in them, and migrates to those areas where the organic composition is higher, and which find that a higher level of wages, makes it easier to realise their profits. It is a period of intensive rather than extensive accumulation that also sees increased concentration and centralisation of capital.
But, the consequence of this intensive accumulation is that labour is displaced, and economic growth is sluggish. Gross output increases slowly, whilst net output increases more rapidly. Less additional labour is required for any given increase in gross output. As the relative surplus population expands, wages are depressed, and with growth of the labour force reduced, the demand for wage goods grows at a slower pace. And so, during this period of stagnation (Winter phase) it is not necessary that the actual population rises, but only that the relative surplus population rises, so wages are low, profits are high, and an available supply of labour-power makes a new expansion, in new spheres of production possible (Spring phase).
Marx cites Barton's comments, in relation to the demand for labour, in response to a rise in profits, or a rise in wages. This also indicates the underlying material factors that influence the duration of the long wave. For example, I have previously described the fact that after demand for primary products rises sharply, as a new Spring phase commences, it takes around 12 years before any new mines etc. reach optimum output. Similarly, the relative surplus population that exists at the start of the Spring phase, along with any additional natural population growth, means that this surplus population does not get fully employed until many years into a new expansion. In the post-war boom, for example, despite a rapid increase in growth, the relative surplus population that existed in 1949, was supplemented by immigration, the influx of married women into the workforce, an increase in overtime working, and so on. The natural growth of population, increased by the post-war baby boom, brought additional labour-power into the workforce too, by the early 1960's, but from that point on, it became more difficult to increase the size of the social working-day further. There is only so much overtime that can be worked, only so many married women to bring into the workforce, and the bulge in new workers from the baby boom, subsided. As the gains of productivity from the labour-saving technologies developed in the mid 1930's, also began to wane, the increase in output, thereby drove demand for labour-power, as the unemployment rate fell to around 2%, wages rose, squeezing profits, and creating the conditions for a search for new labour saving technologies that began to be introduced in the 1970's.
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