A Discussion of Marx’s Account of Technical Progress by Means of Wage Curves and Their Historical Evolution

Abstract

Marx’s account of technical progress has been criticized by philosophers as being a metanarrative, by ecological economists as being unduly strong, by economists as being unduly weak, and by post-Sraffian authors as being ill-founded. This article discusses Marx’s account of technical progress in light of these criticisms on a conceptual, theoretical, and empirical level, relying on the apparatus of wage curves. It argues that some of the critiques cannot be sustained, since the criticized positions cannot be attributed to Marx. The remaining critiques, in turn, amount to alternative predictions on the evolution of wage curves which are, however, and in contrast to those of Marx, not in line with empirical evidence, as the estimation of wage curves for thirteen countries from 2000 to 2013 shows. JEL Classification: B14, B24, O33