Marx, oligarks and income agreement
In the book Capital, Marx describes two great rivalries: the conflict between the value of labor, between capital and labor, and the competition between companies to become aware of the surplus value extracted from the first conflict and turn it into a winner. In the second, in addition to the competition of sales prices in the same sector, they also compete through the prices of goods and services that companies buy each other in the production process to get the most of the surplus value possible. For example, in markets held by few companies, such as energy, companies behave like oligarchs with prices above costs. In this way, there is a significant transfer of capital gains – fallen gains from the sky – reducing the returns of the company that pays the electricity bill, inflating those of electricity.
"There will also be winners and losers among companies, but the job will be devalued in its entirety"
More than 150 years after Marx’s reading, the Bank of Spain has issued a macroeconomic forecast report for the period 2022-2024. Inflation forecast for 2023 is 2%. To this end, in line with what has long been heard both in the central state and in the European spheres, they say that wages cannot grow as much as prices. Although, despite the war in Ukraine, inflation is mainly due to the price of energy and not to wages. In the same vein, the Spanish Government has come out, proposing a strategy seemingly different from that of 2012 and talking about the income agreement: both work and companies will have to make sacrifices to move ahead and re-grow the economy through an agreement between classes.
But beyond appearance, reality is different. Not increasing wages in a context of inflation means, again, a strategy of wage devaluation to get out of the crisis, as the share of capital gains from work grows. Large power plants will earn the most, not only with invoices coming to households, but also with those coming to other companies. Therefore, not all companies will increase their profits, among companies there will also be winners and losers, but the job will be the one that is devalued in its entirety. The Spanish Government has offered tax reductions and consumer subsidies, all from the public deficit. They are fiscally reactionary measures, which do not change the same pattern and do not address the essence of the problem. It seems that, once again, the costs of the crisis will become effective for the workers.
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