What are the three components of the reserve army of labor?

The RAL is composed of three parts: the floating RAL, the latent RAL and the stagnant RAL. The floating RAL gets primarily recruited through the displacement of workers due to mechanization, economic downturns and relocation of production.

How does Marx explain unemployment?

According to Karl Marx, unemployment is inherent within the unstable capitalist system and periodic crises of mass unemployment are to be expected. However, unemployment is profitable within the global capitalist system because unemployment lowers wages which are costs from the perspective of the owners.

What is relative surplus population?

For capitalist production, the relative surplus population is a control valve for the working population that makes it possible to supply labour-power needed for sudden capital accumulation and to absorb the excessive working population.

What is surplus labor and when does this happen?

Surplus labor is a concept developed by Karl Marx in the nineteenth century to describe the production of surplus value and profit. It refers to the labor that produces a value beyond that which is needed for the subsistence of the worker or workers who perform it.

What determines the size of the reserve army of labor?

They are, therefore, not determined by the variations of the absolute number of the working population, but by the varying proportions in which the working-class is divided into active and reserve army, by the increase or diminution in the relative amount of the surplus-population, by the extent to which it is now …

Who made up the jobless army?

Jobless Army. During the Great Depression, Ron Liversedge joined thousands of men who criss-crossed the country in search of work, food or some relief from their dismal lives.

What is the neoclassical view of unemployment?

The neoclassical view of unemployment tends to focus attention away from the cyclical unemployment problem—that is, unemployment caused by recession—while putting more attention on the unemployment rate issue that prevails even when the economy is operating at potential GDP.

Why is Karl Marx’s theory of surplus unrealistic?

Marx proves scientifically that the appearance of capitalist surplus population is not due to the abstract numerical ratio relation proposed by Mathus in which natural reproduction of humanity takes the geometric progression and the increase in the means of subsistence the arithmetic, but is the result of capitalist …

Why is a surplus population an issue?

Surplus populations are often mobilised in ways that serve to discipline labour, forcing down wages and reproduction costs, and remain subjected to secondary forms of exploitation, especially through rents and debts.

Who are counted in the Labour force of a country?

The labour force, or currently active population, comprises all persons who fulfil the requirements for inclusion among the employed (civilian employment plus the armed forces) or the unemployed.

What does the term ” reserve army of Labour ” mean?

It refers to the unemployed and underemployed in capitalist society. It is synonymous with “industrial reserve army” or “relative surplus population”, except that the unemployed can be defined as those actually looking for work and that the relative surplus population also includes people unable to work.

When did Karl Marx introduce the Reserve Army of Labour?

Marx introduces the concept of the reserve army of labour in chapter 25 of the first volume of Capital: Critique of Political Economy, twenty years later in 1867, stating the following:

What does the term ” industrial reserve army ” mean?

It is synonymous with “industrial reserve army” or “relative surplus population”, except that the unemployed can be defined as those actually looking for work and that the relative surplus population also includes people unable to work.

Why is there a reserve army of the unemployed?

One reason a reserve army of the unemployed exists in market economies, it is argued, is that if the level of unemployment is too low, it will stimulate price inflation. However, the validity of this argument depends also on state economic policy and on the ability of workers to raise their wages.