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A POLITICAL ECONOMY OF THE SOCIAL WAGE: THE NET SOCIAL WAGE IN AUSTRALIA, 1964–65 TO 1991–92
Author(s) -
Trethewey Mark
Publication year - 1994
Publication title -
australian journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.417
H-Index - 30
eISSN - 1839-4655
pISSN - 0157-6321
DOI - 10.1002/j.1839-4655.1994.tb01019.x
Subject(s) - wage , commonwealth , economics , project commissioning , context (archaeology) , government (linguistics) , labour economics , politics , wage rate , publishing , social capital , wage labour , sociology , political science , social science , law , agriculture , paleontology , linguistics , philosophy , ecology , biology
This article attempts to place the concept and measurement of the social wage into a context of political economy. Several variations on the conventional method of measuring the social wage are proposed and applied to Commonwealth outlays for the period 1964–65 to 1991–92. It is argued that the resulting concept is better suited to an analysis of the impact of government social expenditures on capital accumulation. While the alternative ‘Net Social Wage’ concept must be a qualifiable measure of the redistributive impact of such expenditures, it is argued also that it is a more meaningful one than the conventional measure presented in most studies on this subject.