"Revolution of Rising Expectations" or "Traditional Life Ways"? A Study of Income Aspirations in a Developing Country

Abstract

We very much agree with Mullor-Sebastian's point that in some societies one theory, in another society the other, may be more applicable. We did word our summary a little sweepingly (as one is apt to do in a summary) but in the body of the article itself we present a table (table 4, p. 221) containing comparable data for India, precisely and exactly to show that what holds for Chile does not hold for that subcontinent. Our discussion elaborates that point by further comparison with the United States, which is more explosive in its wage demands than either of the other countries, Chile being in the middle. There is also a subtle, interesting agreement on the chief matter of substance between ourselves and Mullor-Sebastian, although our motives are different. Mullor-Sebastiain appears to wish to emphasize the viability of the theory of the backward-sloping supply curve of labor. The thrust of our findings (which do not really deal with the supply of labor, but rather with labor's wage demands-and there is a difference) is to emphasize that labor's demands are not as wild and unreasonable as they are often made out to be. CLAUDIO J. FUCHS University of Chile HENRY A. LANDSBERGER