Raw Labor Research Articles

THE ENVIRONMENT AS A COMMODITY

All economic activity is based ultimately on re sources found in nature. Whether it is consumption The point in exposing the morphology of produced or production, or whether it is exchange, the comgoods and services is not to construct a resource moditi.es which are involved are made of constitutheory of a value. There are any number of natural ents provided by nature. Thus, the ingredients of resources, and this alone precludes such an at any manufactured good are other produced goods, tempted theory from being coherent. My purpose, labour time and skills, and natural resources. Each rather, is to use it to express surprise at the fact that of these constituent produced goods is in turn made despite the centrality of natural resources in eco up from the ingredients that went into its manufacnomic activity, they find little room in economics ture, namely labour time and skills, natural rediscourses. Interest in resource economics, more sources, and further produced goods. It follows particularly environmental economics, has only that any manufactured commodity is ultimately a been intermittent, and if we are currently witness combination of labour and natural resources. ing a resurgence (and this special issue is an ex ample of it), we have also just lived through a Labour too is a produced good. Even raw labour is decade-long neglect, during which much valuable an output, manufactured by those natural resources research could have been done.2 We are way behind which sustain life, resources such as the multitude where we should have been, and could have been,

A comparison of barton-pot and ball-mill processes for making leady oxide

There are two principal methods of making leady oxide for lead/acid batteries. These are: (i) the Barton-pot process, which utilizes the oxidation of molten lead; (ii) the ball-mill process, which employs the oxidation of solid lead. Several conflicting claims have been made for the advantages of the one process over the other, and vice versa. It has been estimated that about 80% of the cost of making battery plates involves that of the raw materials, direct and indirect labour costs account for the remaining 20%. Cost analysis emphasizes the importance of accurately and efficiently controlling and producing the raw materials. One such material is leady oxide. Thus, the importance of carefully analyzing the two methods of producing battery oxide, both from a process and from a product standpoint, is obvious. Such a comparison is made here by using information obtained from the Linklater type of Barton pot and a European type of ball-mill. It is concluded that the Barton-pot method is easier to adjust and quicker to respond to changes in the process parameters. The ball mill usually operates with less fluctuation in the product, but must be run continuously in order to keep both quantity and quality within specification.

An integrated computer-based system for financial and managerial decisions

The purpose of this paper is to develop a model that can be used to make both financial and managerial decisions relating to production in a manufacturing enterprise. To build a model of this type several questions must be addressed. Among the more relevant ones are : (1) What information to capture ; (2) how to build a data base of this captured information; (3) how to use this captured information and (4) how to process this captured information in a form that is useful to both financial and production managers. Two types of information need to be captured. First, financial accounting information will be needed so that financial statements that meet Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) criteria can be produced. Second, managerial accounting information will be needed so that managers can make decisions concerning planning, control and the evaluation of performance. Since this data overlaps, the accounting department can be given the responsibility of collecting all the relevant information. These data would include information on raw materials (both purchases and requisitions), labor (both direct and indirect), and all factory overhead costs. The information described above must now be used to build three data bases (see Table I). The first data base, the Standard Data Base, includes the standards agreed upon by management during the planning phase. These standards are usually related to capacity utilization and are formulated for all relevant production variables. Thus, this data base would include information on standard quantities and standard prices for raw materials and direct labor as well as a standard application rate to be used for factory overhead. The second data base is the General Ledger. It includes the actual quantities and prices for the production variables (raw materials, direct labor and factory overhead). As invoices for raw materials are received from vendors, the general ledger accounts of raw materials inventory and accounts payable are updated. In addition, as requisitions from production are received the actual prices and quantities of the raw materials used are captured and stored. As time-cards from production workers are received in accounting, the payroll account in the general ledger is updated. Also, total direct labor (actual hours worked multiplied by the actual labor rate) is transferred to the direct labor account. Information on factory overhead is derived from many sources. Utility bills, tax bills, administrative salaries and allocations for depreciation are just a few. As these documents are received, or as information concerning these variables becomes known, the factory overhead account in the general ledger will be updated. The third data base, the Production Data

Research needs and priorities in housing and construction in Malaysia

The aim here is to provide an insight into the projected demand and supply of raw materials, labour and construction capacity of the Malaysian Housing Construction Industry. Projections are difficult, due to the lack of published data, but this attempt is based on the quantity breakdown of the projected housing needs matched with available information on the supply of materials. This task is made difficult by the fact that materials for housing are only a fraction of the total demand and supply for the construction industry as a whole, and that details pertaining to the construction industry are not readily available.

Econometric Studies of Labor-Labor Substitution and Their Implications for Policy

A critical synthesis of the rapidly growing literature on substitution among labor force aggregates is presented. Despite the large number of studies now available, the only firm conclusions are: (1) Physical and human capital are complements and are jointly substitutable with raw labor. This has implications for policies that subsidize the wage costs of low-wage workers. (2) Young workers' own-wage elasticity of demand exceeds unity, but the degree to which they are substitutes for older workers is unclear. The paper suggests that future research should concentrate on substitution among workers disaggregated by age, education, or sex rather than by the blue-collar-white-collar distinction used in most work and that has little use in policy analysis.

Productivity and Automation

Neither of the two basic ways we assemble things today–i. e., by people or by special-purpose machines–rests on a coherent body of analytically derived knowledge. These manufacturing methods, which may be accurately characterized as experience-based rather than science-based, have been the principal handicap in achieving major improvements manufacturing productivity. In the absence of major productivity improvements, the consumer has borne the brunt of cost increases in raw materials, labor, and energy. Clearly, the key to improved productivity is the development of advanced computer-based systems that incorporate a greater degree of the knowledge base-systems that compensate for the designer's unfamiliarity with manufacturing technology and help him come up with a more manufacturable product design.

The food industry and its problems

The costs of feeding the nation are of various kinds — raw materials, labour, marketing and distribution. There is also the cost of government intervention, and membership of the EEC carries with it both advantages and disadvantages. This is a summary of an address by Derrick Hornby, President of the Food Manufacturers' Federation, at their recent annual conference.

Factor inputs in U.S. trade

This paper focuses on some open questions in the empirical literature on the factor content of U.S. trade. In a regression analysis on 1963 and 1967 cross-section data, it is found that U.S. trade is exporting the services of human capital and importing the services of raw labor and (marginally) of physical capital. The results are not sensitive to scaling for industry size or to using probit analysis rather than OLS regression. An important implication of the results is that it is inappropriate to aggregate physical and human capital in trade models.

European Security and Cooperation: A Skeptical Contribution

The article discusses European security and co operation under the headings used under the name of 'baskets' in Geneva: security, co-opera tion and free flow of persons and ideas. As to security: the argument is that no arms race can be understood without an analysis of the under lying conflict formation, and that the East-West conflict formation for most practical purposes has withered away. It was about hegemony over Eastern Europe, which was transferred from the western powers to the Soviet Union after the Second World War, but the West has gotten accustomed to this because (1) there is a shift of generations and (2) under the heading of 'co operation' western capitalism has once more been permitted to penetrate into Eastern Europe. As to co-operation: this pattern of trade and co-opera tion is analyzed and seen as highly asymmetric and essentially compatible with the interests of Western capitalism: export of capital and tech nology, import of raw materials and to some ex tent (from Yugoslavia) raw labor. Reasons for this pattern are to be found in some fallacies in marxist thinking, not only in the ways this think ing is put into practice in Eastern Europe. As to free flow of persons and ideas: the article argues that this will be very difficult for Eastern Eu ropean countries to agree to, because it would destroy the important reward of being permitted to travel to the West by making travel too easy. Moreover, the socialist countries would be afraid of massive criticism from their leftist youth, and this would also work against the interests of elites in the capitalist countries by threatening the present pattern of co-operation. As a conclusion, it is pointed out that the present pattern of co operation should be changed, and that the posi tive sign in the present development is that Eu ropean detente now has come so far that it should be possible to discuss the type of problems men tioned in the present article in a rational manner for the benefit of both East and West and the developing countries.

The influence of energy and other cost inflations on raw materials

There is still much uncertainty in Processing industries resulting from rapidly increasing costs of raw materials, energy and labour and from the general inflation in all European countries. Many companies have themselves carried out studies aimed at assessing the likely influence on their business resulting from the dramatic increase in crude oil prices in the recent past. However, other inflationary pressures are also at work — e.g. rapidly increasing costs of labour and capital — which will contribute at differing levels to the increasing costs and, therefore, prices of industrial raw materials such as chemicals, plastics and the other materials.

A note on factor substitution in industrial production processes

An industrial production process turns out a single product, the inputs being raw material, machine services, labour, and power. The machine is operated by one worker. The rate of output can be increased by speeding up the machine. Since this requires not only more raw material per hour but also more power as well as harder work and increased wear and tear, it has been argued that partial factor variation, and thus also factor substitution, is impossible. It is shown by a mathematical model that, if labour and machine service are measured in hours of effective operation per period, the case is actually characterized by substitution between this factor complex and power input, with raw material as a limitational “shadow factor”.

The Influence of the West Indies on the Origins of New England Slavery

IN considering New England Negro slavery, it might well be asked not why it was weakly rooted there, but why it existed at all. Service for life, together with the inheritance of a like obligation by any offspring, had no basis in English law, and New England never developed a staple crop that demanded large amounts of raw labor for its cultivation. It has been suggested that slavery became established in the Puritan colonies because there was indeed some economic need for unskilled labor, even though not so much as in the South.' By this reasoning, as New England's needs were considerably less than the South's, so her slavery was less well established. Yet a logic of direct proportion does not convincingly explain why Negro slavery existed in New England; if there had been economic need in a degree sufficient to require formation of an utterly new institution of chattel slavery, then there would have been economic demand for many more Negroes than were actually brought into the area. The actual number was small, not more than 3 per cent of the population in the eighteenth century. Massachusetts had only about one hundred Negroes in i680.2 Surely no economic exigency required the establishment of a distinct status for such a small proportion of the labor force. True, without some need for labor there certainly would not have

The United Kingdom Export Drive and the Future

FROM the beginning of the Second World War until the present time, the study in Great Britain of markets has receded into the background and thoughts of industrialists, ardently led by Cabinet Ministers and other Government spokesmen, have been concentrated on production. This is inevitable in war and was especially so after Lend-Lease came into being. Our survival depended upon the output of guns, tanks, aircraft and bombs, and not on the exchange of goods with other countries: hence government departments and factory managers did their utmost to endow the workshops with the maximum enthusiasm for output. The nation was rightly proud of our total war effort which was achieved by the concentration of every man, woman and machine, on pure production coupled with a cut in exports of 71 per cent, and in civilian consumption of 21 per cent. The production aspect of our affairs thus overshadowed the commercial aspect and has done so for longer than most of us expected; in other words the sellers' market has had a long run. All this has led us to behave as though we were no longer a nation of traders and merchants, but a purely productive concern which has the good fortune to be sheltered from competition. It was therefore perhaps a natural corollary that the Export Drive should open with a rough and ready statement of production targets. This approach was as rudimentary as it was quick and easy. It had the unfortunate effect of giving the impression that we had only to produce more, and curtail civilian supplies, in order to overcome our difficulties, and some people are still talking as though this was the solution of the problem. Disillusionment on this matter is close at hand and it is well to remind ourselves that we rose to greatness as a nation of traders, that our commercial genius will have to be recaptured, and our nose for markets will have to be keener than ever if we are to pay our way. I am sure the crude announcement of the export targets must have raised doubts and anxieties in the minds of most of us, and they were probably quite different from the anxieties which appeared to be uppermost in the official minds. The chief official worry appeared to be whether the quantitative production would be large enough to enable the targets to be realized. Our worry was whether production would be concentrated on the right goods. The Government seem mainly concerned with a programme to tide over our immediate economic ends. We are concerned with supplying markets which have a long-term potential. May I elaborate these anxieties a little further. The announcement of the targets was accompanied by the statement that raw materials and labour would only be allocated on the basis of export performance and that firms unable to export sufficiently would have to go out of production. Such an announcement

A new model rotating-stage petrological microscope

Present industrial conditions have tbrccd the engineering trades of the country to adopt methods of mass production, in order to cope with increases in the cost of raw materials and labour. Specialized trades such as the manufacture of scientific instruments are unable to develop quite on these lines, partly because of the limited demands for their goods, and partly because each job is largely an individual one. In the microscope trade much has been done by systematic shop organization, and at the same time an approach is made to mass production by considerably reducing the number of models made, and standardizing the remainder. Naturally the large models for special work have been most affected.