Criticisms of the neoclassical theory

Another difficulty arises from the fact that marginal productivity assumes that the factors of production can be added to each other in small quantities. If one must choose between adding one big machine or none at all to production, the concept of the marginal product becomes unworkable. This “lumpiness” creates an indeterminacy in the distribution of income. From the viewpoint of the individual firm, this objection to neoclassical theory is more serious than from the macroeconomic viewpoint since in terms of the national economy almost all additions to labour and capital are very small. A related problem is that of substitution among factors. The production function implies that land, labour, and capital can be combined in varying proportions, that every conceivable input mix is possible. But in some cases the input mix is fixed (e.g., one operator at one machine), and in that situation the neoclassical theory breaks down completely because the marginal product for every factor is zero. These cases of fixed proportions are scarce, however, and from a macroeconomic viewpoint it is safe to say that a flexible input mix is the rule.

This is not to say that substitution between labour and capital is so flexible in the national economy that it can be assumed that a 1 percent increase in the wage rate will reduce employment by a corresponding 1 percent. That would follow from the neoclassical theory described above. It is not impossible, but it requires a very special form of the production function known as the Cobb-Douglas function. The pioneering research of Paul H. Douglas and Charles W. Cobb in the 1930s seemed to confirm the rough equality between production elasticities and distributive shares, but that conclusion was later questioned; in particular the assumption of easy substitution of labour and capital seems unrealistic in the light of research by Robert M. Solow and others. These investigators employ a production function in which labour and capital can replace each other but not as readily as in the Cobb-Douglas function, a change that has two very important consequences. First, the effect of a wage increase on the share of labour is not completely offset by changes in the input mix, so that an increase in wage rates does not lead to a proportionate reduction in total employment; and second, the factor of production that grows fastest will see its share in the national income diminished. The latter discovery, made by J.R. Hicks (1932), is extremely significant. It explains why the remuneration of capital (interest, not profits) has shrunk from 20 percent or more a century ago to less than 10 percent of the national income in modern times. In a society where more and more capital is employed in production, a continually smaller proportion of the income goes to the owners of capital. The share of labour has gone up; the share of land has gone down dramatically; the share of capital has gradually declined; and the share of profits has remained about the same. This picture of the historical development of income distribution fits roughly into the frame of neoclassical theory, although one must also make allowance for the short-run effects of inflation and the long-run effects of technological progress.

The demand side of the markets for productive factors is explained in large degree by the theory of marginal productivity, but the supply side requires a separate explanation, which differs for land, labour, and capital.

The supply of land is unique in being rather inelastic; that is, an increase in rent does not necessarily increase the amount of available land. Landowners as a group receive what is left over after the other factors of production are paid. In this sense, rent is a residual, and a good deal of the history of the theory of distribution is concerned with the issue whether rent should be regarded as part of the cost of production or not (as in Ricardo’s famous dictum that the price of corn is not high because of the rent of land but that land has a rent because the price of corn is high). But inelasticity of supply is not characteristic only of land; special kinds of labour and the size of the total labour force also tend to be unresponsive to variations in wages. The Ricardian issue, moreover, was important in the context of an agrarian society; it lacks significance now, when land has so many different uses.

In analyzing the earnings of labour, it is necessary to take account of the imperfections of the labour market and the actions of trade unions. Imperfections in the market make for a certain amount of indeterminacy in which considerations of fairness, equity, and tradition play a part. These affect the structure of wages—i.e., the relationships between wages for various kinds of labour and various skills. Therefore one cannot say that the income difference between a carpenter and a physician, or between a bank clerk and a truck driver, is completely determined by marginal productivity, although it is true that in the long run the wage structure is influenced by supply and demand.

The role of the trade unions has been a subject of much debate. The naive view that unions can raise wages by their efforts irrespective of market forces is, of course, incorrect. In any particular industry, exaggerated wage claims may lead to a loss of employment; this is generally recognized by union leaders. The opposite view, that trade unions cannot influence wages at all (unless they alter the basic relationship between supply and demand for labour), is held by a number of economists with respect to the real wage level of the economy as a whole. They agree that unions may push up the money wage level, especially in a tight labour market, but argue that this will lead to higher prices and so the real wage rate for the economy as a whole will not be increased accordingly. These economists also point out that high wages tend to encourage substitution of capital for labour (the cornerstone of neoclassical theory). These factors do indeed operate to check the power of trade unions, although the extreme position that the unions have no power at all against the iron laws of the market system is untenable. It is safe to say that basic economic forces do far more to determine labour’s share than do the policies of the unions. The main function of the unions lies rather in modifying the wage structure; they are able to raise the bargaining power of weak groups of workers and prevent them from lagging behind the others.

The earnings of capital are determined by various factors. Capital stems from two sources: from saving (by households, financial institutions, and businesses) and from the creation of money by the banks. The creation of money depresses the rate of interest below what may be called its natural rate. At this lower rate, businessmen will invest more, the capital stock will increase, and the marginal productivity of capital will decline. Although this chain of reactions has drawn the attention of monetary theorists, its impact on income distribution is probably not very important, at least not in the long run. There are also other factors, such as government borrowing, that may affect the distribution of income; it is difficult to say in what direction. The basic and predominant determinant is marginal productivity: the continuous accumulation of capital depresses the rate of interest.

One type of earning that is not explained by the neoclassical theory of distribution is profit, a circumstance that is especially awkward because profits form a substantial part of national income (20–25 percent); they are an important incentive to production and risk taking as well as being an important source of funds for investment. The reason for the failure to explain profit lies in the essentially static character of the neoclassical theory and in its preoccupation with perfect competition. Under such assumptions, profit tends to disappear. In the real world, which is not static and where competition does not conform to the theoretical assumptions, profit may be explained by five causes. One is uncertainty. An essential characteristic of business enterprise is that not all future developments can be foreseen or insured against. Frank H. Knight (1921) introduced the distinction between risk, which can be insured for and thus treated as a regular cost of production, and uncertainty, which cannot. In a free enterprise economy, the willingness to cope with the uninsurable has to be remunerated, and thus it is a factor of production. A second way of accounting for profits is to explain them as a premium for introducing new technology or for producing more efficiently than one’s competitors. This dynamic element in profits was stressed by Joseph Schumpeter (1911). In this view, prices are determined by the level of costs in the least progressive firms; the firm that introduces a new product or a new method will benefit from lower costs than its competitors. A third source of profits is monopoly and related forms of market power, whether deliberate as with cartels and other restrictive practices or arising from the industrial structure itself. Some economists have developed theories in which the main influence determining distributive shares is the relative “degree of monopoly” exerted by various factors of production, but this seems a bit one-sided. A fourth source of profits is sudden shifts in demand for a given product—so-called windfall profits, which may be accompanied by losses elsewhere. Finally, there are profits arising from general increases in total demand caused by a certain kind of inflationary process when costs, especially wages, lag behind rising prices. Such is not always the case in modern inflations.