5- 1 3 
wage, the fall in sales and consequent leftward shift of the MVP 
curve may still leave the marginal value of labor for an unchanged 
workforce and unchanged output no lower than the wage. Another and 
perhaps simpler way of looking at the same situation is to regard 
the workers made redundant by the fall in as the extra workers 
seeking work at the given wage; and it is profitable to re-employ 
them if their MVP, though lower than it was before, remains above 
the wage. Profits, of course, are bound to fall with unchanged 
production costs and reduced sales revenues (or higher advertising 
costs); but the policy may nevertheless be the best available. 
Indeed, there are examples of firms' following exactly that policy 
— and not only under pressure from Ministries of Employment but 
under the guidance of the profit motive as well. 
Note 
those 
the important asymmetry between the wage-maker employer's response 
two situations. His response to the availability of unemployed 1 
of rising employment 
s to 
abor 
sets in motion a cumulative process/if the situation is nationwide or at 
all widespread. His and his colleagues' response to a general fall in 
sales on the other hand not only does not initiate any multiplier process 
but nios in the bud the downward cumulative process^of falling sales causing 
falling employment, causing falling incomes, causing further falling sales, 
etc -J) which would result if employers failed to dominate the labor market 
and so failed to have an excess demand for labor. In short, employers' 
excess demand for labor imparts a strong upward or-expansionary bias to 
responses to external cnanges in tre markets tney xace.