[...] What is called a crisis of 'under-consumption' results when there is not enough effective demand to absorb the commodities produced.

Workers spending their wages is one source of effective demand. But the total wage bill is always less than the total capital in circulation (otherwise there would be no profit), so the purchase of the wage goods that sustain daily life (even with a suburban lifestyle) is never sufficient for the profitable sale of the total output. A politics of wage repression only heightens the possibility of a crisis of under-consumption. Many analysts came to regard the crisis of the 1930s as primarily a crisis of under-comsumption. They therefore supported unionisation and other state strategies (like social security) to bolster effective demand among the working classes. [...]