"Whose recovery is this?" asks Polly. The answer, I fear is: capitalists'.

I say so because of two reasonable suppositions.

First, that, as Duncan says, labour productivity might well recover as the economy grows. This could be because hitherto under-employed workers work more intensively as demand picks up. Or it could (eventually!) be because a recovery in bank lending to firms permits a return of the external restructuring that has traditionally driven productivity in the past.

Secondly, it's likely that high unemployment will continue to hold real wages down for a while to come.

This combination means that productivity could will rise faster than real wages, which means - ceteris paribus - that capitalists' share of GDP will rise at the expense of labour's share.

In truth, this is not so much a forecast as a description of what normally happens in upturns. During the recoveries from the recessions of the early 80s and early 90s, productivity rose strongly and the share of wages in GDP fell. Indeed, since 1979 there has been a significant negative correlation (-0.43) between five-year changes in the wage share and in labour productivity; faster productivity growth is usually accompanied by a falling wage share.

What would be the political impact of this? I suspect it would increase the popularity of demands for higher real wages, be it a living wage or - better still - stronger collective bargaining. This would be especially true if rising profits and share prices lead to some high-profile pay rises for "fat cats". This might explain why even some Tories are considering supporting a higher minimum wage.

But what of the feasibility of such policies? Much, I suspect will depend upon the strength of the recovery in capital spending. If this does bounce back strongly, the capitalist lobby will claim that the rising profit share is facilitating the recovery and so should not be jeopardized. If, on the other hand, capital spending stays weak - and the recovery is fuelled by, say, debt-driven consumer spending - the intellectual case for wage-led growth will strengthen, as it becomes more apparent that the rising profit share isn't stimulating capitalists' spending.

I'm not sure how this will play out. But it could be that the next few years (the General Election and beyond) sees class conflict becoming more salient in politics. Which would be awkward for those anti-Marxist ideologues who want to downplay the importance of class.