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Roberts (taking his cue from his mentors Andrew Kliman and Alan Freeman) claims that labor's share did not decrease at the expense of capital's following the counterattack that began in the 1970s. They are basing this assertion on the work of reactionary economists who in turn were trying to refute Saez and Picketty's work on income inequality in the US. The reactionaries (and thus Kliman and co) contend that this disparity virtually disappears when you factor in various state transfers and employer expenses on health insurance and other benefits (Kliman usually makes some additional claim about it all coming out in the wash because women joined the workforce, hence no real decline in the household income). Those claims have been refuted six ways from Sunday by economists of all stripes (a good summary here: http://bit.ly/1Nqmf7S ). Putting aside statistical analyses of wages, benefits, and state transfers, does it make sense that labor's share in the US was rising despite the crushing of unions and collective bargaining that began in late 70s? Shrinking expenditures on welfare, disability, UI benefits, etc? Round after round of tax cuts for corporations and the top 1% of inco me earners (which always results in rising taxes on workers in the form of rising sales taxes, road tolls, "vice taxes", the resort to state lotteries, etc.)? When reading the Kliman gang's work you always have to look out for the word "adjustments"...since that's the only way they can produce their results - whether it's on labor's share or the falling profit rate (even then they can't agree on how to calculate the rate of profit - they all do it differently as Roberts admits in his Great Recession book). These people are not really interested in investigating capitalism's evolution over time. They proceed from the position that Marx's judgments on capitalism and its dynamics are infallible and timeless and refuse to do anything but examine the present through the lens of the 19th century (19th century England at that). The falling profit fundamentalists have to prove that consumption is irrelevant to crisis, so in turn they HAVE to prove that labor's share is actually always rising and consumer debt either unrelated or insignificant (the organic composition is also always rising, hence why they must completely discount or ignore the capital-saving revolution that is containeri zation coupled with global labor arbitrage). Meanwhile those of us who aren't employed at a university with tenure haven't been able to make ends meet for long before the great recession. Once again, if you want an honest, logical explanation of the latest crash check out Howard Sherman's Roller Coaster Economy. He looks at the behavior of both consumption and investment in the run-up to crisis and how they interact to produce downturns. Ultimately, I think Marxists need to stop arguing (let alone establishing Marxist litmus tests like Kliman, Carchedi, Roberts, Mattick, etc do) about crisis theory. Whatever one's pet theory is, all Marxists agree on one thing: capitalism is prone to crisis and based on exploitation and the simultaneous degradation of man and nature (to the degree that two can be meaningfully separated). Why can't we all just form a movement based on that straightforward critique and stop with the circular firing squads? > On Nov 8, 2015, at 8:35 AM, Louis Proyect via Marxism > <marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > > ******************** POSTING RULES & NOTES ******************** > #1 YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > #2 This mail-list, like most, is publicly & permanently archived. > #3 Subscribe and post under an alias if #2 is a concern. > ***************************************************************** > > Most years I attend the London conference of the Historical Materialism > journal. This brings together academics and others to present papers and > discuss issues from a generally Marxist viewpoint. This year I presented a > paper on whether rising inequality causes crises under capitalism (Does > inequality causes crises). My session was well attended and the audience > included many of the small band of Marxist economist s around at the moment. > > The gist of what I said was this. Rising inequality of income and wealth in > the major economies has become a popular thesis among both mainstream and > heterodox economists. The thesis is founded on the arguments that wages as a > share of GDP have been falling in the major economies. This creates a gap > between demand and supply, or a tendency to underconsumption. That gap was > filled by an explosion of debt, particularly household debt. It is also > encouraged financial institutions to engage in riskier financial investments > that exposed them to eventual disaster. The credit boom fuelled a housing > bubble but eventually that burst and the house of cards came tumbling down. > QED? > > full: > https://thenextrecession.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/too-much-profit-not-too-little/ > _________________________________________________________ > Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm > Set your options at: > http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/shalva.eliava%40outlook.com _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
