Harry Magdoff's letter brings back some fabulous memories. During the 1990s, when the SSA approach to long waves of capitalist expansion and slowdown (in the 80s BEYOND THE WASTELAND by Bowles, Gordon and Weiskopf presented a narrative about the three SSA's in US history to that date ---- the more recent book which focuses just on neoliberalism is David Kotz's THE RISE AND FALL OF NEOLIBERAL CAPITALISM --) had been in development for quite a while, Harry had expressed a great deal of impatience with the formulation --- this letter is a very good summary of his disagreement.
There is no question that the Monthly Review stagnation thesis --- which originated with Steidl but was reformulated in 1966 with Baran and Sweezy;s magnum opus MONOPOLY CAPITAL -- has significant disagreement with the SSA approach --- Having spent most of my life teaching the MONO CAP stagnation thesis as the capstone of my undergraduate US Economic History Course, I have to admit that I have become convinced by a rather casual conversation I had with Duncan Foley (a classmate at Swarthmore who like me had to "learn:" radical economics AFTER graduating!) --- Duncan remarked that the stagnation thesis has to always find a "counteracting tendency" whenever the stagnation of, for example, the Great Depression is suddenly defeated --- Of course World War II was a gigantic boost to the US economy. --- the Korean War and the establishment of the "welfare-warfare" state (A/K/A "military Keynesianism") was another boost --- BUt the thrust of the Monopoly Capital analysis is that NOTHING (not even peacetime militarism) was sufficient to PERMANENTLY banish stagnation --- So how to explain the 1960s --- well, once again, you have Kennedy's military build-up -- after 1965, you have Johnson's escalation in Vietnam ---- and supposedly, the 1970s show stagnation rearing its ugly head -- BUT WHAT ABOUT THE 1980s? It just seems to me --- looking back all the way to WW II, that the stagnation thesis explains EVERYTHING and then has to be treated the way the Ptolomeic explanation for astronomical observations was "adjusted" before ultimately succumbing to Copernican astronomy ... too many "counteracting" forces --- Financialization was the key element that Magdoff and Sweezy developed in the 1980s and 90s --- One of their collected set of readings was entitled STAGNATION and the FINANCIAL EXPLOSION. So I finally have come to believe that the SSA approach gives us a better handle on the trajectory of American capitalism since WW II. A lot of Harry's examples in the letter definitely show that there was plenty of pushback from the Capitalist class in the US against the SSA of "regulated capitalism" based on Keynesianism --- AND the US version of the welfare state --- but it wasn't strong enough to counter the general thrust of the economy which --- in the section of the working class with strong unions --- built up the American middle class. It wasn't in my opinion till the Reagan revolution that the neo-liberal efforts (that Harry mentions in his letter) SUCCEEDED. NOW --- many would argue that it is impossible to "go back" to the "old" pre-neoliberal SSA --- which means that the future is wide open --- could be fascist could be a stronger version of social democracy -- could be something to really be feared --- what Rosa Luxembourg called "barbarism" as the only REAL choice other than socialism. I think the election of Trump and the mobilizations (wildcat teacher strikes, BLM demonstrations -- even widespread voter registration in places like Georgia --) indicate that the current situation is completely unsustainable --- politically if not also economically ... FINAL POINT which is only tangentially connected to what I just wrote -- In Harry Magdoff's last years, he often would say that it is ESSENTIAL that "our side" start to really dig into and develop what we MEAN by socialism -- The old generation (all four of my parents for example) believed that the Soviet Union was a model of the new society --- this gave them a goal that they could dream about for a future US. (Of course they were wrong about the SU....). Since we have no model in the world to base our dreams on today that ONLY MEANS we have to invent our future in our imaginations --- and I know that lots of people are trying to do that. On Sun, Jan 24, 2021 at 5:47 AM Louis Proyect <[email protected]> wrote: > https://monthlyreview.org/1998/01/01/a-letter-to-a-contributor/ > _._,_._,_ > > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Groups.io Links: You receive all messages sent to this group. View/Reply Online (#5798): https://groups.io/g/marxmail/message/5798 Mute This Topic: https://groups.io/mt/80077757/21656 -=-=- 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. -=-=- Group Owner: [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://groups.io/g/marxmail/leave/8674936/1316126222/xyzzy [[email protected]] -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
