>Real wages fell under Reagan; they've risen in the last 5 years. The
>black poverty rate barely budged in the 1980s; it's fallen sharply in
>the 1990s. Despite the constancy of the underheel. But I guess the
>U.S. working class doesn't matter, because they're the bought-off
>dupes of imperialism.
>
>Doug
Under Reagan, the US economy performed better than it did under Carter.
Under Clinton, it performed better than it did under Bush. I don't think
this kind of analysis offers much. It is tied into much to the framework of
neoclassical economics which operates as if each country was some kind of
desert island that consisted of Robinson Crusoes and Fridays interacting
with each other.
Doug seems to care little about what exists beyond the island, although I
think it matters a whole lot. How can we not factor in something like the
price of energy? Even the slightest rise in oil prices has Wall Street
analysts worrying about the future of the US economic expansion. What if
the Soviet Union had not collapsed and had, instead of selling out the
Chinese, continued to supply loans and technical assistance? A powerful
socialist bloc would mean that developing countries had an alternative to
neoliberalism.
E.M. Forester: "Only Connect"
Louis Proyect
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