At 17/07/01 02:00 +0100, you wrote:
>Michael Perelman:
> >
> > I think that Godley may sign up to pen-l after he returns from England. I
> > hope that we can discuss his paper fruitfully.
>
>I'd be specially interested to discuss his views about import controls.
>
>Mark
Wynne Godley is a thoughtful and courageous person, but are import controls
really a viable option for developed capitalist economies at present? It is
hard to see the Bush administration going through the fine print of the
GATT conventions to justify this.
Besides isn't a continued unequal flow of value into the USA essential to
it continuing generously to play the role of consumer of last resort?
I see that one model Wynne Godly explored
>originally developed at Cambridge University, is a "closed" world model in
>which 11 trading blocs--of which the United States, China, Japan, and
>Western Europe are four--are represented. This model is based on a matrix
>in which each bloc's imports are described in terms of exports from the
>other 10 blocs. From this information and using alternative assumptions
>(for example, about growth rates, trade shares, and energy demands and
>supplies), past trends can be identified and the patterns of trade and
>production analyzed to reveal any structural imbalances.
It would be interesting to discuss whether there is any connection with why
US consumer spending has not fallen yet as Wynne Godley predicted it would
- to be fair sometime in the medium term.
This relates to the marxian question of whether there is too much capital
in the world relative to purchasing power of "the masses", which is
certainly my assumption. I may have missed if anyone has spelt out the
arguments for the alternative hypothesis, that there is too little capital.
It would be interesting if the delayed contraction of spending by the
consumers of last resort, in the USA, could be linked to a model in which
they continue to benefit from an uneven flow of value from outside
economies which are forced into relative devaluation. It may be that the
relative flow of capital into the USA could be compared with the relative
flow of imports.
Mark's question about import controls implies a view that international
trade affects some countries particularly adversely, and this is a
defensive manoeuvre which should be compared to devaluation as a way of
getting some progressive control over the situation. But shouldn't we be
looking at the whole world system?
I would be more interested in theories Wynne Godley may have about how the
global imbalances are working out, and what interventions should be
discussed at the global level to ward off the prospect of global recession,
and get some leverage on the global capitalist system.
Chris Burford
