Karl, I think we agree on the fundamentals so will get stuck in to the detail.
Karl: I cannot subscribe to your argument. Even if Brown were to increase state spending by a putative "sufficient amount" it would not necessarily led to real economic growth. Effectively, you are denying the validity of a Monetary intervention to burn out of recession. I don't think that's right. If Brown could borrow £10 trillion and spend it within the British economy - I'm pretty sure that it would grow GDP to an extent which would pull the economy out of its current dip. Indeed, there are whole sets of figures (known as Type 2, Input-Output tables) which relate spend in a given sector with growth in another one. As I have proven that State Spending can grow GDP in an extreme case, your argument loses it's validity, let's see where the argument has lost the line. Karl: The accelerated accumulation of capital is not a function of state spending. I don't think that this is wrong, although it would be hard to prove as a universal statement. I guess this is what you blame the current recession/depression on? I think that a less simplistic viewpoint is required. There have been a whole range of explanations for the period of extended growth that the US has experienced [including extracting surplus value from the USSR following its collapse]. Others include the New IT Paradigm or even increased Globalisation and super-exploitation - what is clear however, is that these openings cannot deliver GDP growth rates sufficient to support expectations. I think that the issue of 'accelerated accumulation of capital' is only a 'catch-all' for all these specific trends. Karl: Indeed in principle state spending constitutes a deduction from surplus value which means that less surplus value exists for capital expansion. This statement is completely incorrect. You might wish to change it to 'state spending has no impact on capital expansion as it merely the redistribution of surplus wealth from one sector to another' as you are forgetting the spend side. Even then, the statement is still wrong as you are forgetting that Keynesian Intervention (and this is what Brown is doing) involves borrowing to grow the economy. That means in Marx-speak: Accessing Surplus Value/Dead Labour extracted elsewhere in the world and utilising it to increase both the rate and size of domestic surplus value extraction. Karl: Consequently the rate of capital accumulation correspondingly declines. Not so. This corollary has not been proven. In effect, you are denying that Government Intervention can grow an economy at all - this would deny the sort of growth that Stalin managed in the early Soviet Union. He extracted surplus value from the peasants and redistributed it to growing his industry. For details read Preobrazhensky - I think he studied this case best. Karl: Keynesian economics has been proven by economic development to be incorrect which is, in part, why it has been abandoned by the bourgeoisie. To describe Brown as some sort of Keynesian makes no sense given the track record of what is called New Labour. The recent state spending promises dont necessarily have anything to do with adherence to Keynesian philosophy. New Labour is far too pragmatic for such crusading. No, I think that Brown is a closet Keynesian as are many within the British Economic Establishment. Don't forget Keynes was no socialist. He was a hard-headed Liberal. Brown is a closet Keynesian but he is scared to go the whole hog as Keynes would have recommended, therefore, he sticks a little intervention in there. Going on New Labour's track record, we might have expected him to be the 'iron chancellor' which he played out for the last few years. However, now he's taken a risk and will likely pay with a combination of borrowing and a tax increase. His previous building up of surpluses must be seen in the context of his use of some of them at this stage of the economic cycle. Karl: The spending by Brown, in many ways, has more to do with politics than economics: The spending has more to with New Labour's political defence. It is aimed at undermining any growing left opposition within the Labour Party and the trade union movement. It is also forms part of a political strategy to win the next general election. On this we agree. I stated such in my post. The intervention is too small to be really Keynesian yet, but it's a sign of his direction - particularly, for internal consumption. Karl: Ultimately the modest state spending programme is a device to maintain the British working class in a state of passivity. Well, you can look at it two ways - from the bourgeois management viewpoint or from the working class as agents of change viewpoint. Either way the 'modest state spending programme', the NHS, the Universal Education system, etc have been won through the struggle of the working class. I choose to think we forced them to give this. Neo-Keynesianism is merely a modification of bourgeois ideology designed to, among other things, protect a "discipline" that has proven its bankrupcy concerning its ability to explain and assist in the development of the capitalist economy. History has verified the falseness of both Keynesianism and Monetarism. They have been reduced to a quieter role because of the glaring contradictions, as theories and forms of analyses, against the backdrop of economic reality. You might usefully expand upon this. I think we basically agree, as Marxists, but I think you need to reconsider your absolute opposition to Keynesian economics to include a more scientific critique of to what extent it actually works. Governmental intervention is something which Keynesian economics and Marxist economics (excluding those from an Anarchist bent) hold in common - to criticise Keynes' economics because they work within a framework of capitalism is fine as far as it goes. We need more however. I reiterate, I am no Keynesian, but I recognise the value of Governmental interventions into the economy. Sé _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com
