On 2013-08-21, at 7:23 PM, Carrol Cox wrote: > "However, even the most long-standing bearish commentators like Michael > Pettis don't think a full-blown crisis in the cards, even in the unlikely > event growth tumbles precipitously from its current 7.5% level. Pettis > recently estimated that GDP need only grow by 3-4%, implying zero investment > growth, in order for median Chinese income to continue growing robustly, > ensuring social stability while the economy is weaned away from export-led > growth...." > > Does "social stability" depend on such growth? Can't falling incomes _also_ > maintain social stability. Even in Greece the political response to > Austerity has not really threatened such stability. > > Scattered riots and miscellaneous actions on the left are hardly that > serious. Misery itself can be a bulwark of stability, generating passivity > rather than serious resistance.
There are ample examples throughout history of mass discontent and protest expressing itself both when economies are expanding and when they are contracting, both when there are rising expectations and when living conditions abruptly deteriorate. I don't think there's any hard and fast rule, certainly not for political insurrection. In the economic arena, however, there seems to be a correlation between strikes and other forms of workplace protest aimed at improvements and the state of the labour market. I think this holds true for the contrasting labour markets in Greece and China. There's a strong demand for labour in the latter which has led to significant wage gains, compared to the catastrophic situation in Greece, where political exhaustion seems to have set in and where such strike action as has occurred has been defensive in nature, a desperate attempt to hold on to jobs and incomes which have been fiercely assaulted. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
