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* From: Jim Devine
On 2/7/07, Charles Brown <
I thought PEN-L was supposed to be to the left of Sun-Times. That
means
a lot more emphasis on the shortcomings of the capitalist system.
Why would
we want PEN-L to fall to the level of a capitalist rag newspaper in
its
discussion of capitalism ?...
isn't denouncing the shortcomings of capitalism on pen-l mostly just a
matter of preaching to the converted? sure, it's great to get new
information about capitalism's depredations, but harping on
capitalism's sins is no substitute for serious analysis.
^^^^^
CB: I don't know. Does pen-l say capitalism has got to go ?
Why do the converted need anymore serious analysis ? The converted of PEN-L
have had all the serious analysis they need. Isn't the proposition that
capitalism has such great failings that it's got to go the conclusion that
serious analysis renders ?
^^^^^
There is economic hardship in lots of America. There may not be a
"recession" as defined 40 years ago or "depression" as defined 80
years ago,
but there is mass economic hardship, poverty, unemployment, misery.
Left
economists should find a way to characterize this, as the concept of
"recession" doesn't seem to be able to capture it anymore.
^^^^^^
how about "the Silent Depression" as Wallace C. Peterson's book calls
it? Alain Lipietz called it the "slow 1929," if I remember correctly.
I call it the "neoliberal phase" of capitalism's development (starting
in about 1980, though it might have started in 1973, in Chile at
least).
^^^^^^
CB: Sounds like the right stuff. What's new about neo-liberalism's
"recessions" , downturns ? They are slow ? Are they "silent" because the
new left orthdoxy is not to talk about them ? Not to talk about poverty ?
On the all news radio station today , I heard the usage of "one state
recession" for Michigan. Michigan is being hit so hard that I bet the mass
economists and the mass of economic thinking including maybe among small
businesses may come up with some new concepts and terms.
^^^^^^
You're right that it's good to avoid conflating business cycle phases
such as recessions with the general context in which the cycle occurs
(growing inequality of the distribution of wealth, income, and power,
etc.) However, a recession is possible in the near future, so we
should be concerned. With all of the consumer debt accumulation in
recent years, a new recession could be much more disastrous than
previous ones of the post-WW2 era.
Of course, recessions aren't the only bad alternative. In a talk I
gave awhile back (in 2005, available at
http://myweb.lmu.edu/jdevine/SHJtalk040805.htm) I suggested a "rosy"
scenario for the future: "Government debt accumulation [i.e.,
deficits] and corporate expansion encourage [economic] recovery, based
on consumer debt peonage (debts accumulated from the past, stricter
bankruptcy laws)."
On the other hand, the negative scenario involved a "wave of household
bankruptcies, recession, rising unemployment. Private investment falls
again. Prolonged stagnation." We still don't know what will happen:
we still seem to be at the same fork in the road.
^^^^^^^
CB: The U.S. seems to be able to avoid serious recession for a period beyond
the old ballpark figure for cycles. It's got to be that the technical skill
of the financial system managers is at a level where they are able to
prevent recession in the U.S. by control of world finance. The Japanese and
Chinese holding debts for the trade deficit that they can't collect seems
to be one well demonstrated trick in the 21st Century Yankee bankers' bag.
Henry Liu discusses these issues.
