Jim Devine wrote: > > it depends on how you define "depression."
At any one time _somewhere_ within the capitalist societies (or any one capitalist nation) is suffering (locally) utter economic collapse. Hence if we went by localities it would be correct to say that capitalism has been one continuous depression. That might be cool converation and make an anti-capitalist feel good, but it really wouldn't tell us anything non-tautological about capitalism as a whole nor would it be of any particular use for planning left tactics. Let's keep the word "depression" to indicate a major collapse of the capitalist system as a whole, as happened in the 1930s. But we do need a better word than "recession" for what happened in Japan in the '90s or what happened in the u.s. in 1974-75, as well as catastrophes such as is currently occurring in Michigan. Carrol
