On Sat, 17 May 1997, Tom Walker wrote (about my comments about Sid S's
comments):
>.... At any rate, I think it's too easy to confuse terms like
"internationalism"
> and "nationalism" as if they were opposites or alternatives. I don't see any
> inconsistency in strategically pursuing a "commitment to internationalism"
> by acting within the context of national policies and national
> organizations. Specifically, on the issue of the regulating trade and
> investment, I don't see any alternative at the present time. This is how it
> was under "good old capitalism" and it's really no different now.
>
I accept that I may have posed the nationalism\internationalism issue a
little too starkly. I agree we have to work in national contexts and
organizations, and don't think I suggested otherwise.
> What I see Sid as arguing against is the kind of doomsday/pollyanna scenario
> that tells everyone to abandon hope of seeking more progressive (or less
> regressive) policies from national governments because, after all, "their
> hands are tied, all the power is now global". The complement is a kind of
> wishful thinking that the emerging supra-national institutions of capitalism
> can somehow be made more responsive to working class needs, if only we'd
> stop diddling around at the national level. And that's such an abstract
> position, I can't even imagine what it could mean practically -- meditation?
> levitation?
>
I agree completely with this. My point is that too often 'globalization',
foreign capital, etc. are too often posed as the big problem, and so
distract from the struggle for reforms at home. If the big problem is at
home (as I tried to show earlier for Canada using data on foreign control)
then I think an emphasis on nationalist measures is misplaced. My
understanding was that Sid S. saw such measures as more generally
appropriate (at least in part) because one of main ways that capitalism
has changed is a qualitative rise in foreign penetration of national
economies. I apologise if this was a false characterization.
> ...I'm not saying the supra-national institutions are impervious to
pressure,> just that the _main_ way to put pressure on them is to put pressure on the
> national governments that accede to them.
And an excellent example is the French rail strikes a few months ago,
that put out a strong message that if workers in Europe are pushed too
hard they still have the capacity to fight back.
By the way, remember the good old
> days when we could use the word "imperialism" and even "U.S. imperialism"
> with impunity?" I remember tortured debates on the left about what the
> nature of the Canadian state was -- whether Canada was a "sub-imperialist
> power" or a "colonized nation", whether or not to lend comfort to "petit
> bourgeois nationalism", etc. As an American draft dodger, the arguments
> seemed sort of academic to me, mainly because I couldn't see any point to
> answering such questions "decisively". Even the "nation-state" is to some
> degree an abstraction.
If we agree that nation states are still important, isn't it important
to also identify exactly who has power in them, and specifically whether
domestic or foreign capital predominates?
>
> Bill Burgess also asked,
>
> >What do you see as the main difference? Is it not that in the golden age
> >Capital could afford some concessions whereas since about the mid 1970s
> >labour productivity growth and real profitability have been stagnant, and
> >so Capital has had to become more aggressive ("brutal", as Bill R. put
> >it)?
>
> This is a provocative way of putting the question -- that capital can no
> longer "afford" keynesian welfare state concessions. I suspect that long
> waves are lurking somewhere in the background of this question and that the
> stagnant labour productivity growth and real profitability have as much to
> do with Ernest Mandel as they do with time series data (Doug Henwood are you
> there?).
Not long waves, but the notion that there are longish periods of growth
and then stagnation, and that the shift from one to the other is the
backdrop for increased capitalist "aggression" (rather than growth in foreign
penetration, globalized production, etc.)
>
> On Monday, May 12, Jim Devine posted an analysis from Dean Baker of the
> Economic Policy Institute talking about the profit boom and I quote the
> first two paragraphs:
>
> >Corporate profit rates reached a new peak in 1996 and are now at their
> >highest level since these data were first collected in 1959. The Bureau of
> >Economic Analysis reports that the before-tax profit rate rose to 11.39%
> >last year, up from 10.78% in 1995, and the after-tax rate rose to 7.57%, up
> >from 7.01%. The previous peak rate for before-tax profits was 11.29% in
> >1966, and the previous peak for after-tax profits was 7.03% in 1994.
> >
> >The rise in profit rates is even more dramatic when compared to the
> >profit peak of the last business cycle in 1988. In that year, the
> >before-tax profit rate was just 7.29% and the after-tax rate 4.96%. Thus,
> >the 1996 numbers imply increases of more than 50% in both rates in just an
> >eight-year period. In no previous period in U.S. history have profit rates
> >experienced such a rapid sustained rise, although other countries in the
> >Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have
> >experienced a similar increase in profit rates over this period.
Granted, if I am wrong that productivity growth has slipped and real
profits stagnant in the main capitalist countries (compared to the golden
age) then I probably am wrong on some of the rest of the argument. I think
there is widespread agreement about the productivity decline, but the
profitability argument is harder to make. I know Fred Mosely and
others get a falling rate of profit by adding a whole whack of
"unproductive labour" costs into the denominator of the profit rate, but
this doesn't seem entirely convincing to me. So if those conventional
profit rates stay high indefinitely I will have to change my position.
Bill Burgess
