Rakesh writes: >>If Indonesian capital can escape the contradiction between production and consumption through the export of consumer goods--as suggested by Jim-- why can't US capital escape the same contradiction through the export of investment goods to markets in Asian and Europe?<< To some extent, the US has escaped that contradiction, in that way. The US isn't booming these days because of consumption demand. The US sells computers, etc., to the rest of the world. Among other things, as NPR reported yesterday morning, Clinton is pushing the sale of US weapons all around the world (more aggressively than any other President except Nixon, says NPR; my feeling is that relative to GDP, Clinton is probably more aggressive). However, the US, more than any advanced industrial economy in the world, is constrained by domestic markets, so the relatively high wages here help stabilize the US economy. Nonetheless, as the globalization trend continues, the US boom becomes more and more constrained by _world_ consumer demand and thus world wage income; as the "downward harmonization" of wages (relative to labor productivity) and social programs continues, it's going to drag the US down along with other countries. >>In other words, hasn't the "globalization" of investment demand allowed US capital to escape the limits of insufficient domestic consumer demand and thus terminate the Marxian contradictions?<< I don't think that the underconsumption tendencies referred to above (both by myself and by Rakesh) represent the sum total of the "Marxian contradictions." Even if world wages were to boom (relative to labor productivity), in other words, capitalism would have its crisis tendencies. And my attitude toward underconsumption is more complex than in the discussion above, which seems crudely underconsumptionist: see my 1994 article in RESEARCH IN POLITICAL ECONOMY. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ. 7900 Loyola Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90045-8410 USA 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950 "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own way and let people talk.) -- K. Marx, paraphrasing Dante A.
