>>> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 27/November/1996 03:32am >>> >The basic idea makes sense, however. Given the underlying >tendency toward instability and crisis of the laws of motion of >capital, one can posit certain institutional forms that stabilize >the system, explaining the so-called "Golden Age" of the advanced >countries after WW II until the 1970s... >My problem is that most of the theories of the laws of motion >absent the stabilizing institutions are pretty weak. That's not >just the regulationists' or the SSAers' or Kidron's or B&S's or >Mandel's fault. The Marxists outside of these schools haven't >done well either... Hang on, comrade. Is it not appropriate at this juncture to distinguish what we want a poli-econ "theory" to do? Isn't theory about identifying the underlying laws of motion of a system, and not about telling descriptive stories regarding various contingent institutional forms (norms, processes, values, etc) that may result or correspond? (Not that such stories aren't immensely interesting and valuable.) We're all trying to figure out the character of the nation-state under conditions of globalisation, for instance, and it's becoming clearer that the contingencies in the institutional form and the set of alliances that a state apparatus represents these days just don't lend themselves to theorising. >Without a clear understanding of the unvarnished laws of motion >of the system, it is very hard to generalize from the specifics >of what stabilized during the "Golden Age" to what can do the >job in general. That seems a good line of argument. I recall an attempt by Lipietz (in RRPE, late 1980s?, on crisis theory?) to link falling rate of profit into reg theory. Have any SSA comrades attempted anything along these lines? >...I simply look at how they affect the way in which the pure "laws of > motion" affect our lives. It can be positive (protecting people and > nature) or negative; they can promote the stability of capitalism but may > not. "Can", "may"? Are you then leaving much of the work in the realm of contingency then Jim?
