On 21 Sep 99, at 12:35, Doug Henwood wrote: > ... The 1989-92 period was unusual for the > length of its stagnation, but GDP was 3% higher in 1992 than in 1989, > which hardly makes it the worst recession since the 1930s. Comrade Doug, isn't it time to go beyond marginal changes in GDP and profit rates for these kinds of "proofs" of K's alleged virility... and into valorisation/devalorisation processes? No, the data wouldn't be easy to construct, but for Marxist economists, isn't that the way in which these cycles tend to really work themselves out? Once enough overaccumulated K is devalued the animal spirits can get back to investing? And in the process, how about factoring in global processes? For the early 1990s, take away half the value of the Tokyo stock market, a huge chunk of real estate values in world cities not to mention backwaters, more downward commodity price pressure, Eastern Europe unravelled, more African countries trashed (my favourite, Zimbabwe, witnessed a 40% fall in volume of manufacturing from 1991-95), rising bankruptcy rates, S&L asset write-downs, etc etc. Gunder Frank is right to remind us, > > > if this is not a super disasterous decade of WORLD DEPRESSION, > > > I would like to be told what it has been, eg by Russians, East Europeans, > > > East Asians, Central Asians, West Asians, South Americans, > > > North/West/East/South Africans, and and... Doug: > There have been horrible social disasters in these parts of the > world, but they're not accurately described as recessions or > depressions in the economic sense except for the former USSR. Africa > shows positive GDP growth in the 1990s After someone has suffered a knockout punch, a wee flicker of the eyelid may indeed seem like positive GDP growth. But last time I looked around the continent, I mainly saw 1950s per capita GDP land. Patrick Bond (Wits University Graduate School of Public and Development Management) home: 51 Somerset Road, Kensington 2094, Johannesburg office: 22 Gordon Building, Wits University Parktown Campus mailing address: PO Box 601 WITS 2050 phones: (h) (2711) 614-8088; (o) 488-5917; fax 484-2729 emails: (h) [EMAIL PROTECTED]; (o) [EMAIL PROTECTED]
