----- Original Message ----- From: "Devine, James" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, February 29, 2004 12:16 PM Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Greenspan and the use of time to commit fiscal crime Well, since I'm being addressed specifically, let me violate the three and out rule:
> dms writes: > >Let's not forget to whom Mr. Greenspan is beholden: and that's not von > Hayek, Ayn Rand, or Adam Smith, it's finance capital. And finance capital > wants SS privatized so it can get the rake off. Ever since the collapse of > 2000-01, Wall Street has been trying to re-establish support for this jd writes: > "finance capital wants"? How can a fraction of the capitalist class "want" something, as if a large number of people share identical consciousness? This formulation fetishizes socio-economic categories and (in addition) makes it hard to talk to non-Marxists. It veers toward conspiracy theory or Hegelianism. DMS: That's like asking how can the steel producers, steel capitalists, want tariffs and import restrictions. How? They, the fraction, form groups, organizations and lobby for such things. They,the fraction now organized as a group, advocate it in their press, their internal and external discussions, their contributions to political candidates who will carry the water forward. That's how. It's how the airline industry did it with Bush prior and since the election. How the pharmaceutical indstry got its way with Medicare prescription coverage, etc. etc. JD: > Instead, I'd say that many or most people and institutions which are financiers (or finance capitalists) would benefit from the privatization of the SS system. Because of their disproportionate political and economic power, they can have a lot of influence. They are endorsed by some intellectual hacks (usually economists or ignorami) who piously invoke H*yek, Rand, and/or Smith. This represents one faction of the political fight, which is counter-acted by other political forces, including capitalist ones. (George Soros, Ted Kennedy, and John Kerry are also in the capitalist camp. Etc.) Unfortunately, labor doesn't have enough power these days to have much say. DMS: And the practical difference is....? OK, let's say a hard core of the the financial capitalists... like we would say the hardest core of the capitalists supported Bush, wanted Bush. How could they, did they manifest that? By contributing more to the Repubs-- by a 2:1 margin. JD: > I am sure that there's some internal debate about what exactly the long-term interests of the finance-capital fraction are. Privatization of SS might destabilize finance over-all and/or help delegitimize US capitalism. The truth of different factions' perspectives can only be determined after the fact. In addition, how does someone like AG reconcile (his faction's perception of) these long-term interests and the impatient greed of individual financiers? Dms: That, the above, is voluntarism. The issue is what are the historical requirements, determinants that bring this issue to the fore, that make it so high profile at this time and place. Neo-liberalism is not a theory, it is a social policy, an attack by capital, capitalism, capitalists, upon the living standards of the workers and poor, which gained currency at a specific time for a specific reason, having absoutely nothing to do with its economic accuracy. Reconciling different factions perspectives can be done with any of the tools of capitalism-- guns, lawyers, money. The specific circumstances, and the desperation of the economic predicament determines what combinations are used. JD: > I agree that Greenspan is one of the anti-SS "finance capital" faction. A lot of our political work involves convincing people that the Fed and Greenspan aren't apolitical technocrats but are instead financier partisans, rather than taking this fact as Revealed Truth. DMS: That, the above, was/is the sole and whole reason I took issue with JB's characterization of AG as a deep economic thinker with a wrong theory.
