I wrote:
> >the problem is that it's possible for what superficially looks like
> >vigorous growth to hide deep instability. I interpret the US
> boom of the
> >late 1920s in these terms, just like Bob Pollin's
> interpretation of the
> >"Clinton boom" in his recent book...
Paul writes:
> Agreed but...isn't the transformation from a post-war type
> society (and
> class structure) back to sort of a 1920s type a lengthy
> process that still
> may have a ways to go?
Yeah, the purist neoliberal types probably want more, more, more.
> Even more so when one takes the international
> dimension into account. The world has never really seen this
> particular
> sort of transformation backwards.
how about the collapse of the Roman Empire and the rise of feudalism?
> That transformation process gives a
> lengthy "one shot" to profit rates and keep the "boom"
> running for a while
> (of course with LOTS of short term fluctuations and
> fragilities that cause
> short term crises that could be mismanaged and become big).
> Plus couldn't
> there be some technological reasons giving profit rates a
> "long wave" type
> upward buoyancy?
I think the failure of the various "one shot" profit-promotion efforts to put
neoliberal capitalism on a stable footing is likely connected to an underlying
underconsumption undertow (whew!), the way in which the global downward harmonization
of wages and social benefits is dragging down consumption (except when helped by
increasing consumer indebtedness).
Technology helps on the supply side, but in this era the demand side seems to be the
source of problems. If wages are stagnant compared to labor productivity, a technical
improvement simply raises the latter, encouraging the undercon undertow.
> Couldn't a "boom" last long enough to make it seem like we are being
> Cassandras?
Yes, if the boom is global in scope and lasts for a few years, it's possible that
world wage rates could be pulled up, ending the undertow.
>If predictions don't become true within a reasonable time
> frame they can be politically discrediting - unless one is very
> clear.
I can't predict _when_ the undercon undertow will actually pull down the US and world
economies. It's only a possibility. But it's linked to a moral and political critique
of the current boom.
>BTW, I put "boom" in quotation marks because I think
> it is really
> more of a transformation: a large part of the population (not
> the part that
> the media reflects) will see little or no benefit and, above
> all, will see
> themselves structurally excluded from wealth and power in
> large and new ways.
the legitimation of the new phase of capitalism ("neoliberal capitalism") will
eventually be a big problem. This can go in a right-wing direction, as it did in the
US in the early 1990s (with Timothy McVeigh, et al) or the early 2000s (with George W.
Bush, et al).
> BTW, Jim surely knows this, but Dumenil & Levy's new book
> (which I haven't
> yet digested) seems to make a good starting point on some of
> this (a bit
> more along Jim's lines than mine).
I haven't finished the book, but it seems really good.
jd
