Steve Pressman and Robert Scott, two fine PKers at the Bruce Springsteen School of Management on the Jersey shore, just published a piece in AER about how debt is beginning (finally) to wear thin as a substitute for the historical pattern of American wage growth, due to the need to service the debt at often usurious rates, a situation worsened, ironically, by the recent change in bankruptcy law.
Regarding crisis theory, I found a comment some years ago by B. Fine in Rereading Capitalism helpful. Ultimately the issue is not to carefully distinguish taxonomically between underconsumption, overproduction, overaccumulation, underinvestment etc.. Ben's point was that underlying these categorizations are the contradictions of capitalism that make finding any robust equilibrium between supply, demand, and investment impossible, and any attempt to do so with fiscal or monetary policy, wage arrangements or financial tricks, ultimately kicks the can down the road toward new crises. Marens Sac State -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Michael Perelman Sent: Sun 2/24/2008 10:05 AM To: Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition Cc: [email protected] Subject: [Pen-l] re: A layperson's guide to crisis theory Although underconsumption is not the whole story of the limitations of capitalism, it is still a significant factor. Without the buildup of household debt, the economy certainly would have grown much less and possibly could not have avoided a substantial downturn. -- Michael Perelman Economics Department California State University Chico, CA 95929 Tel. 530-898-5321 E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu michaelperelman.wordpress.com _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
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