raghu wrote:
> > The way I see it, there is a brewing conflict between the industrial
> > capitalists and finance capitalists.
Sandwichman wrote:
> I would assume capitalists have diversified portfolios.
I agree. IMHO, I think there is no conflict between industrial
capitalists and financial capitalists, even to the degree that there
is a conflict between big businesses and small businesses.
Rather, there is a (structural) conflict between the short-term
individual interests of capitalists of all stripes ("deregulation,
subsidies for me, etc.") and the long-term collective interests of the
capitalist class as whole (more stability, preserve the system).
Financial capitalists are simply one version of the particularistic
perspective. Most industrial capitalists go along. (Remember that GM
makes a big chunk of its profits from finance, last time I heard.)
The structural conflict is not always expressed as an overt conflict.
During _laissez-faire_ periods (in the US, the Gilded Age, the 1920s,
the neoliberal era), the particularistic interests dominate. During
what people think of as "more sober" periods, such as the 1950s and
1960s in the US -- and especially under social democracy in some
places in Western and Northern Europe -- it's the longer-term, more
stability-minded, perspective that dominates.
Of course, what causes such "more sober" periods is memory of the
failures of the _laissez-faire_ period (as in the 1950s) or pressure
from labor (as with social democracy). When those memories and
pressures fade, the short-termist particularistic vision comes back.
--
Jim Devine / "Segui il tuo corso, e lascia dir le genti." (Go your own
way and let people talk.) -- Karl, paraphrasing Dante.
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