Carrol Cox wrote:
Depressions can't be close to carbon copies of each other.
Assuming that one (whatever we mean by the term) is underway, what might
it look like, compared/contrasted to the '30s?
Some things will certainly change appearancesd. Social Security payments
and Medicare change the obligations of families in supporting the
elderly, which should make a big difference.
What else?
I realize that capitalism has always been a global system in some way or another,
but, it seems that there is something different about globalization in the current
period. In particular the role of the nation state, which in the past was a
necessary component for capitalism's success, today seems to be less able to deal
with system-wide problems.
In the past, in the USA, national regulation of the economy coincided with
something that could be reasonably thought of as a national economy. Individual
territorial states were unable to regulate and stabilize economic affairs. I'm
thinking of examples like the meat-packing industry and the Food and Drug
Administration in the early 20th century.
In today's world, nation states seem to have a similar role as the US territorial
states had in say 1900, the national market was wider than the individual
territories. But in 1900 there was a nation state that could be used to regulate
the national economy. Today there is no "global state" that can be used by capital
to regulate the global economy.
_______________________________________________
pen-l mailing list
pen-l@lists.csuchico.edu
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
