Brad wrote: > The question remains. Given the absence of commercial crises and depressions > in the AMP and the FMP, why wouldn't replicating the building of cathedrals, > the building of aqueducts, or the conquest of Gaul stave off the crisis and > so allow capitalism to engage in stable, balanced growth? > > Lenin writes that the conquest of Gaul does--but eventually you run out of > Gauls. But that doesn't explain why the public sector can't stabilize things > via non-military Keynesianism. To my knowledge Marx never provided an > answer--but he was damned sure it wouldn't...
Because, say, great moderation policies would at some point create moral hazard eventually leading to, say, a financial meltdown? I'd have to re-read that chapter on Ricardo. But the part that comes to my mind is one from the 1859 Contribution (a footnote?), in the context of monetary and banking crisis, were Marx talks about alternative monetary doctrines, one consistent with Andrew Mellon type liquidationism and the other with monetarist/Keynesian type of intervention (suspending the gold restriction of the Peel Act of 1844?), getting the upper hand over each other in particular phases of the cycle. I don't read that as Marx saying that policies inspired by these doctrines wouldn't succeed at stabilizing the economy, only that the doctrines are unilateral and the policies would -- at best -- help temporarily. He's just emphasizing that these policies necessarily fall short of dealing with the most fundamental contradictions of the system -- wealth inequality, markets, and state. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
