Before you accuse me of not responding to what you wrote, I wish you would re-read what you wrote and ask yourself whether it might be possible that responding to what you wrote was exactly what I was doing.
"There is nothing but the text," as the pomos say. Here's what you wrote: ""Globalization" of the US economy has been a deliberate strategy for some of the power elite, but more importantly it's an aspect of the normal workings (the "laws of motion") of capitalism. In the 1950s & 1960s, the US had a relatively closed economy (while its main manufacturing rivals were still recovering) stabilized by the warfare/welfare state. In that situation, far-sighted capitalists with market power (Porter's example is Kodak) could see high wages could as a benefit -- by providing a domestic market, i.e., demand. But a lot of smaller capitals with no market power weren't benefiting. Businesses started moving to the right-to-work states in the late 1950s, to take advantage of the low wages there. It's just one step further to go global, especially since the US had moved away from tariffs in the aftermath of the Hawley-Smoot disaster (while trade rivals recovered). Eventually, this mix had to go, even without the stagflationary mess of the 1970s. Now the US has switched over to where capitalists largely see wages as a cost, with no demand-side benefits. (The main remaining benefit is the maintenance of the system's legitimacy, but many small capitalists -- e.g., the Tea Party -- don't understand this.)" Here are some words in your text which suggest the idea of "inevitability": 'but more importantly it's an aspect of the normal workings (the "laws of motion") of capitalism' 'Eventually, this mix had to go' If you don't want people to think that you believe X, a reasonable approach would be to not use words that suggest that you believe X. On Thu, Sep 6, 2012 at 11:29 AM, Jim Devine <[email protected]> wrote: > Robert Naiman wrote: >> It's certainly true that it was inevitable that Europe and Japan would >> recover (although there was some deliberate action there too, but I >> wouldn't dispute the outcome) and that therefore U.S. manufacturers >> would face increased competition from the period immediately following >> the war. >> >> But the rest of the inevitability story needs more of an argument, I >> think, than "laws of motion." > > I don't know anything about this "inevitability." I didn't use that > word and when I do use it, my habit has always been to plug the word > "almost" right in front of it. (BTW, if you want a serious > discussion, it helps to reply to what people say.) Nothing is > inevitable, including the rise of Germany and Japan after WW2. Things > could have gone differently. > > The idea of "laws of motion" is not the same as inevitability. There > are processes that occur outside of our heads that happen -- and are > predictable in many ways, like the "laws" of supply and demand -- > despite there being no conscious force guiding them. It's as if Adam > Smith's Invisible Hand were guiding capitalist competition -- except > that that Hand doesn't exist and often has bad results. Just because > _some_ of the political economy acts like a "second Nature," with > predictable results does not mean that _other parts_ can work > following the conscious decisions of elites (the Visible Hand). > > The point is that capitalism _always_ has to deal with the conflict > between what's good for the capitalist class as a whole and what's > good for individual capitalists.[*] In the 1950s & 60s US, the former > involved a large domestic market, thus allowing high wages. But > without concerted efforts by the power elite (which required a clear > understanding of these issues), there would always be a move by some > capitalists to try to get the best of both worlds, i.e., low wages > _and_ access to the large domestic market. This "free rider" behavior > undermines the "collective good" unless there is a clear effort to > stop this pressure. BTW, US organized labor might have added backbone > to the power elite on this issue, but it didn't. > >> I see it as akin to the story of automation. It's inevitable that >> there are going to be technological advances. But how those advances >> are applied is a question of social struggle. As David Noble noted, >> automation in Sweden unfolded differently from automation elsewhere, >> because workers had more power in Sweden. It is said that >> globalization has weakened labor, but at least some of the causation >> went the other way: "globalization" unfolded in a particular way >> because labor was too weak to prevent it from unfolding that way. > > Since I wasn't talking about anything being "inevitable" and because I > wasn't talking about technical change, I don't see how this is > relevant. > > For a time, Sweden enjoyed the combination of an enlightened power > elite and a strong labor movement, which could deal with the conflict > that I sketched above. But Social Democratic Sweden also suffered from > some capital flight and other individual capitalist efforts to ride > for free. > -- > Jim Devine / If you're going to support the lesser of two evils, at > least you should know the nature of that evil. > > [*] for those who care, Marx talks about this contradiction in the GRUNDRISSE. > _______________________________________________ > pen-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l -- Robert Naiman Policy Director Just Foreign Policy www.justforeignpolicy.org [email protected] _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
