Carrol Cox wrote:
> Krugman & the Republicans (and almost everyone else) share an assumption:
> that we are in a 'crisis' which constitutes a 'problem,' and that the task
> is to 'solve' that problem.
Do they use the word "crisis"? In any event, the "problem" is
persistently high unemployment, which is seen as a political and/or
ethical problem. Thus, they want to solve it -- or say they want to
solve it.
> But what if [John Bellamy?] Foster's title and his argument are
> accurate? Then it is not a 'problem' that we have to deal with but a new
> normality, and a more stable one (in terms of the capitalist system though
> not in terms of the status of households). An _endless crisis_ is a
> _stable_ state ("stagnang" & "stable" re synonyms but merely reflect
> different subjective responses to the same actuality. The precariousness of
> life will then discipline the working classes.
There's no standard, generally-accepted definition, of "crisis," but
to my mind, the idea of an "endless crisis" is an oxymoron. FWIW,
Dictionary.com defines this term as >a turning point; ... a condition
of instability or danger, as in social, economic, political, or
international affairs, leading to a decisive change; ... [in
Medicine] the point in the course of a serious disease at which a
decisive change occurs, leading either to recovery or to death [or]
the change itself; the point in a play or story at which hostile
elements are most tensely opposed to each other.< None of those fit
with the idea of a permanent crisis, except maybe the last one.
In my interpretation (which follows Marx), a "crisis" refers to a
situation where the process of accumulation has gotten out of line
with the conditions allowing persistent harmonious accumulation so
that the economy snaps back to -- or overshoots -- a more harmonious
accumulation path.
Anyway, is this the "new normal"? It's quite possible, since (1) the
politicians aren't likely to do much if anything to ameliorate the
persistence of high unemployment and/or (2) the problems
("imbalances") left over from over-accumulation that occurred after
the 2001 recession will take years to be purged and thus allow renewed
accumulation. I doubt that it's a "new normal" arising from
demographic or technological forces. Is it stable? I doubt it.
Capitalism's path is never stable, persisting in the same behavior for
decades.
The working classes were pretty disciplined before 2008, with
working-class organization and left-wing or liberal militancy fading
and the vast majority of wages stagnating since the 1970s. The only
prominent indiscipline was via a capitalist channel: working-class
families tried to maintain their living standards by going into debt.
--
Jim Devine / If you're going to support the lesser of two evils, at
the very least you should know the nature of that evil.
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