Max wrote: > So to me it is not obvious that 'broadly shared prosperity' is not > possible, under suitable political conditions.
I fully agree. The political conditions are the key. Not sure about sustainability being harder. To me, they go together; so they are equally hard to achieve. What it will take is a whole new Gramscian global "historic bloc" -- a certain new, shifted, forcefully attained and sustained balance of political forces, capable of jelling into a relatively stable legal/policy-consensus framework, which could in turn channel economic activity along certain, relatively permanent tracks. The permanence of this class balance of forces would require what Marxists in the early 20th century (cf. Lars Lih's piece in the latest S&S) a "democratic (or popular) revolution in Permanenz." This requires, obviously, very broad and strong unity, massive, concerted *political* action. Stiglitz is right in insisting that OWS, or whatever it may be called now, needs to become *political*, which is to say, *electoral*. At first, I add, at the local level. But this is, of course, based on what we observe now. We really don't know yet how this broad unity in action will be conformed in time, by whom in particular, prompted by what kind of pressures, needs, etc., and through which type of battles. Back in the fall of 2007, I was sure that the Keynesian policy mindset would prevail almost immediately among the ruling classes in the U.S. and Western Europe, because the financial crisis so utterly and transparently exposed the failure of the dominant macroeconomic doctrines. I grossly underestimated the staying power of those doctrines, which -- of course -- are deeply rooted in vested interests. I used to believe that there would be a sort of Keynesian consensus among the rulers. Now I think it will require a true split in them, a split prompted by working-class mass actions. One way or the other, it is likely that a sector of the ruling class with a modicum of Keynesian common sense will get the political upper hand in the medium term, and that will spread globally. In the battle of ideas, Krugman, Stiglitz, Baker, and others have been making a dent, and that is starting to show. This is all abstract now, but I can envision how conquering conditions of this sort could make it possible for the U.S. working people to attain organized political independence, and that is a requisite to conquer political power. * Second attempt to send this. The first sent didn't make it to the archives. _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
