Eugene Coyle writes: These are the folks who were born worrying about inflation. For them to embrace this suggests deep, deep, worry.
----------- I've cited and quoted from Chapter 14 of Wages, Price and Profit several times over the last few years. I don't remember any extensive commentary (negative or positive) on the relevance of that chapter. It seems to me that Marx's argument there constitutes a flat denial of any necessary or even probable linkage between the "health" of the capitalist economy and the political "health" of capitalist relations of production. That is, Austerity _weakens_ the political strength of workers and thereby _strengthens_ the political power of the national and global bourgeoisie. The failure of workers to defend their standard of living makes them incapable of (quoting from memory) "any higher struggle." Both leftists and many capitalist intellectuals assume the opposite: that is, they assume that economic slump (austerity) threatens the stability of the capitalist system as such. That seems doubtful to me. I believe that in the past several posters on this list have enjoyed sarcastic repetitions of one of my favorite aphorisms from Mao: If you don't hit it, it won't fall. That sarcasm reflects a poverty of political thought. Every serious revolutionary Marxist has made similar claims: Capitalism will not dissolve itself, no matter how much social chaos it creates. Carrol _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
