It's really nothing abstract. Anti bolshevik communism is the theoretical
expression of the practical activity of the Soviets and German Councils,
destroyed in the German and Boslehvik counter revolutions in the late
1910s, to develop bottom up organizations
arising from the workplace and by way of these organizations to come up
with new ways of coordinating production and distributing the ouput on the
basis of labor hour for labor hour, without regard to skill or
hierarchy. It is a creative attempt to mediate our social relationships
without money or the state or the boss or experts and technicians. In a
general strike workers demonstrate that in the absence of the state and
bosses, they feel confident that they could develop production at a
higher and more rational level. Worker councils have developed in Iran and
Eastern Europe as well; they are referred to by Hannah Arendt as the
hidden revolutionary treasure even as she distorts them. On American soil
they have been defended by Peter Rachleff and Paul Mattick.
>
> Charles: Again, what are the essential
> elements of this formidable inetellectual challenge ?
>
> What is the political program of Gailbraith,
> Darity and Palley , Pasinetti. ?
1.It's a program of how the state, using fiscal and monetary policy, can and must be used to ensure the full employment a free market cannot develop. It includes a complex theory of why the structural proportions required to maintain full employment cannot be maintained in a growing economy. It rivals Marx's theory of the industrial reserve army of labor and surplus populations but tends to think of these continuous short term problems that capital can overcome only to recreate them 2. It challenges the 'fairness' of income distribution by way of neoclassical appeal to the marginal productivities of factors (capital,labor and land); that is, it argues that factors are not compensated in accordance with what they produce in a market economy. It rivals Marx's theory of fetishism. 3. It includes a crisis theory based on effective demand and the maldistribution of income and thus develops underconsumptionist strands or it assumes that because demand has been saturated for certain goods as income increases, new industries may take too long to develop new needs and thus growth can be temporarily halted.
4. It focuses on monetary policy where Marx can be accused of having ignored it. 5. It includes a critique of free trade as always beneficial to the third world. 6. It offers a rival conception to Marx's concept of the organic composition of capital in differentiating between mechanization and the capital-output ratio.
That's off the top of my head; I am no economist. I have amused the pros here with my sophomoric attempts. They'll speak up. best, rakesh