Brazil

[DICKENS, EDWIN (973)-408-3024]

Doug, so willing to say the crisis was over, now says that, if Brazil 
devalues, "it'll be time to dust off the diaster scenarios again."  It's a 
lousy commentary on our debates on the causes of crises that we can change 
our opinions about whether or not a crisis exists just because a 
government decides to devalue.  Maybe we should seek the points on which 
we agree.  Can't Marxists, and radical economists in general, agree that a 
crisis is a crisis of overproduction, i.e., crises are rooted in 
industrial production?  Aren't our debates over the linkages between the 
overproduction and the institution of private property in the means of 
production that Marx saw at the root of capitalist crises?  How can a 
depreciation determine whether of not the capitalist system is in a crisis 
of overproduction?  It's just a symptom, no?

Edwin (Tom) Dickens