I'm not sure which part of the Brenner vs. Henwood discussion is under discussion at this point. If Robert Brenner could send me his reply; if I haven't already read it I will read it again.
Greg, I wouldn't classify Doug as a Marxist in the straight-jacket sense of the term. Doug is too lucid and pragmatic to be pigeonholed.
The Henwood - Brenner discussion seems to me to revolve around the historical materialism of Doug and the economic determinism of Robert Brenner. To use a little fight analogy here, Doug can roll with the punches, Brenner can't. Brenner is going in flat footed and Doug is up on his toes. It's sort of like Mohammed Ali and Sonny Liston.
This discussion also sort of reminds me of a movie about a young college kid who goes to work for the local don to make a little money while he's in school. In a classic scene he has to meet with the don at the don's club. While in the club the kid notices an old picture of Mussolini on the wall. He asks the don about this picture. The don says, "Yeah, he used to be big...uh like the Beetles."
Sincerely, Thomas Lehman
Greg Nowell wrote:
> Thanks for your sending me a copy of your long reply to
> Doug's article. I don't know how I rated inclusion on
> the distribution list, but I did find it interesting.
>
> Generally speaking I am leary of entering
> "periodicization debates"--when "capital" is in an
> "upswing" vs a "downswing." This is not to say that I
> don't find them interesting. I am in fact the only
> person I know who teaches Wallerstein with
> enthusiasm. And I don't command the breadth of
> historical data that sprinkle the debate betwixt you
> and Doug.
>
> I must say that I was somewhat surprised at Doug's
> venture into this terrain because to me the notion of a
> "Left Business Observer" is somewhat less
> mega-macro-economic. Regardless of whether we are in
> an upswing or downswing, there are plenty of capitalist
> shenanigans to write about.
>
> All these conditions aside, let me make a few
> observations. First, that Doug is a Marxist--in the
> good and bad sense of the word, meaning the hidden
> influence of some neoclassical positions. In
> classical/neoclassical/Marxist approaches, an increase
> in workers' benefits (i.e., the welfare state) will
> depress profits. The mechanism is sufficiently well
> known to us that the point need not be elaborated.
>
> >From a Keynesian perspective, however, we can argue
> that there is an "investment capability" that is
> chronically underutilized in capitalism, for whatever
> reasons, but he does point to a secular problem of
> decreasing marginal propensity to consume as societies
> get wealthier. Without getting into the thorny macro
> problem of how to evaluate evolving MPC (I don't think
> the savings rate is necessarily adequate, especially in
> an environment of international investment, but it is
> the obvious line of attack for Doug's refutation of
> what follows), if we this line of argumentation leads
> us to the conclusion that, *up to the level of full
> employment*, redistsributive programs by boosting
> consumption "at the bottom" may actually *solve* a
> major problem for capitalism, insufficient demand.
>
> Second, classical economics deals with "overseas
> investment" through such mechanisms as comparative
> advantage. But I have never seen *anyone* who has
> claimed to figure out what the *natural* rate of
> disinvestment (overseas investment) by major firms is
> in relation to some surmised excess of disinvestment
> spurred by onerous regulations, social welfare state,
> etc. Capitalism appears to disinvest at all times and
> in all places. I haven't seen a knockout explanation
> of this issue but it is germane to the economic
> performance of developed countries.
>
> Third, the presence of "overcapacity" or
> "underconsumption" cannot, in my view, logically be
> imputed to the failure to shut down enterprises which
> happen to produce cheaper because their capital is paid
> off. Under competitive (even non-competitive) market
> assumptions, whatever is "new" has to "prove itself" by
> being more profitable than whatever is old. The more
> interesting issue is the presence of what may appear to
> be high production&investment/low domestic consumption
> ratios in Asia and Japan due to the widespread use of
> keiretsu style economies which employ "predatory"
> dumping tactiocs described in various places (Brewer's
> Imperialism (article on Hilferding); Hilferding; Jacob
> Viner; a bit in J. Robinson; and rediscovered,
> characteristically without citation, by Krugman in the
> late 80s). We would expect, under such conditions,
> that investment and profits might be hyper in certain
> sectors of the world economy and depressed--due to the
> nature of the export strategy--in others. However,
> while I think this is a "major deal" I'm not sure it is
> enough to explain "the world economy." But I do think
> that the tendency to view "overproduction" as a cause
> of depressed profits tends towards Keynsian-type
> interpretations and solutions.
>
> In the late 20th century it is not always the case that
> to be a Keynesian is "reactionary" and it seems to me
> that underneath the debate there is a serious conflict
> based on dramatically different interpretations. In
> the end, in a Marxist type view of the world successful
> working class organization accelerates the crisis
> tendency in capitalism. In a Keynesian type world view
> successful working class organization is actually a
> recipe for the preservation of liberal society (see
> especially J.A. Hobson's Imperialism on this score).
> Given how different these views are, I'm not certain
> that it is possible, through the simple citation of
> statistics, to prove that the world is in an
> oveproduction crisis or a profit/accumulation/squeeze
> type crisis. That is because I, personally, have not
> reached a satisfactory of the "which is better between
> the two theories" question, and people familiar with my
> own modest opus will note that by studying the
> operations of the oil industry I stayed at the level of
> corporate and national strategies without trying to
> "integrate" into a "higher" level of analysis, whether
> upswings, downswings, Kondratieff waves, Wallerstein's
> A and B cycles, or whatever.
>
> So I'll let you two slog it out; the debate is an
> interesting one, and if my comments help you to
> differentiate your positions a bit beyond the level of
> throwing rival statistics at one another, then I shall
> have been of use. If not, it won't be the first time I
> have rambled to no effect. -gn
>
> --
> Gregory P. Nowell
> Associate Professor
> Department of Political Science, Milne 100
> State University of New York
> 135 Western Ave.
> Albany, New York 12222
>
> Fax 518-442-5298