A couple of related questions. In both the NLR piece and his response to Doug, Brenner uses the terms "overproduction" and "excess competition" interchangeably, but it seems to me that there's a difference. If I'm not mistaken, something like the dynamic Brenner describes--too much entry, not enough exit, overcapacity, cutthroat competition and falling profits--applied to the railroads and other capital-intensive U.S. industries during the late 19th century. Obviously it didn't during the 1950s. Doesn't increased concentration--not to say monopolization--have something to do with this? You can read in the Wall Street Journal that the Daimler-Chrysler merger is only the beginning, that within a decade there may be only a half a dozen major auto producers worldwide. If excess competition produced the downturn, could increased concentration produce an upturn?
Second, there seems to be a contradiction in the sequence increased competition --> decreased profits --> slower growth and higher unemployment. How do lower profits affect employment and output if not through decreased investment? But if investment decreases, doesn't the problem take care of itself? It seems to me that to show that lower profits are responsible for slower growth, Brenner has to argue that investment rates have declined, and to explain why the crisis has persisted, he has to argue that they haven't. I don't have the NLR in front of me right now, but when I first read it I was struck by the fact that he does indeed take both these incompatible positions, sometimes within just a page or two of each other.
I'd be very grateful to be shown where I'm confused and/or mistaken.
Josh