The Doctrine of Inevitability

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Tue Sep 1 09:39:42 PDT 1998


Max Sawicky wrote:


>Coordination is clearly a problem for a global reflation.
>But if Capital is sufficiently powerful, purposeful,
>and supra-national, it ought to be able to override
>mere national interests for the sake of its own
>survival.

One of the interesting aspects of this economic crisis is the political crisis that is accompanying it. The Japanese ruling class is dithering, disorganized, confused; Russia, well, one doesn't need to say anything about Russia; the EU is in transition to an unknown and potentially unstable governance structure; and the U.S. is, as Zbiggy said the other day, "headless" (a strange choice of words given the origins of Clinton's troubles). Internationally, the IMF is virtually out of both money and credibility. That's one big difference from the Latin American debt crisis of the 1980s, when neoliberalism was young and confident.

And capital, even in the most placid of times, is far from supra-national. We still live in a world of national currencies and central banks, to start with.

Doug



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