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So what are the symptoms of this pathology in accumulation?
>> Well, for one, a degraded society - I think Baran and Sweezy called it "wasting the surplus." But for Shaikh and Tonak, defense expenditures are not productive of capital (though they might be necessary for both domestic and international control). Look at it this way - cranking up GDP by increasing gov't expenditures to fight a war, build prisons, etc., may pulse the economy for a few years (even several?), but running a garrison economy has proven incompatible with capitalism over the longer haul. Israel thought it could live off export earnings from war material production and thought has been a total failure as an econ development plan. Did Reagan provide a test of the limits to military Keynesianism? Probably - I don't know how far our GDP/debt ratio could have gone -though in WW II it was more than 150%. But profitability isn't the best (or only) measure of the broader social deterioration caused by unproductive armament/defense/prison expenditures. I fear that my kids are going to have a hard enough time surviving in a society where prisons are the most important social expenditure.
Jason
PS - Doug did you get my note about EIT?