-----Original Message-----
From: Henry C.K. Liu <hliu at mindspring.com>
.>The Kalecki statement you quoted is quite uninformative beyond
ideological
>judgement.
>I hope he is not saying unemployment is the price one must pay for
peace.
hi henry, I think maybe you are separating the economy from ideology in a way that is not possible, especially when considering nazism and fascism. not only were the concentration camps run first as labour camps, but the ecstatic nationalism of fascism and nazism does make for a certain discipline within the 'regular' workforce than can't be accounted for except as ideological - and practical. if nazism in Germany was more 'effective', then I think much of the reasons for this can be found in the differing successes of this deployment of national identity as labour discipline.
I can't recall Kalecki's exact comments, but I would think it is not at all far fetched to say that unemployment is a form of discipline of its own. perhaps then it would be interesting to look at the degree to which the 'solution to the problem of unemployment' opens up the possibility of fascism and nazism. (that is, why is there assumed to be a 'problem of unemployment' rather than a 'problem of poverty'? the assumption that the two are the same, or that the latter falls under, or is overtaken by, the meaning of the former, is I think to break out on the path of nazi-like, if not nazi, solutions.)
angela