new issue of Monthly Review

Michael Yates mikey+ at pitt.edu
Sat Jul 24 08:34:23 PDT 1999


I am reading the summer double issue of Monthly Review, titled "Capitalism at the End of the Millenium: A Global Survey." It looks like another excellent issue. So far I have read two very interesting articles. The first is by Ellen Meiksins Wood, "Unhappy Families: Global Capitalism in a World of Nation States," which makes the point that the nation state has throughout the history of capitalism been the handmaiden of capital accumulation and is not about to disappear from the scene, transcended somehow by globalization.

The second is by Doug Henwood, "Booming, Borrowing, and Consuming: The US Economy in 1999." This article is filled with illuminating statistics of great use to those interested in the long US boom and in dismantling the silly notions of mainstream commentators that this boom is without precedent (in terms of real growth, though it is unique in speculative mania) and spells the beginning of permanent prosperity. I am going to be teaching in a union summer school in two weeks, and I will certainly copy some of the tables and use Doug's analysis of them in the class. I'll try to report back on what the students thought about them.

I encourage list members to get a copy of this issue. Other articles cover Sub Saharan Africa, Japan, Western Europe, Russia, Latin America, and Asia.

michael yates



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