C. Redmond wrote:
>Let's get one thing straight here: using the Euro/Asiakeiretsu to critique
>Anglo-American capitalism is not an endorsement of Capital, capitalism(s),
>or capitalists. It's a way of showing that neoliberalism is a fraud, even
>on its own economistic terms, and of historicizing the current phase of
>the capitalist world-system we happen to live in. The superstate of the
>European Union may yet be an instrument of progressive change;
>Eurocapital, never. But if we don't know what the heck
>Eurocapital/Asiacapital are doing or how they're organized, right down to
>their financial-industrial DNA, the catastrophes of the 21st century are
>going to make those of the 20th look like a tea party.
>
>-- Dennis
>
Okay, but the way you write clearly endorses Euro/Asiakeiretsu capital as the more socialist and Keynesian alternative to American capital. Thing is, Europe can't shake high unemployment and Japan is still caught in the closest thing we've seen to the liquidity trap. My point is that for all its excess, the Anglo-American system (really it's the American system, I think) seems to be liberating more accumulated capital and re-injecting it into the system. They're doing so haphazardly, to be sure, but I think the numbers are just bigger.
I wish I could find it but the Wall Street Journal had an interesting front-page article months ago postulating that credit growth may be the real key to the present boom since it represents so much more actual working capital than the stock market.
Just because you like the more responsible way the Euro-bankers do business does not mean you are a Euro-capitalist, I recognize that. The question is whether the socialistic charm of that system is intrinsic to it. I don't think it is. I likewise believe that you can peel the financially fascist neoliberalism off of monetarism and be left with a good idea: maximum sustainable credit growth.
In the end it seems we're looking for the same thing: maximum credit for maximally productive enterprise. So how, after Deutsche Bank, Chase Manhattan and the other capitalist pillars have crumbled, do we get it?
peace