>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> 02/16/00 03:20PM >>>Feb
Mattick alone preserved the core of Marxism [the self emancipation of
the proleriat] at the level of theory during the days of the New Left from
what I have read. I consider his 1972 Critique of Marcuse (expanded from
an article in the Marcuse festschrift in 1967) to be a historic document.
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CB: Just to keep the record straight, the Old Left also preserved the core of Marxism on this particular issue. See Victor Perlo's writing in this period, for example.
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While there have been seven recessions since 1970, the ones in the mid 70s and the early 80s revealed how profound a crisis in social reproduction capital was still capable of inflicting on society. My argument here is that even more severe contradictions are silently building underneath this boom, which will make even these past recessions seem quite bearable. This is quite plain to see if we look at the world theater.
Most importantly from the argument of Mattick's I am advancing here: With the limits on the mixed economy already reached (fiscal impotence in Japan and fiscal austerity in the EU and the US), there will be no easy way out of a general crisis in social reproduction. The fiscal card has simply already been played. This means the next depression won't simply be a cold douche. It will scald the working class. Or the working class will overthrow bourgeois society. The only real options remain: barbarism or socialism.
Yet to our great advantage, the resort to inter-imperialist war is no longer possible: such is the dialectic of history. This has immeasurably greatened our chances in the 21st century.
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CB: Old Lefty (amateur) economist that I am, I have been saying roughly the same thing on this list since it started. The bust , when it comes, may be about as big as the boom has been. Biggest boom ever, biggest bust ever.
However, if we don't organize, the result of a supercrisis may be fascism. This is one reason to remain very diligent against fascist tendencies, not to characterize attention to the evidences of proto-fascism as panicking, and the like. The main organizing has to be affirmative progressive working class organizing, but we must be on guard as well.
Workers of the West, it's our turn.
CB