> > At the same time, the
> >necessary (so far partial) "devaluation" of overaccumulated capital
> >gets moved around (spatially and temporally), and price inflation is
> >just one of many forms of deflation.
>Devaluation maybe, but deflation is a pretty different beast from
>inflation, as any debtor or creditor could tell you.
> > And sure, it could certainly
> >emerge again as a preferred ruling-class mode of devaluation (as in
> >late 1970s when the Fed was run by an industrialist not a neolib),
>He didn't last long, old G William Miller. One dollar crisis and one
>talk with David Rockefeller, and Carter suddenly discovered the
>virtues of Paul Adolph Volcker.
And so, novus ordo seclorum (then, not now!).
> >but I would bet against it, given the continuing hegemony of
> >international finance over policy-making in Washington and most other
> >capitals. (Look for a big financial crash plus contagion into real
> >sector instead.)
Well, seeing how I launched this thread, I'll take the liberty to inject a brief criticism of the (fashionable) "neoliberial" interpretation of contemporary ruling class ideology, and, by extension, the interpretation of our present historical era as one of hegemonic "neoliberialism". This is not to deny that we are subject to a new mode of capitalist rule - we are and have been since the advent of the Reagan-Thatcher counterrevolution in the Anglo-American world - it is just that it is not described by "neoliberalism", or "postmodernism", for that matter. The practical consequence of this criticism, and its relevance to this thread, should hopefully be clear at the end.
There are several problems with the term, "neoliberalism", as a description of the current new mode of capitalist rule. Formally, it creates an (unnecessary as will be seen) confusion with classical European (really just British) "laissez faire liberalism" as well as with the mid 20th century American social welfare meaning for its version of "liberalism". But more substantially it crucially misinterprets our own era along two axes: 1) over dichotomizes the present with a presumably more "statist", "interventionist" and "keynesian" capitalist class and era with roots in the 1890s-WWI and its apogee in the 1940's & 50's; and 2) in the process, alludes to a "return" to a pre-1890's past of supposedly free and unfettered capitalism with its violent oscillations in business cycle. In short, the "neoliberal" perspective lacks scientific validity both as historical or structural analysis.
It would naturally take a book to flesh out this argument, so I will confine myself to a bald statement of what I consider fact concerning our present era: The capitalist ruling class (meaning in practice its active leading echelons) are not so besotted with their own "neoliberal" ideology that they would precipitate a 19th century or even Great Depression - style crash by means of some tight-money fanaticism. THIS WILL NEVER HAPPEN - barring some currently unlikely sudden change in the basic conditions of existence of capitalism (like a socialist revolution - that would certainly "crash" things).
On the contrary, all along in our present era, the so-called "neoliberals" have intensified state intervention in society, not "reduced" it, at the two poles (no offense, wojtek ;-) of its society: 1) increased, and increasing focused, intervention to subsidize, stabilize and otherwise render "failsafe" accumulated capital and its owners (i.e., full communism for the capitalists) and 2) an increasing, but necessarily intricately diffuse state intervention throughout the rest of capitalist society (that's us) to reinforce and deepen the social relations - and not just those of production - characteristic of capitalism (the "market" for the rest of us).
In the present era, the classical bourgeois distinction between public and private, historically necessary for the institution of absolute private property, are dissolving into one another, both at the level of society as a whole (dissolution of the classical - and BTW, historically progressive relative to feudalism - distinction between state and civil society) and at the cellular level - which latter necessitates the formalization of the everyday social relations (incl. the dissolution of the distinction of social relations "in" and "outside" of production itself) into what tends toward an official State ideology of these relations (of the "market") as well as a private religious belief. This tendency is generated by the contradiction between the insistent reinforcement and deepening of capitalist social relations beyond the ruling circles and the ever growing social character of productive force as a result of accumulation (as before, this has not changed!), of course. But this well know contradiction tends to resolve itself not in the "privatization" (ah, we can now uproot another bad concept) of productive force - that is, not in a historic reversal of the socialization of productive force under capitalism - but rather, precisely, it resolves in the socialization of the nominally "private" relations (in and out) of production themselves - a conclusion, naturally, from a materialist perspective. And this tendency - of course existing throughout the history of capitalism, but only now breaking out as the dominant tendency saturating the whole of society - necessitates a growing "private/state" intervention in the details of our daily lives. The totalitarian character of this tendency should be clear. It also mark a new era in the deepening decay of capitalist society tending towards its literal dissolution. And without the immanent, automatic generation of its "socialist" replacement, as more than one socialist current calling itself marxist has claimed in the past And, it must be added, a decay not to be confused with any projected collapse of capitalist production or economy. On the contrary - to paraphrase Lenin here precisely - capital will grow faster and wider than ever. How could it not do otherwise and still be capital?
So, whereas in the past we might have be exhorted to sacrifice directly to the state (in its most frenzied form, in imperialist world war), today we are called to "public" sacrifice by our own bosses...to bail out other bosses. In the so-called "power crisis" here in California, a mysterious quasipublic bureaucracy sends out "Stage 2 Alerts" to my corporate employer, who forwards these on to the rest of us with annotations calling on us to turn off monitors, etc. The California State officials, on the other hand, are not to be seen calling for "public sacrifice", but rather find their main usefulness in private, closed door meetings designed to rig the bailout. This tendency is even more striking when it comes to imperialist war - the last thing the State wants to call on is "public sacrifice" in this extreme instance.
The conclusion: The concept of "neoliberalism" (and "privatization", and "postmodernism" - but perhaps we know this one already) do not elucidate our reality - they obscure it. So too with the traditional usages of "finance" vs. "industrial" capital - hell, Kaiser Aluminum (now represented in Bushs' Cabinet) has shut down lines to make superprofits feeding electricity to the "crisis".
They should be discarded as tools for understanding this reality.
-Brad Mayer Oakland, CA
>We'll see....
That's right - don't put anything past the ultimately pragmatic American ruling class, for whom ideology (except pragmatism itself) is a tool. They will literally do anything to survive.
>Doug
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