[lbo-talk] BDL on DH on jobs: end of an era?

Paul paul_ at igc.org
Mon Sep 15 15:43:41 PDT 2003



>Doug writes:
>I was kind of making a joke, based on O'Connor's book title, but what I
>meant was that the great increase in the U.S. profit rate that ran from
>1982 to 1997 reversed during the recession and has partly recovered based
>only on extreme cost-cutting and speedup. Growth and investment are slow,
>and I think it's a more-than-cyclical problem. It may be that the whole
>neoliberal period has hit a wall, and that its contradictions are coming
>to full ripeness: ruinous competition, a deflationary bias, etc. We'll see....

Hmm. I don't want to draw you in too much - asking for precision on this crystal ball stuff is not fair.

But usually the profit rate perspective is more like a 35 year half cycle. Of course there is NO reason it has to be that way (unless you are a Kondrotieff fan) - but we are talking about major era-defining changes - you tend not to miss their end. I would think they get undone by changes in the very core of the ame process that helped build a multi-decade (anemic) profit rise. Examples might be: big rise in the cost of labor, a big rise in taxes on profit income, a loss of overseas control, or the more nebulous end of a technological breakthrough (I myself can't see these technology issues as so outside the system).

It seems to me you are speaking more of the types of "overaccumulation"/insufficient demand type issues more likely to produce a "run of the mill" 12-18 month type recession? Like the missing second half of the last recession you spoke of in LBO #105. Each one of these recessions is a human and social tragedy, and should be fought accordingly, but won't (in themselves) mean the neoliberal period has hit a wall - in the cruel ways IT defines success (a recession could spark a major political movement but that's a different story).

Why do think "its a more-than-cyclical" problem? Aren't ruinous competition (has it been that ruinous in some sectors? I'd say more like just overcapacity in a largely oligopolistic, still self protecting, market), deflationary bias, etc more like precisely the hallmarks of this point in a "short" cyclical problem.

Paul



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