[lbo-talk] RE: DeLong flap

[Michael Dawson -PSU]

> I think stagnation is a misleading word. Growth may be slow in some
> regions - though not China or India, which account for a third of the
> world population - but under the surface, there's been the proverbial
> constant revolution of social and economic relations. Regions,
> industries, firms rise and die and/or are transformed. In many ways,
> the Golden Age of the 1950s and 1960s was closer to stagnant (in the
> sense of placid) than the present, even though growth rates are lower
> now.
>
> Doug

I agree with you, Doug.  I think it would be better to say that monopoly
capital makes things chronically top-heavy.  I think they used "stagnation"
because they thought people might rebel once they realized the post-war boom
and upward mobility for workers would be temporary.  As history has shown,
that didn't happen.

I also think "corporate capital" is a better concept, both scientifically
and politically, than "monopoly capital."  They had to spend ten pages
explaining why their argument is about oligopoly, not monopoly, despite
their terminology.  Why give readers an excuse to put the book down, without
some kind of payoff?  They did it to honor Lenin, who used the phrase
"monopoly capital," but I fail to see why Lenin deserves to knife his way
into things, especially now that the USSR is such a clear embarassment to
our cause.

BTW, who will write the update to MonoCap, which we cryingly need (since
it's so much work to teach your way around all the outdated 1950s references
and Soviet stuff in the original)?  Somebody like Doug Henwood would be a
good candidate, especially since Sweezy has said for decades that he wished
they'd have put in a chapter on the financial explosion...