[lbo-talk] Harvey

Charles Brown cbrown at michiganlegal.org
Wed Dec 7 11:17:58 PST 2005


Doug:

True enough, but what's the counterfactual? The regime of the 1970s had come to crisis, and something had to give. Fixed exchange rates and heavy Third World borrowing were unsustainable, as was an import-substitution development strategy. ^^^^ CB: Wasn't the crisis for the regime of the 1970's a crisis for a tiny rich minority and the richest corps , and not for the working masses of the world ? It was not a crisis for us that profits were falling, was it ?

^^^

You'd have a hard time making the argument that we should go back to that regime (which wouldn't be possible anyway). One of the flaws of Harvey's book is his call for a new New Deal, as if the politics and economics of today weren't vasly different from the 1930s. The nostalgia behind that call is testament to the fact that we don't really know what we want.

^^^^^ CB: Are we, the left, looking for a new reform of capitalism ? Isn't the ultimate nostalgia the search for a solution to the problems of capitalism while keeping capitalism ? It seems such a deadend for the Left to be looking for a new Reform of Capitalism of any type, whether a new deal or otherwise.

With the Market undermining the gains of the old New Deal as with autoworkers' wages and benefits threatened, can't we on the left propose a vigorous and comprehensive program that undoes the Market ?

Since we are the left, if we don't propose solutions that are for the End of the Market, who will ? Somebody has to point to the long history of failed efforts to reform capitalism from the standpoint of the working class, and say we've got to throw out the whole market system. It's as if Margaret Thatcher is controlling the soul of the Left , too ! We don't dare propose the obvious alternative - end the Market.

Next, Harvey and all left book writers might want to write book length proposals for ending the market and building socialism.



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