Travis Fast wrote:
>
> A while back I remember reading an old institutionalist (Commons/Veblen
> type) historian who made a passing observation about the conspicuous
> consumption of the upper class during the twenties.
Yes. The 'twenties. Eighty years ago. Sometime between then and now we seem to have gone back up to the top of the slide so we can slide down again to the _current_ decadence. Which is precisely the problem with the metaphor of decadence for capitalist societies. They are always starting over again. Just a few weeks ago Doug was emphasizing the "flexibility" of capitalism in an area where there is in fact, no flexibility, that of global warming. Now he and you are denying one of the most obvious features over a period of several hundred years of capitalism: that the shennanigans of one element of the ruling class and its hangers-on tell us nothing about the health or non-health of the system.
If you go back and read these lists (this one and the Spoons marxism list) about 7to5 years ago you will find that THE great weakness of THE LEFT was jargon. Now Doug wants to cling to one of the silliest of socialist cliches.
Carrol