----- Original Message ----- From: "Mike Beggs" <mbeg7842 at mail.usyd.edu.au>
bhandari at berkeley.edu wrote:
> However good his dance steps, can't possibly see how Minsky's theory can
> be
> understood as Marxist. No real impediments in the real sector of the
> economy? No wonder Meyer and others can enthuse about his theory. Doug,
> you don't agree with that yourself, given your insistence that the Fed
> responds to a real tightness in the labor market, though Fed action does
> not seem as mechanical as that either. I of course insist that
> difficulties with the profitability of net investment are quite possible
> even with wage gains lagging behind productivity growth or unit labor
> costs falling.
I think you're right on this. It is Minsky's real weakness, and it's a pitfall of a lot of cashflow-and-balance-sheet oriented theory. Despite good treatment of competition in the financial sector, it is neglected in the rest of the economy. I do think post-Keynesian structuralist monetary theory can be useful for marxists, though, and is quite compatible with Marx's own scattered insights on banking and money, as Crotty (who you quote), among others, has written.
Mike Beggs
============
Another interesting issue is why he would leave that stuff out since Kalecki does deal with the problem. My two cents is that he probably spent a whole lot more time talking with Wall Streeters than with the accounting and finance personnel at places like IBM or Safeway or Du Pont or GM. Htbw on this, though.
For those interested, Stanley Bober's 'Pricing and Growth' chapter 6 "The Kaleckian Contribution" is really good on this stuff.
Ian