Robert Wrubel wrote:
>
> Carrol Cox wrote:
>
> "Capitalism will not collapse, EVER.
>
> Capitalism will not mutate into something else, EVER.
>
> If you don't hit it, it won't fall.
>
> Slumps and human misery are the health of capitalism."
>
> I know what you mean, but this is a little misleading.
> It leaves out the conflicted aspect of capitalism,
> the self-destructive logic of eternal expansion. I'm
> not an economist but I'm persuaded by people like
> Harry Shutt who argue that privitization, mergers,
> out-sourcing and now financialization (making money
> off of transactions rather than production) have all
> been driven by an increasing difficulty of finding
> profitable investments.
This might be an answer to the first two of my propositions, but it entirely ignores the third. The difficulty of "finding profitable investments" is regularly overcome by economic or political catastrophe. That's what I meant by saying that slumps are the health of capitalism, as war is the health of the state. Capitalism will (as you argue) regularly self-destruct, but it will as regularly rise from the ashes, stronger and meaner than ever.
Carrol