[lbo-talk] Israel's Roaring Economy

Jonathan Nitzan nitzan at yorku.ca
Thu Jun 21 09:14:17 PDT 2007


1. The official per capita GDP growth rates are:

10-year average, 1997-2006: 1.0% 3-year average, 2004-2006: 3.2% (not 5%, which is the overall, not the per capita growth).

2. Our point in the article is: (i) that this short-term "jump" is a blip on a long downtrend, both historically and in relationship to other countries; and (ii) that, more broadly, national economic growth rates are decreasingly relevant to capital accumulation in general and to the vanishing entity of "Israeli" capitalists in particular.

3. It seems to me that co-citing acts of violence and military export deals on the one hand with overall economic growth rates on the other offers little insight into the logic of capitalist militarization.

Jonathan

On Jun 20, 2007, at 10:34 PM, Yoshie Furuhashi wrote:

Compare the paltry ten-year average Israeli per capita growth rate of

just 1% for 1996-2006 and the respectable 2004-2006 average of 5%, and

we can see that Hamas's unilateral 18-month ceasefire and entry into

electoral politics has done wonders for Israeli economy (in stark

contrast with the declining economy of the Al Aqsa Intifada years that

is shown in your graph:

<http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/228/05/20070401_bn_the_rockefeller_boys_figure.jpg>),

while the successful international boycott of the Hamas-led

government, with cooperation of Arab states, helped divide the

Palestinians and led to Fatah's coup against Hamas, which in turn has

been passed off as Hamas's coup against Fatah.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Jonathan Nitzan

Political Science York University 4700 Keele St. Toronto, Ontario, M3J-1P3 Canada Voice: (416) 736-2100, ext. 88822 Fax: (416) 736-5686 email: nitzan at yorku.ca website: http://bnarchives.net -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



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