On Dec 20, 2008, at 11:21 AM, Patrick Bond wrote:
> Doug Henwood wrote:
>> By the way, Patrick - is Japan your strongest example of
>> overaccumulation? They've had some trouble over the last 15 years,
>> but it's still a rich country very far from collapse. If that's
>> overaccumulation, what exactly is so bad about it? And on whom did
>> they displace their crisis, if anyone?
>
> My 'strongest' example is the one I know best, South Africa. But the
> theory relates to the uneven/combined development of the world
> economy,
> of course. As for Japan specifically, yes, it's a good cas
Of what? If Japan has a bad case of overaccumulation, I bet most of the world would want to contract one as well. I'm sure we could all make long lists of how Japanese society falls short of utopia - and that jackass "Abu Hartal" keeps writing me offlist to make that point - but really, it's a level of material prosperity that billions would envy.
So I have to say I don't really get the "problem." The U.S. has been suffering through an "overaccumulation crisis" for several decades, a period encompassing four or five expansions and a trebling of GDP. Japan goes through such a crisis for 15 years and on some measures it's better off than the U.S. Is Japanese FDI in southeast Asia part of the displacement of crisis? I don't see how southeast Asia has suffered mightily under that regime.
Oh, and Japan had relatively high levels of investment, and the U.S. has had relatively low ones, but they both suffer from o.a.? And how about the UK?
South Africa, well yeah, that's not a happy story at all. But it's not an overaccumulation story - it's an imperialism and apartheid story.
Doug