[lbo-talk] let's all pray for a depression

Patrick Bond pbond at mail.ngo.za
Mon Jan 21 23:08:46 PST 2008


MICHAEL YATES wrote:
> Harvey Brenner and others have shown that, other things equal, an increase in unemployment will give rise to an increase in suicides, homicides, many stress-relate diseases, admissions to mental hospitals, deaths from cirrhosis of the liver, arrests, and prison admissions. Now we learn from a savant on this list that a depression in the US will make the US less powerful and lead to less global warming. So in that case, bring it on!
>

Hi Michael, I once worked in Brenner's institution, and have full respect/disgust for rising US misery. But you're not hearing this properly: a) I'm no savant, and b) are you not ignoring the need of the rest of the world for a dramatic decline in US political-economic power? Have you not followed multilateral negotations on finance, trade, climate and the like? Where's that great MR tradition, comrade?! People who do take this problem of excessive US power in a unipolar multilateral system seriously, such as Lori Wallach, have similarly hoped that the world financial problems that began unfolding in the late 1990s would clip Washington's wings. But because uneven/combined development meant that emerging markets took the haircut at that stage, it's only really now, with a falling $ and cracking of banks that US power shrinkage looks feasible. Yeah, please bring it on with more class analysis/struggle on your side, and serious attempts to translate financial volatility into a radical political discourse (as a symptom of systemic crisis the way Sweezy/Magdoff did so well, in contrast to our friend Doug).

Cheers, Patrick (well fed radical in Durban, South Africa)



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