[lbo-talk] revisiting the FROP and the Brenner hypothesis

[Philip Pilkington]

> Not true. Crafts says productivity growth experienced a dramatic revival in
> the United States starting in 1995, which is uncontroversial:
>
>  [In the table shown,] the post-1973 period is split at 1995, as is now
>> conventional in the mainstream economics literature. This table suggests
>> that the ‘long downturn’ is a more apt description of the experience of the
>> big European economies than for the United States. For France and Germany,
>> there is a marked fall in productivity growth after 1973 and a further
>> sizeable reduction after 1995. For the United States, however, after a
>> period of very weak productivity growth between 1973 and 1995, a strong
>> revival followed such that productivity growth was slightly above the 1950
>> to 1973 level.
>
>
First of all, Crafts still says that there was an enormous slowdown in
growth. I was replying to Doug who questioned this. As a whole, after '65
there was a huge slowdown in growth.

Secondly, and this is where my opinion comes in, taking a decade or so ('95
- '05) as an argument to refute a study of long-term dynamics (i.e. 50
years) seems silly. Crafts seems to be arguing that the US rode the
technology boom to raise productivity and thus were productive in a highly
innovative way. My feeling is that if this is taken into account in the
"Brenner dynamic" the effect would be that the US will sell new high-tech
capital goods to various foreign markets which in turn will feed into the
dynamic of overproduction. This is conjecture on my part, but since Brenner
is supposed to respond to his critics in the near future we'll see what he
thinks.

Thirdly, this is something I've been wondering whenever this topic comes up.
Are we talking about the US or the post-war capitalist economy. Because if
we're just talking about the former then any engagement with Brenner's
argument is impossible. In fact any discussion of long-term capitalist
dynamics is impossible.

Brenner tries to highlight a dynamic process that took place between the
major post-war economies. While the US is certainly the key player - insofar
as it took on the role of economic hegemon after the launching of the
Marshall Plan - the whole process cannot, in Brenner's conception, be
understood simply from the point-of-view of the US.


>
>>
> PP:
>
>> I think the argument is cast in terms of long-term capital dynamics rather
>> than random and arbitrary periodisation. Hence the fact that Brenner
>> concludes that growth is tailing off after the post-war bump and that
>> we're
>> all fucked, while Crafts maintains that this bump itself was an anomaly
>>
>
> Well, the postwar "bump" obviously *was* an anomaly. That's why you called
> it a bump. So Crafts is right, no?
>
>
Depends how you interpret "bump". Did I mean it in the sense of a "bump" for
a system which should have collapsed a decade beforehand, or did I mean it
in the sense of a "bump" for a system which was only taking off?

I'm a Schumpterian here. I don't think that capitalism is an effective
system for an advanced industrial society. I also find Braudel's argument
suggestive - which, may I add, is tragically ignored today, probably because
of its highly offensive nature to both the right and the left. Namely, that
capitalism only really perseveres at all because a small minority are able
to operate opaque economic instruments behind closed doors in order to make
an awful lot of money. Strange that people aren't talking about Braudel
today...