> I have to emphasise this point quite strongly in order to put this question
> to bed. I've noticed that there aren't many historians around here, let
> alone many economic historians. In fact I'm often struck by the total lack
> of historical appreciation - but then again many leftists, and many
> free-marketeers, think they have the "keys to history" in their desk drawer.
>
>
> Now I'm in no way claiming to be either but I have great sympathy with the
> historicist method of developing economic arguments. If I'm to be honest I
> think that most purely logical and statistical analyses of economic
> development are, frankly, total bullshit. And I really mean that; absolute
> and total bullshit. They're attempts to use meagre - and I mean meagre -
> amounts of data and often contradictory logical models to form hypotheses
> and put forward predictions. These predictions are almost never correct and
> at the end of the day the only point in even trying to think through these
> arguments and statistics is to retroactively cast them in some sort of
> historical narrative. Sometimes general trends can be brought out by this
> narrative.
>
> My point is that you can't simply take the figures and spout them off in
> three sentences as evidence. Crafts doesn't do this either and nor would any
> other economic historian - or historian, for that matter. They would cast
> them in an overall interpretive narrative. Brenner has done this.
Well, I fully agree with you about the importance of looking at things historically (partly for the reason Doug mentions!). Probably my single most frequent complaint about some of the arguments I encounter in places like this is that they too often abstract from concrete historical processes. It sounds like you and I fully agree.
But I really don't know what you're going on about here. You're not making any sense. Okay, so let's say Brenner has offered us a rich, complex historical analysis. If there's some *specific* aspect of Brenner's rich, complex totality that I'm missing - and that would invalidate my criticisms - then by all means tell me, I want to hear it. But it seems like you're saying that the mere fact that Brenner is so wonderfully rich and so deliciously complex somehow invalidates my arguments all by itself. It doesn't work like that. (And by the way, I read Economics of Global Turbulence very closely when it first came out, though that was years ago now.)
> This is what makes his work so interesting. And I'm sure after the financial
> crash you must recognise that, as I said above, economists often have little
> idea what they're talking about even if they can form a herd[....]
>
> [...]Economic history is no longer a flourishing discipline. And those few tracts
> which have been written in the past few years have mostly been done through
> the lens of the very abstract theories that have attempted to replace real
> historical enquiry. I presume you understand the methodological difficulties
> which would arise from this...
>
It's true that economic history has withered, and it's a tragedy. But first of all, you can't write any kind of economic history without it being "through the lens of very abstract theories." An economy is very abstract, you can't "see" what's going on, you need a theory to make sense of the evidence (much of which comes in the form of statistical data, by the way). Brenner himself has developed such an abstract theory here, although he relies partly on some old and interesting 19th century theories that fell under the heading of "ruinous competition."
Anyway, despite the decline of econ. history, there are still hundreds or thousands of economic historians (plus many more plain old economists) and yet the only people to notice this long-term deterioration of the capitalist economy are Brenner and a few other Marxists? It's a weird idea. It goes of a piece with Brenner's tendency to write about this period using language that seems to suggest that the capitalists have spent the last 25 years in a constant state of panic over the creeping stagnation enveloping capitalism....whereas I've mostly noticed them having a great time and being suffused with confidence. But then I haven't written a historically rich and complex work of economic history.
> I don't know if Brenner has addressed this or not but having a fairly decent
> idea of his overall argument I'll give it a go. However, I'm not an
> economist by any stretch and as always when I try responding to these types
> of questions I'm doing so with my dick in my hand.
>
I admire a sincere dick-in-hand argument, but I don't think this one works. Product differentiation can (and usually does) happen through small changes, even very small ones. This is an very old, very well-known story in economics.
To take your example of hybrid cars: Suppose only one company manufactures cars. Big profits - monopoly. Now a second company gets in on the action and makes the same car. The profits aren't quite as sweet now. A third company figures out a cheaper way to make the car and now profits are really in trouble. Three companies competing over this single market is too much competition and prices aren't high enough to sustain profitability.
But wait! Company A starts making only big cars for outdoorsmen and assholes. Company B starts making only small cars for emasculated Europeans. Company C starts making only hybrid cars for fetid hippies. As long as an outdoorsy asshole wouldn't be caught dead in a small car - and a Euro-weenie would never drive an SUV - and a hippie would rather die than be seen in a gas-fueled car - then these three sets of consumers are no longer facing three competing car manufacturers, but rather three separate monopolists, each charging monopoly prices. (Technically speaking, the degree of monopoly from the producer's point of view is a function of the substitutability of the products from the consumers' point of view.)
So monopolistic competition is the rule in capitalism, not the exception. This type of profit-boosting imperfect competition is absolutely endemic. And it didn't just start in 1970, though it's probably accelerated since the postmodern leap. I'd be interested to see if Brenner has addressed this (or will).
SA