>
> JGulick:
>
> Here is a longer version of the paper from which McNally's Historical
> Materialism talk was derived.
>
>
> http://marxandthefinancialcrisisof2008.blogspot.com/2008/12/david-mcnally-from-financial-crisis-to.html
>
> The vagaries of the profit rate enter into his analysis, but it's much more
> nuanced and less one-note
> than Brenner's. He seems to have a better appreciation of the
> historical/institutional (if that's
> the right phrase) aspects linking together East Asian production/savings
> and US consumption/borrowing
> and how this trans-Pacific regime restored the robustness of the
> accumulation process from the 1970's
> until the East Asian flu of 97-98.
>
> There's also a really interesting take on how the dissolution of Bretton
> Woods (I) led to a demand for
> derivatives that at first actually aided transnational investment, but
> later became a M-M' circuit in
> its own right once purely speculative bets could be made in that field.
>
Thanks for posting that. I remember thinking McNally's talk was really interesting and original but couldn't remember the details. It's quite a wide-ranging paper with lots of scattered good ideas, rather than a complete coherent explanation.
If I were going to develop a specifically Marxian explanation for the crisis I'd be using the concept of fictitious capital, rather than tendency-of-the-rate-of-profit-to-fall arguments. It's an alternative way of thinking about this pervasive idea SA is criticising, that finance has exploded at the expense of real investment. Values of fictitious capital (and also of 'real' durable assets like real estate) can grow out of relation to the future income flows they are capitalising regardless of the state of general profitability - in fact it is more likely to be associated with high rates of profit. This is not necessarily due only to manias and irrational exuberance, but can in fact grow out of 'too much saving/profits'. And it doesn't necessarily happen at the expense of real investment, until the bubbles burst, fictitious capital (and real estate etc.) is devalued, and it affects consumption and investment via wealth and debt-deflation effects.
Cheers, Mike Beggs