DH:
But I see pretty much eye to eye with that crew on almost everything...
JG:
One of the reasons P & G have a better take on things in my view is that their analyses are just as sociological as they are economistic. Their sharp understanding of finance capital's socio-political incorporation of the working class via the credit system is one example. It reminds me of my old mentor O'Connor in Accumulation Crisis!
On the topic of the resilience of the US imperium, I tend to agree with Panitch and Gindin that it's not going anywhere soon as long as junior partner and (to a lesser degree BRIC) bourgeosies regard the US dollar-military complex as the glue that holds global K'ism (and transnational bourgeois predominance) together. (Incidentally this is one area where Brenner DOES agree with P & G. In a recent interview he belittled the idea that the PRC is going to dump T-bills, unless a really spiteful tit for tat populist-protectionist trade war breaks out.)
I do think that P & G tend to be a bit too sanguine about the capacity of the US imperial state to keep it all together though. That the US \ state might be able to continue pulling it off past the temporary "flight to safety" says more about incompatibilities b/w other core capitalist powers and would-be powers than it does about bottomless US capacities. (I'm thinking here especially of the numerous obstacles to robust multilateralism in NE Asia that excludes the US altogether).
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