Not at all. The point about a Marxist analysis grounded in the dynamics of accumulation (in contrast to Leo and Sam grounded in the dynamics of class struggle) is that it doesn't actually matter that much whether the working class is bolshi or quiescent. The main determinant of these cycles is the overaccumulation/devalorisation process. Over various cycles that process unfolds relatively innured to the poverty/insecurity or alternatively militancy of subaltern classes.
> The crisis of the 1970s was in profitability and the political
> environment for profit-making. The Volcker shock - and it sure is
> funny to see all these lefties now quoting Volcker as something of a
> prophet
It was the 2004 quote about the US having a 75% chance of suffering a major crisis, right? You sound jealous, Doug. You should be :-)
> - and its sequelae like structural adjustment cured both the economic
> and political problems, and gave the system a spectacular 25-year run.
It was definitely not spectacular. Per capita growth rates kept falling, for instance. Read the CEPR reports comparing the global economy of the 1980s-90s with the earlier period.
> Do you think anyone at the pinnacle of the system gives a shit that
> Africa's a wreck?
Sure, the more it's a wreck, the better for resource extraction. You haven't picked that up from the Resource Curse literature or from the film Blood Diaomond?
>
>> My point in this longstanding debate with you, comrade, is that by
>> failing to invoke the tendency of capitalism to crisis, we're
>> throwing away one of socialism's most important selling points.
>
> And how do you sell socialism in this context? Risk everything on an
> untried system!
Question, in 1770, for a French revolutionary: "And how do you sell capitalism against Marie A.? Risk everything on an untried system!"
> Or, if you don't want to reject the Soviet model, then say risk
> everything on doing the Soviet system better!
The Soviet system was closer to state capitalism than anything else, I reckon. But uh oh, I can just hear the stampede of critics now...
> Hayek and Friedman were in many ways repulsive characters, but their
> critiques of socialism - like coordination and knowledge problems -
> aren't completely bonkers.
Sure, but let's save that for another day. I'm tired. Spent today north
of Johannesburg fighting the main think-tank of African elites. These
guys haven't even noticed the global crisis...they're so stuffed with
self-importance and luxury surroundings. They also take the view that
there is no alternative to capitalism, Doug. I'll pick it up with you
another time...
>