> All that stuff about securitization, leverage, the shadow banking system -
> that stuff really did cause the crisis, at least in a proximate sense. Yet I
> don't think there are any specifically Marxist conceptions of capitalist
> dynamics that would have anything significant to say about any of that.
Right. I like what you say. So, Marxists need to develop those conceptions. No?
I guess one of my questions is: Can something meaningful (historical/empirical *and* logical/theoretical) be said about the intermediate links (mechanisms) between profit motive, M-C-M' stuff, profit rate trend, on the one hand, and subprime mess, securitization, shadow banking, etc., on the other hand? Other big questions refer to issues that I mentioned here:
> The problem is that while better mainstream economists can at least try
> to talk about *both* the wonky finance stuff and the deeper structural issues,
> Marxists tend to dismiss all that boring finance talk and jump straight into
> an attempt to cram everything into a deep Marxist structural framework -
> which is almost impossible to do persuasively because, again, there is no
> specifically Marxist theory of, say, financial fragility or the breakdown of the
> savings-investment channel.
Not this Marxist.
We'll see what we get.