Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> On Sep 2, 2010, at 9:18 PM, Mike Beggs wrote:
>
> > Arguing against an obsession
> > with crisis and stagnation is not the same as denying the possibility
> > or even inevitability of downturns. And it's still good advice.
>
> I've known Patrick for over 20 years, and he's been predicting it the entire time. Stopped clock, etc. But, more importantly than who's right or wrong about predicting crisis, what does it mean now that we've experienced a serious one? (Not you folks Down Under, yet.) It's not like the masses are flocking to the crisis-mongers saying "How right you were! Let's abandon this crazy capitalism thing an embrace socialism!" The politics of all this have not shaken out in our favor, have they?
>
I agree that slumps don't tend to have political results favorable to the left, at least at first.
Moreover, I don't know most of the detailed history here, so this is sort of speculative.
The slumps of '74, of '82, the 'third-world' debt crisis. MAFTA & the destruction of Mexican farming, destroyed a lot of lives, and the effects all of these I suspect, including even thise 35 years ago, are still playing themselves out on many lives and areas. This almost adds up to a single rolling-thuder 'crisis,' which didn't harm _capitalism_ as system and was not dramatic enough at any one time to 'catch attention' as a single event -- but it almost has been.
If this is true Pat's error (aside from perhaps misjudging political effect of crises in general) has been to predict rather than to note the past and present. What he was predicting has been there all along, but not identifiable because different from past slumps. We keep looking for history to repeat, and itnever does.
Carrol