On 2011-12-29, at 6:05 PM, Somebody Somebody wrote:
> Marvin: I am not a believer in American exceptionalism. When European and American capitalism were expanding, their respective social reforms, with the notable exception of health care, were not qualitatively different, and now that their economies are in crisis, they are engaged in a coordinated effort to roll back the the common features of the "welfare state" and impose austerity on the masses.
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> Somebody: There's no need to invoke American exceptionalism to note that the trajectory of the U.S. economy is not necessarily the same as for other Western nations. It's true - about 2/3rds of OECD nations have had increased inequality over the last generation. That still lives major nations like Spain and France that have either seen significant reductions in their Gini coefficients or have seen their levels of inequality flat-line in the last generation.
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> And then we have Latin American countries where, if we can speak of a regional trend in levels of inequality, it has been a decline and not an increase in income disparities. Big countries like Mexico and Brazil have seen their Gini coefficients go down in the past decade and more. So much for the notion that globalization has to mean increased inequality and the immiseration of the working class.
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> The irony here is that some Marxists have imbibed the propaganda of neo-liberals that there is no alternative to the weakening of the bargaining power of the working class and to increased inequality as a result of cross-border labor arbitrage. But when we peer past truisms and bland generalities about class and capitalism, we see this is not always the case.
I'm not sure this comment has much to do with this thread. In any case, by your own admission the US and most of Europe have seen increased inequality. How does this square with your confident assertion that the weakened bargaining power of the working class is NOT due to cross-border labour arbitrage (the other factor being tech change), and that claims to the contrary are mere "neo-liberal propaganda" and "bland generalities" about class and capitalism? No one has suggested, BTW, that outsourcing of production has had the same doleful consequences in Brazil, Mexico, and other developing economies.