Three paragraphs from a long essay byAlan Nasser in today's Counterpunch: (professor emeritus of Political Economy and Philosophy at The Evergreen State College.)
"In what follows we’ll see that less work with higher wages is at this historical juncture not merely economically possible, but desirable as the only practical alternative to the secular stagnation grimly forecast with much flurry by such luminaries as Paul Krugman, Larry Summers and Robert J. Gordon, and by the IMF in its April 2014 World Economic Outlook. Both Marx and Keynes saw their prescriptions as not merely a “better idea,” but as the alternative to severe ongoing crisis, understood as dramatic reductions in real production, employment and wages.
The stakes are very high; even the mainstream it pricking up its ears. Krugman recently referred to “a growing consensus among economists that much of the damage to the economy is permanent, that we’ll never get back to our old path of growth.” (“Does He Pass the Test?, The New York Review, July 10, 2014) The secular stagnation portended is defined by Krugman as “a persistent state in which a depressed economy is the norm,with episodes of full employment few and far between.” (“A Permanent Slump?” The New York Times, November 17, 2013) Austerity hell forever.
There is an alternative, and the only one that is capable of addressing a situation in which profits and economic growth can no longer be achieved by investing in real production and hiring workers. An overripe, industrially saturated economy can be made into one that can deliver on capitalism’s false promises. All workers can be employed, but for far fewer hours, and a just living wage can be provided to all. This is the arrangement recommended by Marx and Keynes. Keynes the Enlightenment liberal imagined that this could be accomplished by rational persuasion within the framework of a democratic capitalist economy. Marx knew better. Capitalism’s property relations, along with its insatiable drive for increased profits, are incompatible with the desired prescription."
the full essay is at: http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/10/03/the-alternative-to-long-term-austerity/