Re: Keynes and Marx

[Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>
>In the end the reason why what subsequently got called 'Keynesianism'
>'worked' had little to do with the merits of the ideas themselves and
>everything to do with WW2 and the defeat of the working class.  It was
>these which provided the basis for such a dynamic new round of accumulation.


This stuff on Mattick, Braverman and Keynes is truly excellent. It is where
th4e struggle is at.  We are post-Keynesian and the onslaught of
neo-liberalism has produced a resentful working class world wide.  Here in
Oz the land of the moderate many there is something like a strike wave
being generated.   Today in Brisbane a railway strike.  In Canberra a
strike of the security staff at the US bases!  All demanding more money and
security.  Even in academia staff are winning 12% pay rises as opposed to a
government supported offer of 2%. so the potential for radical struggle is
there.  But it does not have the goal of achieving a socialist society.

The moderate left in the ALP and other social democratic formations can
only put forward the demand for a return to Keynes.  They do not or will
not see that the capitalist class will only fall back to Keynesianism when
they are threatened with a socialist alternative.  It is the absence of a
communist Left that has enabled the ruling class to move to neo-liberalism
accumulation of a most primitive kind.

regards

Gary