Re: They're still waiting for the procrastinating shopper

[Gary MacLennan <g.maclennan@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Well the procrastinating shopper has apparently arrived here in
Brisbane.  The news bulletins were full of stories about the crowds waiting
for the sales.  There were interviews with satisfied customers and store
owners. A propaganda piece of course. A friend in the West End told me that
small business is really hurting and that 2003 will be the bust year for many.

It is of course the working out of a deflationary crisis.  There was a
reference to the danger of deflation recently in a Murdoch paper but this
was to re-assure us that the authorities would not let a deflationary
crisis mature. Earlier in the year in the Jim Lehrer hour, some "expert"
offered the view that the only way out of a deflationary crisis was through
war.

Henry has written that the problem is the low wages paid to Chinese
workers. They don't get enough money to become the customers which could
kick start the world economy. Chinese manufacturing is also adding to the
crisis by destroying through competition the purchasing power of the
Western worker.

Why won't the world's ruling elites adapt a Keynesian program?   But of
course to pose the question in this way is to get it all fundamentally
wrong.  The  question "why not Keynesianism" suggests that what is at stake
is simply the change from one economic program to another- almost as if one
would try a change of outfit.  It ignores the reality of the 'relations of
production'. I am no economist, but it would seem that it needs a deep
political crisis to force the power elites to retreat to
Keynesianism.  They have to be staring Red Ruin in the face before they
will concede anything.

In the mean time they will try the war option.

All very chilling.

Somewhere in the Grundrisse (Can anyone give me the page reference?) Marx
talks of how the individual worker may escape from his class position by
saving and not spending, but if the class attempts this then disaster
ensues.  We are seeing this scenario unfolding right now. By not spending
in the shops, the working class is attempting to escape the fate that
awaits them.  The reality is that they are being driven into the most
terrible poverty. The collapse in spending hastens and does not postpone
that fate.

regards

Gary



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