[Marxism] liberal forum on the economic crisis+

["Andrew Pollack" <acpollack2@xxxxxxxxx>]

Ivan distorts what I said and lumps me together with two groups who
supposedly (if I can trust his reporting) have an "after Hitler, us!"
line.
Doug did use that same phrase last night: "it's not leftism, it's
nihilism," a standard social-democratic attack on those who say no to
the bosses' blackmail. Yes, the bosses did threaten that if a bailout
was rejected WE would pay the price. The only principled thing for a
leftist to say then is: "we demand that you who created this crisis,
not we the workers, pay its price. If you continue your lenders'
strike, we demand the government seize your assets, both personal and
corporate, and use them to fund our jobs and benefits. We may lose
this battle, but we will not aid you in your lies."
Now as it turns out this bailout which Doug (and you?) think is
necessary to prevent catastrophe turns out not to be so essential
after all. The mainstream press is full of reports saying it has
already been bypassed by Washington (and Europe)'s latest program, to
give away our money to the banks not to buy up "distressed" assets but
to fund lending directly in return for non-voting shares. This
"essential" bailout plan, remember, was an indirect way to get lending
restarted, i.e. to take "bad" assets off the market to free up "good"
capital to continue flowing through the dried-up lending sluices. So
Washington is now saying this particular oh-so-necessary bailout was
an off-the-cuff giveaway that has already been bypassed. Sorry, Doug
(and Ivan), they're saying, we were just running it up the flag pole
and already have a new and even more expensive bailout which, as with
the previous one, if you don't tell your radical friends to support,
we'll cut your economic throats.
The trillions of dollars in the markets for these derivatives, and the
derivatives themselves, didn't exist a decade or two again--fictitious
capital in the most literal sense of the word. And WE should pay these
trillions back to the banks?
No -- the answer is to demand that the government not pay a dime to a
single banker for their "value." Let the markets for all these swaps
and hedges and the trillions circulating in them disappear.
When capital goes on strike -- more commonly in recent decades by
fleeing a country -- we don't say "oh, please come back, we're sorry
we attacked you." We say, "seize the assets of the traitors who are
sabotaging our economy!"
As for the Gindin and Panitch proposals: I like them, and I think
they're made in the same spirit as what SA puts forward in our Action
Program.

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