[PEN-L:6724] Re: Competitiveness

[Tavis Barr <tavis@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Do we have the usual up-to-the-minute Doug Henwood stats on credit card
debt?  If so, what's happened?

Curious,
Tavis

P.S.  My other question, for both Doug and Mike, is about concentration,
since that's how the thread started.  Please note, I'm not a Monopoly
Capital adherent, this is really just a question about logic: Is there
any contradiction, IYHOs, between lower profitability and increased
concentration?  Or increased differentiation?

On Wed, 16 Oct 1996, Doug Henwood wrote:

> Though I think there are a lot of similarities between the present and the
> late 19th century, one difference is that increased competitive and
> deflationary pressures have not yet shown up in depressed profitability. I
> wonder if the reason for this is that so far capital has successfully
> shifted all the burden of adjustment onto labor: in the 19th century there
> was nothing for labor to "give back," but after the Golden Age there was
> plenty to be taken from workers. Additionally, the deflationary consquences
> of the attack on labor have been avoided through consumer credit, which has
> sustained aggregate demand despite pressure on income. The question then is
> how long can this be sustained, before there is no more to take back from
> labor, and there is no room left on the VISA card?