[PEN-L:117] Re: Why Do Markets Crash?

[andypollack@xxxxxxxx (Andrew C. Pollack)]

The article I saw on the SACP conference, from the Electronic Mail &
Guardian, didn't quote these particular remarks (although what I saw
certainly has the same tone). Where did you read about the conference? Do
you need the Mail's piece to be forwarded?

Andy Pollack

On Mon, 06 Jul 1998 09:41:09 +0100 Mark Jones <Jones_M@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
writes:
>Days after a petulant Thabo Mbeki (Mandela's anointed
>          successor as President of S Africa) complained to his
>          ex-SACP comrades of the unreasonableness of making
>          socialist demands at a time 'when our financial markets,
>like
>          others in other parts of the world, are afflicted by great
>          turbulence [and] the whole world is gravely concerned about
>          the Japanese and other East Asian economies and their
>          impact on the world economy,' *Insurrection* publishes
>Michael
>          Perelman's seminal extended essay on just why markets love
>          to go pear-shaped.
>
>              Michael Perelman writes:
>
>          "...With the collapse of the Soviet Union, capitalism now
>          proudly proclaims its ultimate triumph. Formerly socialist
>          states frantically scramble to remake themselves as market
>          economies. In the United States, everything left of the
>          political center has all but disappeared from the national
>          political dialogue. Markets are now supplanting virtually
>          every kind of service that the state previously supplied.
>          Public schools, public prisons, public streets and even
>police
>          work are being privatized.
>
>           Even so, I am confident that capitalism's victory will be
>          temporary. The market system is so familiar and our
>          institutional memories so short, we tend to forget even if
>we
>          knew in the first place that capitalism is, by its very
>	  nature, an inherently unstable system. Capital has enjoyed
>	  moments of triumph before, but they have always been
>followed by a
>          subsequent disaster...."
>
>        The URL is:
>
>        http://www.geocities.com/~comparty/content1.htm
>
>

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