[PEN-L:351] Re: Re: RE: Re: Cyber-Sawicky

[Dennis R Redmond <dredmond@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 2 Oct 1998, Louis Proyect wrote:

> The brute fact is that capitalist growth slowed down in the early '70s and
> neither neo-Keynsianism, nor monetarism has worked to change that. The
> reason for a slowdown in growth is that there is a slowdown in demand,
> which government policy under capitalism can not change.

Ah, but it could indeed -- but it would mean raising effective *global*
demand -- the Seventies slowdown was a result of that first great wave of
globalization, otherwise known as the Sixties; investment in East Asian
sweatshops and military-run Brazil boomed, but net demand tended to
stagnate. Or rather, the US continued to consume, but Japan and Europe hit
the export-growth trail, keeping internal demand shackled to external
exports. It's just that it's not in the class interest of the ruling
elites to subsidize prosperity for anyone except the shareholders of LTCM.
Though I suppose we ought to thank the bastards, for sparking the Bubble
Bust of the Century.

Speaking of global Keynesianism, Japan is promising to pump $30 billion
into Southeast Asia in the near future, in addition to all the other
assistance (the rollover of loans etc.) they're being forced to hand
over. It's never too late to pay those WW II reparations with interest!

-- Dennis