[PEN-L:532] war and overproduction

[Alex Campbell <ncesa1@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Louis Proyect wrote>>> Excess capacity must be liquidated. There are redundant
human beings (variable capital) and redundant buildings and machines (fixed
capital). That problem was solved in WWI and WWII quite neatly. Millions of
workers got killed and lots of factories got blown to bits.<

James Devine responded>>Half of this (or a little less than half) makes
sense to me: destroying fixed capital gets rid of excess capacity neatly,
while the spending on war raises demand. It may take some sort of war
(between whom and whom?) to get world capital off its duff and engineer a
world boom.

Two key historical questions: How much of the post WWII boom can we
attribute to the "real" (but indirectly caused by war) demand created by the
destruction of Europe's industrial machine??? How much by military build up
in Cold War not only in U.S. Bbut in Europe???

Has anyone written on this?
I'D APPRECIATE ANY REFERENCES OR LEADS...

Thanks,

Alex
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Alex Campbell
Assistant to the President, National Center
for Economic and Security Alternatives
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Suite 330
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