[PEN-L:11421] Re: [Fwd: Fw: EH.R: Kondratieff Cycles]

["Charles Brown" <CharlesB@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>>> Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx> 09/21/99 12:35PM >>>
There have been horrible social disasters in these parts of the
world, but they're not accurately described as recessions or
depressions in the economic sense except for the former USSR. Africa
shows positive GDP growth in the 1990s, and East Asia, despite the
1997-98 collapse, still shows an average growth rate of over 7% for
the whole decade. India and China, home to about 1/3 of the world's
people, both show very strong growth rates in the 1990s. The fact
that African GDP is positive in this decade shows that it's a poor
measure of human welfare, but Frank seems to be operating under his
own set of definitions.

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Charles: Some questions for the answers:

Why is the whole region of East Asia looked at to determine whether there is a recession ?  Maybe there was a recession in Indonesia but not one in China. Isn't one conventional defiintion something like negative growth for four or five straight quarters in one country ? Why is the period of measure a decade ?

Over the history of recording recession/depresions aren't some of them in individual countries and some world or regional ? One commentator says the first crisis of overproduction broke out in Britain in 1825. The 1847-48 crisis which embraced the U.S. and some European countries was the first world or regional crisis. Aren't crises of different geographical reaches and for different lengths ,including a year or so, in length ?  If the time period is stretched long enough and an average taken , most crises can be averaged away. This is especially so if the time period is stretched to a decade. Even the Great Depression of `1929 to 1933 might be averaged away if the decade is 1923 to 1933 ?

Can China, with a very mixed economy, be considered on a full capitalist business cycle ? Can its growth be credited to the world capitalist system ?



Charles Brown