[PEN-L:11492] Re: Re: Re: [Fwd: Fw: EH.R: Kondratieff Cycles]

[Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>]

Patrick Bond wrote:

> Comrade Doug, isn't it time to go beyond marginal changes in GDP
> and profit rates for these kinds of "proofs" of K's alleged virility...

And find indicators that tell the story you've already decided you
want to tell?

Far be it from me to use a word like virility. But as long as there's
no significant political challenge to K on the scene then I'm afraid
it has to be considered pretty strong.

> and into valorisation/devalorisation processes? No, the data
> wouldn't be easy to construct, but for Marxist economists, isn't that
> the way in which these cycles tend to really work themselves out?
> Once enough overaccumulated K is devalued the animal spirits can
> get back to investing? And in the process, how about factoring in
> global processes? For the early 1990s, take away half the value of
> the Tokyo stock market,

An event whose real world effects are...?

> a huge chunk of real estate values in
> world cities not to mention backwaters,

What world cities outside Japan are you talking about?

> more downward commodity
> price pressure,

Except for the 1970s, commodity prices have been either in relative
or real decline for decades.

> Eastern Europe unravelled, more African countries
> trashed

No argument from me there; I said that from the first. The experience
of Africa over the last 20 years and the former USSR over the last 10
has been a crime & a horror.

> (my favourite, Zimbabwe, witnessed a 40% fall in volume of
> manufacturing from 1991-95), rising bankruptcy rates, S&L asset
> write-downs, etc etc.

The S&L crisis was 10 years ago! Meanwhile, real and financial values
are both many times higher than they were when the Resolution Trust
Corp. was formed. Capitalism is always a simultaenous process of
expansion and devalorization. Even a Schumpeter-quoting Forbes hack
knows that.

The world is suffering from capitalism, not depression.

Doug