RE: Re: social democracy

["Devine, James" <jdevine@xxxxxxx>]

In a recent message, Rakesh wrote that "did you respond to the well known
empirical observation that crises are most often not overcome as a result of
stronger consumption and prices?" (which he associates with "social
democracy")

I doubt that that's a well-known empirical observation, but if Rakesh agrees
with it, then simple logic indicates he's saying that _some of the time _
crises can be "overcome as a result of stronger consumption and prices." If
so, there's really no content to his disagreements with other people on this
list. It's all a tempest in a tea-pot!

BTW, I'd much rather have social democracy than neo-liberal globalization
(and the race to the bottom). I thank Paul Phillips' parents (and Paul
himself) and the many other people whose struggles made social democracy
possible against capitalist resistance.

Jim Devine jdevine@xxxxxxx &  http://bellarmine.lmu.edu/~jdevine



> -----Original Message-----
> From: phillp2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:phillp2@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]
> Sent: Thursday, January 17, 2002 8:54 AM
> To: pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [PEN-L:21531] Re: social democracy
>
>
> Date sent:      	Thu, 17 Jan 2002 10:20:27 -0500
> To:             	pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> From:           	Doug Henwood <dhenwood@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject:        	[PEN-L:21525] social democracy
> Send reply to:  	pen-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> Doug,
>
> My response was not to your post but to Rakesh's attack on social
> democracy.
>
> Early in the last century in Canada the Socialist Party adopted the
> position that Rakesh has, as I read him, been taking, that the only
> solution to capitalism's excesses was a communist revolution.
> The Socialist Party, dubbed "the impossiblists"  vigorously
> attacked the social democratic and labour parties for proposing SD
> reforms resulting in a split of the left and its virtually
> extinction as a
> political force.  20 years later, the SD re-emerged as a political
> force and, as a result we got medicare, a massive expansion of
> public education and various provisions of the welfare state which
> allowed working class kids of my generation get a professional
> education and escape from a sentence of permanent relegation to
> working class low income for myself and my kids and grandkids.
>
> I further agree that SD has regressed -- in Sweden, it can be traced
> to the defeat of the left in SD by business and the middle class
> (can I use that term in a discussion involving Marxists?) of the
> Meidner proposal for worker funds to take over capital and invoke
> social ownership.
>
> I further agree that the prospects of SD taming the excesses of
> capitalism have been reduced, if not fatally wounded, by
> "globalism" and the legal institutions of globalism that, in effect,
> outlaw social democratic reforms.
>
> I am very interested in the debate about the causes of long-run
> economic crises  -- indeed I even gave a graduate course a few
> years ago on  theories of long waves, including regulation  and
> Social Structures of Accumulation theory.  I have no difficulty in
> following, though not necessarily accepting, Rakesh's version of
> Marxist crisis theory.  Among a few of us in our economics
> department this is an ongoing debate which is carried on in a good-
> humoured, constructive manner.  We all accept that SD is not the
> long-term answer but we all accept that we are where we are
> because of SD/New Deal legislatures that gave us the chance and
> we work for SD reforms that will ameliorate the suffering of the less
> fortunate.
>
> What I was responding to was what I interpreted as the trashing of
> those reforms in the name of Marxist theory.  Perhaps I was
> responding too emotionately -- except that  these were reforms that
> my parents and grandparents fought for and as a result suffered
> politically and economically.  And now my own kids tell me that
> they were shunned and teased at school (in a middle class area)
> because we were prominent advocates of such reforms.
>
> Ah well, I feel a lot like Michael Yates when he signed off Pen-L a
> year or so ago.  I will be retiring shortly and can leave the artful
> debates of academe for the delights of gardening, golf, sailing and
> skiing.
>
> Paul Phillips,
> Economics,
> University of Manitoba
>
>