[PEN-L:27148] RE: Brenner thesis

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

Title: RE: [PEN-L:27146] Brenner thesis

Ever since I saw Flanigan speak in public, I've been unimpressed by his work (mostly "analytic" columns in the LA TIMES business section), which I'd ignored before that. He's a booster or cheer-leader more than an analyst. There must be better reviews of Brenner's book. (The "Brenner Thesis" usually refers to the debate about Brenner's article in PAST & PRESENT about the rise of capitalism. This one is about his understanding of the mess that the rich capitalist powers have gotten themselves into.)

Is there anyone else out there who's condemned to using MS Outlook's on-line version for e-mail? what kind of "encoding" do you use? I'm trying to deal with the fact that my e-mails are coming with very small print. I switched to "larger" text size, but I'm afraid that it's just for my benefit, not for yours.

JD

--------------------

LA Times, Sunday, June 23, 2002

COVER REVIEW
Just How Sick Is Our Economy?

By JAMES FLANIGAN

THE BOOM AND THE BUBBLE
The U.S. in the World Economy
By Robert Brenner
Verso: 294 pp. $23

Peter Hoey for The Times
 
Ever since the dot-com bubble burst in a cascade of bankruptcies in
2001,
there has been a running debate over the "new economy." Was all the talk
about information technology transforming industry and society real, or
was
it hype? Are we living through an economic revolution or simply another
cycle on the old boom-bust roller coaster?

"The Boom and the Bubble" says the boom was more than hype but less than
a
lasting turn in the economy. In that respect, Robert Brenner offers a
more
scholarly analysis of the recent decade than most commentators who tend
to
overpraise or dismiss recent technological innovations. The merits of
this
latest ride notwithstanding, he concludes with the gloomy speculation
that
the United States is headed into another phase of the long economic
downturn that he argues has held the world's capitalist economies in its
grip since 1973, and that "a U.S. recession will set off an
international
recession." It is an unsettling prediction that may be premature.

If Brenner is right and the world is headed for serious recession,
adequate
returns on retirement savings may not be possible. That would mean
living
standards would not rise and aging Americans would have to postpone
retirement. It would mean that poor countries would be stunted in
development, and that the disorder of such developing regions as the
Middle
East would be exacerbated, not alleviated.

Yet Brenner, who completed his book before Sept. 11, was not able to
factor
into his analysis greater military spending by the United States, the
recent shift to deficit spending, the re-entry of Russia to full
participation in the global economy and other changes. It is nonetheless
a
prediction that demands our attention.

Brenner believes that the rising rate of productivity in the 1990s,
which
was at the center of the boom, was genuine, but no greater than the
economy's performance in a similar period of the great upturn, 1948 to
1973. (Productivity is the achievement of more output from the same or
less
investment of labor or capital.) The post-World War II era, he writes,
saw
a historic advance in productivity in the U.S. economy. However, that
period was followed by a long downturn--from 1973 to roughly the
mid-1990s--in profit and productivity in the United States and other
capitalist economies.

full:
http://www.calendarlive.com/top/1,1419,L-LATimes-Print-X!ArticleDetail-6
3571
,00.html

Louis Proyect
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