[PEN-L:33608] narco-monetarism

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

It is almost incredible from this side of the Atlantic to see the
Republicans and Democrats falling over themselves to tear up decades of
sado-monetarism, to which we were told there is no alternative throughout
the years dominated by Reagan and Maggie Thatcher's influence. Money? Now
it seems like you cannot inhale too much of it.

Presumably most members of this list would think abolishing the tax on
dividends is socially regressive, but has anyone got a deeper analysis
either from a post Keynesian, or a marxist point of view? The BBC this
morning featured one out of work New York analyst, in a leafy suburban
home, arguing that government deficit spending should really go on
providing tax breaks to stimulate new investment by business, rather than
in cutting taxes on dividends. An interesting contradiction between
shareholders and real finance capitalism, when the analysts job is on the line.

Are these all pirouettes around the falling rate of profit, the need for
still more capital to be destroyed and the fundamental contradiction
between the inherent drive for capital to accumulate and the limited
purchasing power of the masses?

But while Bush scrambles, desperate not to be a one term president, and the
Democrats manoeuvre, will the net result be that the USA pulls it off again
- reflation of its economy at the expense of the rest of the world, who
have no alternative but to extend massive credit to the only superpower
while it recovers its competitive position on the basis of an even more
advanced set of productive forces?

Where is the incisive marxist analysis?

Chris Burford

London