Re: Dominant Capital & The New Wars

[Jonathan Nitzan <nitzan@xxxxxxxx>]

For those who haven't read our paper, the source
for the bottom citation is
> Anonymous. 2003. The Economy of War.
> Stratfor Forecasting, March 7.
Stratfor is
a private consulting firm, headed by George Friedman, whose site is accessible
mostly to subscribers (home: http://www.stratfor.com/corporate/static_index.neo;
fact sheet:  http://www.stratfor.com/corp/includes/StratforFactSheet.pdf).
I'm not a subscriber myself, and got their above paper from a friend. If
you want the article, I can email it to you individually. In a separate
mail, I'll circulate a NYT piece on Stratfor.

Jonathan Nitzan
 

Chris Burford wrote:

 At 2003-06-02 17:02 -0400, you wrote:

[Image]

http://www.arts.yorku.ca/politics/nitzan/bnarchives/mimeographs/pdf/Dominant_Capital_the_New_Wars_03_5_28.pdf
 
 

Enclosed is a link to our new article, Dominant Capital and the New
Wars, presented at a Conference on Global Regulation at the University
of Sussex. We would be glad to hear your comments (nitzan@xxxxxxxx;
shim100@xxxxxxxxxxxxx) and please feel free to forward the link to
others. For more on capital accumulation and the global political
economy, visit our website at The Bichler & Nitzan Archives
(http://www.bnarchives.net).

With the speed of the internet, it is difficult to do justice to a long work, into which a lot of thought has gone. (also for some reason I could not get the links to work either on this posting by Jonathan Nitzen or the previous one at least directly from the web. The email link did work though)

Nevertheless my impression is this is a serious and valuable work relevant to the most important issues currently.

I cannot comment on exactly where it is located in the constellation of serious left wing academic writings on these issues. Hopefully more informed readers will jump in about what issues are controversial buried within the courtesies of academic prose. But others presumably will be reading and communicating off list. I venture these comments because it gives the wrong impression if a serious contribution is received in total silence.

From a speed read near the beginning:
 

Naturally, the rhetoric quickly changed. During the global-village days of the 1990s, it was fashionable to weigh the pros and cons of ?globalization.? But now, with open borders giving way to talk about terrorism and war, the debate centres on the merits and shortcomings of ?imperialism.?

And the concluding paragraph:-
 

Finally, so far the new wars and rising oil prices have managed to keep inflation from turning into deflation (Figure 10). But the danger of deflation remains. And it is on this issue that the fate of the Bush Administration, the Weapondollar-Petrodollar Coalition, and the nature of differential accumulation more broadly, hinges. Many big capitalists, whose instincts remain Keynesian, believe that the new wars will be expansionary and that expansion is inflationary. ?Keynesian theory might be old,? explain the analysts of Stratfor Fore-casting to their clients, ?but it does teach us a basic truth, which is that the cure for deflation is economic stimulation through government spending. . . . So anyone who was concerned about deflation should be relieved that the Bush administration has adopted Keynes? (Anonymous 2003). Of course, since inflation tends to appear as stagflation, the Keynesian hopefuls likely will be puzzled to see prices start rising in the midst of recession. But as long as inflation does rise and pricing power is restored, they will be happy to keep ?silent on the war.? However, if the new wars fail to deliver ? fail because the conflicts aren?t suffi- ciently ?intense,? because the hostilities don?t create enough ?scarcity? in the oil market, or because inflation does not ?respond? to higher oil prices ? the opposition is sure to become much more vocal. Dominant capital doesn?t like being screwed by its own government, and unlike the rest of us, usually it can do something about it.

Perhaps Jonathan Nitzen could whet our appetite by saying what sort of source Mr Anonymous 2003 is?

Chris Burford
London