Re: super-profits

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

right.  But there's not simple continuity between the "liberal stage" of capitalism during the 19th century (under British hegemony) and the "neoliberal stage" of the current era (under the US thumb). There was a big retreat from globalization  during the late 19th century until the early 1930s. (This serious period of "interimperialist rivalry" leading to war and depression, as Bukharin suggested.) There was also the Cold War period, which set the stage for the neoliberal era, but also involved a lot of social democracy and the like.

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



> -----Original Message-----
> From: PEN-L list [mailto:PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx]On Behalf Of Doug
> Henwood
> Sent: Tuesday, September 14, 2004 3:41 PM
> To: PEN-L@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Subject: [PEN-L] superprofits
>
>
> By the way, cheap consumer goods are as old as capitalism, and not as
> new as Wal-Mart's sourcing in China. As a coupla dead guys put it:
>
> >The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of
> >production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication,
> >draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilization. The
> >cheap prices of commodities are the heavy artillery with which it
> >forces the barbarians' intensely obstinate hatred of foreigners to
> >capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt
> >the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what
> >it calls civilization into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois
> >themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image.
>
>
> Doug
>