Re: [Pen-l] The fundamental crisis response. was Ecological credit crunch

["Jim Devine" <jdevine03@xxxxxxxxx>]

Eugene Coyle <eugenecoyle@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> I understand what liberal economists won't talk seriously about [the benefits of?] slowing or stopping growth in the US economy.  But why won't PEN-L touch it? Conservatives believe growth is good, the WD-40 for all problems.  Liberals  won't advocate stopping growth as the crisis response because it is career  threatening.  But why won't PEN-L seriously discuss this?  <

how about what I wrote on October 5 [in the "economic growth" (was:
Problem with Dean Baker's "The Bailout Round II: Adult Version?")"
thread]:
>>In a capitalist system where the opposition is totally atomized (such as what prevails at present in the US), that's true [that income growth has a major bad side]. In a situation where most people don't have control over their lives which on the job (or preparing for it or recovering from it), they seek some sort of compensation in fast cars, large screen TVs, eating meat, and the like. ...  Also, people don't have enough control over the state to force a truly environmentalist use of rising income.

>>Of course, in a capitalist system where the opposition is totally atomized, the alternative to "economic growth" and "growing income" is not a ecological state, but a depression. Rising income is needed these days so that people can avoid bankruptcy and/or foreclosure, while covering rising medical costs and the like.<<

If this isn't talk about "stopping growth," I don't know what it is.
Maybe the problem is that you just don't like my answer, Gene.

> There is a way to stop growth and at the same time have the possiblity of a real correction in the mal-distribution of income and wealth in the US.  ... cutting working hours is the most  important crisis response. ...<

good idea. Let's cut working hours. If I did that, it's likely that
I'd get no more raises, while prices would continue to rise, so my
real purchasing power would fall. The Chair and the Dean would yell at
me all the time. I would survive, but most people don't have tenure or
any job security at all.

Individual solutions won't work. To get any cut-back in work hours, we
need a mass movement, not utopian mutterings.

I don't see how cutting work hours is a solution to maldistribution of
income and wealth. Absent a mass movement, a cut in work hours would
likely have a fall in wages attached. Whatever happened to the old
lefty slogan about reducing hours without cutting pay?
-- 
Jim Devine /  "Nobody told me there'd be days like these / Strange
days indeed -- most peculiar, mama." -- JL.
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