RE: GLOBAL KEYNESIANISM

This discussion of global keynsianism is interesting. I am a
bit surprised I have not seen it sooner or more or it
(perhaps I'm not looking in the right places).

Anyway, it seems to me that the options we are faced with
today are socialism (whatever that might mean), global
keynsianism, or barbarism (aka neo-liberalism). Given that
barbarism is highly unstable and does indeed seem to be
prone to collapse or at least persistent conflict and that
socialism does not seem to be on the horizon (due to a lack
of imagination or readiness perhaps), global keynsianism
appears to be the only realistic alternative. All things
considered, that does not seem to be too bad, especially if
people see this as a real option sooner rather than later.

However, and I think all Marxists should be aware of this,
keynsianism is unstable too. Klaus Offe, Habermas, and James
O'Connor (among others) have presented persuasive arguments
for this. That is, keynsianism works in the medium term
because it successfully addresses the interests of capital
(by minimizing conflict) and of labor (by avoiding the
pauperization of the working class). In the longer term,
however, the inherent conflict is resolved at the cost of
bringing the government into ever greater debt. Keynes
assumed that indebtedness could be avoided by having the
government borrow only during depressions and pay-off its
debts during the up cycle. However, he did not consider that
governments are nearly paralyzed when they need to raise
taxes because the taxes cannot be raised either from capital
nor from labor, as the government has to cater to both of
their interests, lest it lose legitimacy (if it taxes labor)
or lose investment (if it taxes capital).

In the case of global keynsianism this last problem (taxing
capital) might seem to be less of a problem because capital
cannot flee anywhere to escape taxation (the persistent
problem of national keynsianism for social democracy and
socialist parties). However, unless the world's population
somehow gains control over trans-national corporations, I do
not see how the taxation of capital can ever be achieved.
That is, as long as the media and the political process are
manipulated, if not outright controlled, by trans-national
capital, then there is no chance of implementing a
keynsianism that places the burden on capital. Placing the
fiscal burden of keynsianism on labor could prove difficult
too, however, because even if this global keynsianism is not
democratically controlled, it would still need some sort of
legitimacy if it were to function more or less properly. In
other words, I would predict that the result of a global
keynsianism would be very similar to the fate of national
keynsianism, namely, first massive indebtedness and then its
eventual dismantling. Real socialism (which to me means, at
least, democratic control over all economic and political
institutions) would probably be only on the horizon once we
go through the process of global keynsianism and its
collapse first.

--Greg Wilpert

P.S. I'm brand new to this list, so I apologize if I'm
repeating here what others might have said better before me
(or if I'm ignoring criticisms of the ideas presented here).



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Greg Wilpert, Ph.D.
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