Re: GLOBAL KEYNESIANISM

On Fri, 4 Jan 1980, Paul Riesz wrote:

>Capitalism is a system o organizing economic production, which has
>succeeded in elevating productivity to levels undreamed of by our
>forefathers.

Whose forefathers? I suppose the staggering level of development achieved
in the productive forces you cite has to do with the level of
industrialization, etc. By this criteria, has capitalism in most parts of
the world raised the productive forces to the level of industrial
development achieved by, say, the Soviet Union? How do the Philippines
compare? Or Chile? The Soviet Union accomplished in a couple of decades
what it took the US and Great Britain 200 years to achieve and I can think
of few other industrial giants in history. Are you saying that Great
Britain ever raised the level of productive forces to the level of the
Soviet Union? (This is assuming, of course, that installing a treadmill of
production that empties the earth of resources, uses people up, and puts
waste back into the earth at a faster rate than any other production
system is a laudable goal.)

>In the beginning it might have achieved such ends through paying their
>workers the lowest possible wages, but lately its success in increasing
>prosperity is due to stimulating human ingenuity and technological
>progress.

You are ever the cheerleader.

>2. You say that Socialism's pitfalls require socialist solutions, just
>as capitalism's pitfalls require capitalist solutions.  In practice
>China went all out to adopt capitalistic practices to improve the
>efficiency of their socialitic economy and even Cuba had to do that in a
>small scale.

And?

>On the other hand Norway and other Democracies based on Capitalism have
>adopted socialistic policies in order attend many of their social problems
>and especially to achieve a less unequal distribution of wealth. 
>As far as I can judge such policies were VERY successful in both cases.

Do you mean that in Norway the workers own and control the means of
production?


Andrew Austin
Knoxville, TN