Re: GLOBAL KEYNESIANISM

At 03:49 PM 4/28/2000 -0400, you wrote:
>
>Randy--
>
>       You may (or may not) be right, but as a historian I tend to see 
>every
>country (and every part of every country) as more or less fated to develop
>as its past (and of course changing world conditions) dictates.  Russia and
>China were never Sweden and the Netherlands.  Their options were limited,
>their circumstances dire.  Of course they did have options, in the plural,
>and I agree that counterfactual scenarios can uncover causal factors that
>might go unnoticed in more conventional historiography;  but I see no
>chance in hell that Russia or China, given their state of economic
>development as of 1917 and 1949, respectively, and given their cultures,
>could have made a go of Scandinavian-style social democracy.  It is also
>true that Sweden and the Netherlands are deeply complicit in the modern
>world-system with all its inequities.
>
>       Warren Wagar

Dr. Wagar:

I admit that I _was_ overreaching a bit when I suggests that Russia or China
might have become Scandinavian-style social democracies. Well, OK, not just
a bit. :-)

It seems to me that the state socialist system of the Soviet Union and
satellites did nothing to let the Soviet Union catch up to the European core
states, at least not in the long run. The Soviet Union sought to become the
centre of a state socialist world-system, but it failed. Perhaps the Soviet
Union simply did not have command of enough of the world, but I'm inclined
to believe that it was weaknesses in Soviet state socialism that led to the
collapse of the Soviet bloc once the Kondratieff down-cycle began. 

At the beginning of the 20th century, by western European standards the
Russian Empire was poor and semi-industrialized, highly dependent on western
European capital exports, and run by an erratic government. At the end of
the 20th century, the Russian Federation and the CIS states remained poor
and semi-industrialized, highly dependent on western European (and United
States, and soon, according to stratfor.com, Japanese) capital exports, and
run by a clutch of erratic governments. For all of the efforts of the Soviet
state to break away from the capitalist world-system, it failed, and Russia
was forced to rejoin the capitalist world system after an appalling toll in
the same position that she left it. China appears to be in relatively better
shape, but if it was not for its opening to First World investment and trade
in the past quarter-century, I think I'd be justified in predicting trouble
for China in the early 21st century, particularly once the Kondratieff
down-cycle begins in the 2020's.

I find Russia's full circle return to the capitalist world system a terrible
tragedy. (Along with everyone else on the list.) To me, the experience of
the Soviet bloc suggests very strongly that revolutionary attempts to opt
out of the capitalist world system don't work, at least not in the long run.
Evolutionary methods -- such as a global Keynesian consensus -- seem to me
the most practical way to try to expand the ranks of the First and Second
World states, and to make conditions in the Third World that much more
bearable. I'd like to think myself an optimist -- I think it likely that
when the Kondratieff up-cycle kicks into full gear, that a Keynesian
consensus common to the Triad and assorted Second World states will emerge,
if for no other reason than disillusionment with the course of the 1990's. 

It's unjust, I agree -- I'd also prefer a clean sweep of the board. But
given the unlikelihood of a global revolution, given the high human and
economic toll of the revolution, and given significant questions over the
durability of the revolution's achievement, I think I'd be justified in
sticking to an evolutionary approach.

Randy McDonald
Charlottetown PE
Canada