I don't feel like getting into the whole debate about reform and revolution
again, right now, but I have to comment on this remark by Paul Riesz:
After World War II, the principles of
Lord Keynes were applied in most
Western societies with excellent
results, softening the business cycle and
resulting in vastly improved
living standards for their people. It was not paradise on
earth, but
the regulatory intervention of governments in the economy
prevented
excesses and promised a better future for
everybody.
----------------------------------------
My
comment:
How someone could be knowledgeable about World
Systems and make the above comment is beyond me. What is at stake is not simply
the (limited, temporary, relative) prosperity of the USA & Western Europe
during the 1950's-1960's; we also have to consider what was happening in the
rest of the world.
Part of the reason for "prosperity in the
West" after WWII is because capitalism again had room to expand
(unfortunately, on the dead bodies of a hundred or so million people).
Capitalism's "crisis of overproduction" is not simply caused by
"underconsumption" as Keynes said. The working class can NEVER have enough money
to buy what is produced, by definition, and the anarchistic economy will
continue to cause increasingly intense "boom/bust" cycles, which eventually get
resolved by war. After lots of stuff, and people, are destroyed, capitalism
again has room to "expand." Of course we can dream about voting those
policies out of power, but ruling capitalist elites have a nasty habit of mass
murdering their opposition when they believe a threat is getting out of
control.
Furthermore, "After World War II" the prosperity
was not shared by the working classes of the world. It was imperialism, from the
bloody overthrow of governments in Iran, Indonesia, Chile and a hundred other
places, to the enforced mass disease/death, kept in place
by authoritarian/fascist governments armed by the U.S. and other
imperialist powers. (Sorry if the word "imperialist" sounds like "jargon" but it
is particularly accurate here.)
So hang onto your reformist illusions if you
choose, but please, don't "forget" about the needless deaths of hundreds of
millions caused by the relatively prosperous governments of Western Europe and
the U.S. when you tally up the equation of reform versus
revolution.
Alan Spector
============================================
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, April 21, 2001 9:06 PM
Subject: Can capitalism be reformed?
> Dear Richard:
>
The fact that your views are shared by others and can be found in
>
books does not
> constitute logical proof.
> On the
other hand my views have proved their validity during the very
> long time
in
> which Capitalism has existed WITHOUT reaching the harmful
extremes,
> that can
> be observed at present.
>
After World War II, the principles of Lord Keynes were applied in most
>
Western
> societies with excellent results, softening the business
cycle and
> resulting in vastly
> improved living standards
for their people. It was not paradise on
> earth, but the
>
regulatory intervention of governments in the economy prevented
> excesses
and
> promised a better future for everybody.
> Even
great corporations benefited from such policies and produced
>
quite
> satisfactory profits for their shareholders without
interruptions.
>
> These principles have not lost their
efficiency, but could again be
> used to
> REFORM our
society, if we succeed in guiding the energy of the
> millions of
>
protesters and unsatisfied citizens into a more positive attitude
of
> fighting not only
> AGAINST corporate domination but FOR
a better alternative.
>
>
Regards
Paul
>
>