At 03:40 PM 9/28/97 -0400, you wrote:
>Comrades,
>
>Interesting idea about the world party. One problem I see is the argument
>about demand-side policy. This argument apparently holds the assumption
>that economic growth is compatible with sustainability. While present
>poverty levels are due to distributional problems, it does not follow that
>we can meet a high level of affluence for everyone and maintain this over
>the long haul if the distribution problem is solved.
>
>If production tends towards demand insufficiency, then rather than gear
>policy towards increasing demand, i.e., consumption, we should gear policy
>towards reducing consumption. The upshot of this is that capitalism must
>be replaced if the goals outlined in this hypothetical program are to be
>realistic. If this is the task, and if the treadmill of production means
>ultimately overshoot, then global Keynesianism isn't an option.
>
It is probably true (who can ever be sure of these things) that current
productive capacity is sufficient to house, clothe, and feed everyone on the
planet at a comfortable level. In fact, I'd argue that over-production and
under-utilization of productive capacity is the rule. Manufacturers seek to
expand markets by lowering prices by reducing wages which creates a vicious
cycle by further shinking consumer markets in the modern core (upon whose
markets the industry of the periphery is dependent) while impeding at the
periphery the growth of wages which is a prerequisite for the growth of
regional-local markets that would reduce dependency upon exports. As to
whether the consumerism that drives market demand is a good thing or not is
a matter for debate and the positions taken will vary widely depending on
where you are in the world. Those of us of the cyber-elite (that less than
2% of the world's population that possesses a computer) probably are readier
to put and end to GROWTH than the those living hand-to-mouth for whom
economic growth offers hope.
In short, the problem is indeed one of distribution rather than
production. Moreover, to have a realistic goal of full employment, we must
first realize that such employment need be no more than 12-15 hours a week
(no -- should be no more than 12-15 hours a week). But as communists and
socialist discovered, human needs and wants are too complex to anticipate
through planning and such planning strangles innovation and creativity that
leads to such things as the tools we employ to have this debate. That is why
THE MARKET (reified again) triumphed over command economies and cannot be
done away with. But it can be tamed by using the very structural tools
being created by this phase of the development of the capitalist world
system. Any truly anti-systemic movement would disconnect the very levers
that offer the only hope of putting the whole world on the deck of the
Starship Enterprise -- shorthand for that vision of techologically
sustainable growth governed by humanistic principles that (at the bottom)
must be democratic and liberal because the latter provide the ground-rules
for building consensus as notions of what constitutes the COMMON GOOD evolve
and change.
>
>
William Schell, Jr Voice: (502) 762-6572
Dept of History Fax: (502) 762-6587
Murray State University EMAIL bill.schell@Murraystate.edu
Murray, KY 42071