Date: Fri, 14 Nov 1997 16:21:40 -0500
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood-AT-panix.com>
Subject: Re: M-I: The Vortex of the World Market, or Capitalism Sucks


Rakesh Bhandari forwarded this from Andrew Kliman:

>Nothing seems able to pull capitalism out of its 24-year-long slump.
>Worldwide growth of GNP per capita, which averaged 2.8% between 1965 and
>1973,
>has since fallen continually to 1.3% between 1973 and 1980, 1.2% in the
>1980s,
>and 0.5% between 1990 and 1995.

We'll see if Anwar Shaikh is right that that crisis is now over, and we're
in the early stages of a long upswing. I'm skeptical, but Shaikh is a smart
guy, so I think you've got to take his argument seriously.

>When production grows only modestly, it is now typically "jobless growth,"
>since technological revolutions are steadily lowering labor requirements.
>Western Europe's unemployment rate, which averaged 2.7% in the decade
>preceding 1973, has therefore risen steadily, averaging 9.6% in the first
>half
>of the 1990s.  That rates in the U.S. and Britain are somewhat lower is due
>largely to policies that encourage jobless workers to drop out of the labor
>force rather than seek work.

Rates in the U.S. are not "somewhat" lower - they're half European rates.
Employment in the U.S. has grown steadily over the last 5 years to the
point where the employment/population ratio is at a record high. Far from
dropping out of the labor force, people are entering it in large numbers -
thanks in part to welfare "reform."

Doug






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