Date: Sun, 07 Sep 1997 21:53:59 +0100
From: Chris Burford <cburford-AT-gn.apc.org>
Subject: RE: M-TH: Keynesianism and global stability


At 11:23 AM 9/6/97 -0400, Kevin wrote:


>	Then I agree with your position on "Keynesianism", which I did not 
>specifically identify with stable debt spending so much as I do social 
>welfarism. The redistribution of income through a commitment to full 
>employment, strong progressive income tax, national social security and
health 
>plans, wage and benefit requirements, state support of labor unions, etc. is 
>all a fine goal. But I just wanted to add that it's still unstable. 
>"Technically possible" Keynesianism implies stability - Keynesianism for
JMK is 
>to be a stable economic system, and not just a temporary palliative
measure. In 
>order to keep this discussion at least mildly analytical I think we should 
>split the two in our lexicon so that Keynesianism implies long-term
stability, 
>and welfarism (social welfarism or social democracy) makes no such
implication. 


OK. I note how you understand "Keynesianism", and wonder if perhaps you
have put much more thought into differentiating it from Schweickartian
market socialism. If so, fair enough.
>From my point of view, I was referring purely to injecting more currency
into circulation to stimulate production by apparently increasing
purchasing power.




> Marxists should be interested 
>in charities and liberal petition organizations, but should also push to 
>advance broader structural (and thus more subversive) critiques of poverty
and 
>wealth, education, working conditions, health and scientific research within 
>and outside of them.



Good.



>
>> Placing the discussion at a global level is more technically and
>> politically complex but it does reduce some of these disadvantages. And
>> there is always the allure of a temporary increase in global exchange
>> medium, bringing more of the global means of production into productive
>> activity.
>
>	I think it would be great to talk about the potential of welfarism 
>internationally. Constructing a narrative of what welfarism could look
like in 
>a country like Turkey or India would help spark that. 



Here we are at cross purposes. I myself am not necessarily talking about
welfarism. 



> I suspect that an international redistribution of 
>wealth through debt cancellations is the necessary condition for stable 
>welfarist development in these countries; that is a project that is actually 
>and technically possible.


I assume the problem here is this. It is OK for countries like Britain to
say how generous it is in cancelling the debt of countries like Mozambique.
The poorest of the poor can be made an exception without destabilising the
system. The poor are always with us. But no capitalist international
agreement could undertake to cancel the debts of any country whenever they
occur. Would you apply the principle to Mexico, Brazil, Turkey and India? 

Debt cancellation is historical: what is actually happening in the present
is credit creation. I am maintaining that is done all the time but not
consciously and voluntarily because of the mystifications of the capitalist
system. 

I am saying there should be a world plan to bring into circulation 5% more
currency each year and to spend it on the most progressive projects that
you can get political agreement for. While 30% of the workforce of the
world is either unemployed or under-employed that is unlikely to be
cripplingly inflationary on a world scale. And if it is a bit inflationary
so what? Inflation without an increase of production in one country now
causes its currency to nose-dive. But a general global inflation would not
cause this national instability.

On a *global level* it is not an objection to say that deficit expenditure
(credit creation) would not guarantee stability, because it might create
somewhat *more* stability than otherwise. Besides I would be very surprised
if the international economy does not become much more unstable over the
next century, amd while this is not a glib argument for the final terminal
crisis of capitalism, I think it will concentrate minds on the increasing
need to bring the processes of the international economy under human social
control.



Schweickart:
------------


>	I would be pleased to hear your opinion on Schweickart's socialism. It
meets 
>my criteria of stability because it does not allow for the existence of
class 
>interests which by their great (financial) power can leverage the system
in a 
>way that threatens the existence of the very system. There is no class that 
>wields tools other than armed insurrection to overthrow an established
market 
>socialist regime. Nobody owns the government other than the broad
distribution 
>of people. I don't think "loans" (monies-granted) from central-regional
public 
>banks should be paid back under market socialism because I suspect the
power of 
>a financial class.


OK. Off the top of my head, because if I try to do it carefully, I will
never do it.
(But I will not be able to devote much time to this thread as I am going
away at the end of the week) -

I think it is a considered balance between values of democracy and values
of economic efficiency. I think it is less utopian than Schweickart assumes
but then he has no experience of the ruthless cunning of people like Blair,
Mandelson and Brown.

 BTW if the charge is raised again by Louis P, and it is an important
charge, of utopianism, Schweickart has about a one page discussion of this
sort of objection which perhaps you could unearth. Your own arguments here
however do seem to be based on an assumption of something like it being
implemented. I think it is more a question of sketching out a number of
possibilities that would have to be explored politically to see how far
they could get implemented.

I do agree that his ideas and those of more pragmatic writers, like Will
Hutton in Britain, would significantly restrict the role of finance capital. 

BUT I have a profoundly uneasy idea that any system of commodity exchange
will create the equivalent of extra surplus value, where one system of
production is historically more efficient than another, and although there
are several processes leading to the uneven accumulation of capital in
particular enterprises, that would undoubtedly occur, whether it was called
capital or "people's investment funds".


Protectionism is rather fundamental to Schweickart's project, and I admit
he puts up good arguments, but I do not think it is politically practical. 

This leads him to present his argument in terms of specific countries, like
you do. There is no discussion of its implications at a global level.

Instead I think we must have ways of damping down the volume of
international trade eg by energy taxes, in order to try to keep economic
activity more locally self-supporting, and we must effectively nationalise
land. The Tobin tax should be introduced immediately.

Chris Burford

London.




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