Date: Tue, 21 Oct 1997 22:57:29 +0100
From: James Heartfield <James-AT-heartfield.demon.co.uk>
Subject: Re: M-TH: The Henwood Theorem


In message <Pine.GSO.3.96.971021132153.25745A-100000-AT-acnet>, Gerald Levy
<glevy-AT-pratt.edu> writes
>The Henwood Theorem: volume on the stock market and the level of class
>struggle are inversely related, ceteris paribus.
>
I think that is a bit of a caricature of Doug's position. I don't
understand all the mechanisms at work myself, but it certainly does seem
to be the case that a more muted class struggle leaves the ruling class
more room to manouevre, and many of the anxieties that focussed on the
performance of the economy are more easily resolved in the current
interruption of social contestation.

>Your mechanistic ramblings above have given anyone with half a brain cause
>not to read _Wall Street_.

Maybe I'm not quite at the half a brain stage, but I did read Wall
Street and can't recommend it highly enough. It is quite rare for anyone
to combine Doug's level of empirical knowledge of the actual operation
of the economy and financial markets on the one hand, with a critical
theory of capital accumulation on the other. The bane of Marxist writing
on the economy has been the two extremes of either a rigorous but
unsubstantiated exegesis of Marx's theory, or a too superficial
fascination with the immediate appearances of the economy. So we have
been left with an uneasy combination of Capital theory (Rosdolsky,
Altvater) and the kind of fake left financial journalism that seizes
hold of one specific feature of the markets (Bretton Woods, the 1987
crash in London) and forces it to represent all of Capital's crisis
tendencies.

I don't agree with everything Doug says, but Wall Street is a good model
for how a contemporary critique of capitalism should proceed. If there
are criticisms to be made of the book, they will carry weight when and
if they go further, instead of putting the breaks on.

Not meaning to be creepy or anything, it just is a good book.
-- 
James Heartfield


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