Date: 	Mon, 27 Oct 1997 23:01:36 -0800
From: bhandari-AT-phoenix.princeton.edu (Rakesh Bhandari)
Subject: Re: M-TH: Corrective


In a the voice of reason and caution, Chris B noted:

>Presumably, although some will want to herald the world revolution, the
>shudder on Wall Street is merely a corrective in the ongoing cycles of
>global capitalism.
>
>Part of the very process by which it adjusts and perpetuates itself.

Carchedi analyzes the limited impact of stock market crashes and himself
underlines that they are not 'catastrophic': "Stock exchange crashes are
not violent destructions of wealth; they are violent redistributions of
wealth." Frontiers of Poltical Economy, p. 209.

  Anwyays the stock market is only the show the bourgeoisie presents to the
world, while marxists know that the drama is really in the fields,
factories and mines.

In another post, James  mentioned the relative insignificance of currency
speculations, but please note that Carchedi proposes " a theory of exchange
rates, revaluations, and devaluations in terms of tendential (and
countertendential) international distribution of value both among
individual countries and between the imperialist centre on the one hand and
the dominated bloc on the other." Capital and Class, 67 (p.85) Devaluation
is shown to be much more than a simple speculative game controlled by
Soros. That is, I think there is more to  the devaluations in Mexico and
Southeast Asia than a demonology of currency traders.

Rakesh





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