Saturday, August 27, 2011

second draft

there's a clear sense
something changed here around nixon time
and also that the latest crisis marks something
relatively big in the self realization department
for global capital if not global wagery

what's next ???

well to me lots of folks
see here and now  qualitatively speaking
like a second 1930's

i see more that makes me think
of the 1890's

ya several curtains have risen and fallen
now since nixon created the  new  amerikan nightmare

but
this ugly gig
is still in its middle  acts

at any rate

i read this piece  today on the present earthwide economic  crisis

http://www.solidarity-us.org/current/node/3314

and i've cut it into paper doles for easy digestion


cometh now some paine compactions :

----------------------------------
thesis:
" the finance capital strategy itself has now imploded .."

thesis:
"the capitalist class has no further strategy other than a return to classical capitalism, with mass unemployment and a minimal welfare state"


--------------------------------------
there follows a briefest history
of neo liberalism
or the rebirth of unfettered finance capital
---------------------------------------

"The crucial turning point came in the seventies when it became clear that the welfare state/full employment made capitalism unstable. Workers who are given lifetime tenure of employment with rising wages
demand control over their work and over the society....By the 1960s and the ’70s..., the working class was demanding both concessions and greater control over corporations and the economy."

translation :

in nearly closed systems
the wage price spiral emerges spontaneously
out of policy induced and maintained high  employment  tight job market perpetuity

and its ugly jailer becomes  the stagflation crone

where "demands by workers for worker's control fits in here escapes me
beyond
conditions
 pace 
"straw boss teatment " etc

but soft ..we continue

" In country after country there were strikes and demonstrations which led the capitalist class to reassess its postwar strategy."
yup



" Capitalim adopted a series of measures, which have become well-known as neoliberalism but are better understood as the consequences of the turn to finance capital."

now here you'd expect an itemization
but in essence we get one spell binding word
finance capital
and in fact this new era of finance capital seems to at least in part contradict the last
recall that was seen as the supersession of liberal markets with monopoly markets
indy firms with cartels etc etc


however to continue a back track

sub thesis :

"Since workers are the majority of society... they cannot be held back under conditions where the fundamentals of capitalism are contained."

what macro policy post WWII contained ??
 the normal robust cycles
the episodic release of a big hunks of the industrial job force
the respiration of capital itself  that left many jobblers unoxidized  between intakes
enter
the keynesian iron lung
and with it bold wage bargaining and the double helix wage price /price wage spirals they bring
sub thesis:

"...capital, as self-expanding value, uses the form of commodity fetishism (“consumerism”),
both ideologically and practically, as its preferred direct means of control."

i prefer we call a banal spade a spade
consumerism
ie in this case
a focus on ever higher material purchasing power
versus say shorter hours and more free fun time etc
or simply viewing ones life by its intakes rather then its out puts
productive labor  when formally a job for hire
instead of being one of lifes prime wants
is one of life's prime burdens

precisely not worker control of their place and means of production
nor commodity fetishism
but ...
ohh btw im glad capital promotes connsumerism
 as a result of its self expanding value drive
and not for reasons like orwells inner party
ie because capital thrives  on  power over production --

sub thesis:
"The increasing role in organization of the economy by governments and corporations
has eroded the myth that firms cannot be consciously planned rather than being run by the omnipotent capitalist"

what ??  really ???

many plans versus one big plan seems to be the hayeckian paradigm
is there aa myth
 economies are the outcome of simple exchanging producing  automatons
made of desiring meat ??

from where then the wild libertarian uprisings against the corporate form ???

to be scrupulously fair
our man does notice the intensification
of the MSM puppet shows
staged in virtual space
staring our mythic start ups
and mighty founder class

Al and i call it in its hay day
 during reagan's reign
the george gilder hour

sub thesis:

" the public sector and the welfare state cannot be run on the simple basis of value (i.e. profit-making) itself."

i'll not touch that goo goo holy hope just yet

" The attempt to run education, health, prisons, etc. on the basis of value alone does not work. "
isn't this fact yet to be proved conclusively comrade
at least as far as big capital is concerned ???

"The fact that the bureaucratic alternatives are often poorly run
 does not alter this point"
maybe not
but it does provide the clear and open
"moral "  basis  among efficiency worshipers
   to find a better way that obviously includes  privatize and profitize
in fact a good case can be made for the transformative power of capitalism when it gets around to various backward liberal  professionals dominated sectors like health and education
------------------
then comes this nice moment on
north american exceptionalism

though we all have welfare states now
 the euro level of public transfer system
never made it here across  the north atlantic

however
" The role of a huge military sector, which is in essence a nationalized division of the economy
outsourcing much of its production, together with
a bureaucratic health machine controlled by insurance companies,
performs much of the same functions" (as the robust euro welfare state )

"in adding to (?) the consciously regulated capitalist economy."
yikes that phrase is a critter

yes the state can produce its brass hat wpa
the weapons project administration
and pay  lots of young males  to drill and camp out in nazi envy uniforms

bottom line
make work to us macronauts
is make work
and a defense sector and a wickedly abundent health sector
do indeed in part add back to national effective demand
what stuff like a big and chronic trade deficit take away ...

and this is crucial
the five sided shambos spend their money all of it
they don't "stash it " in bonds or stocks or pay back debts
or other stuff that doesn't produce jobs and payrolls


thesis:


" the bourgeoisie has tried to turn the clock back with increased marketization"
marketization ??
this is genuine hot to  trot a-wrap-a-ho-ho-ho  speak here
for
privatization securitization and of course
profitization and gamblization
it fails to notice we live in a commercial world
where even not profit outfits like  foundation driven hospitals essentially thrive on selling  commodities

 thesis:

" The second form used to control workers (besides consumerization...)

 the reserve army of labor,
which had been effectively abolished in Western Europe in the postwar years. "

here he sez something of substance
yes neo liberalism  reactivated the  heavy use by the corporate world of the big bad  group sack

sub thesis:

 in this era
"The restoration of mass unemployment ...(is) ... essential to the restoration of capitalist stability"

yup

 if you don't want inflation spirals ...
generate employment cycles

okay so
we know how to maintain any degree of full employment we want
simply by using various combinations and relative quantities
of  our now in place
tax borrow monetize and transfer system

but oh the price level ride we got on  while we used these techniques ...


----------------------
at random another

thesis:

"the capitalist forms are undergoing rapid and uncontrollable change,
which the capitalist class is doing its best to roll back...... "

this is an attempt to swing for the fences

paraphrase??

we have a production system
 that by its own inner working
drives itself toward greater interconnected ness greater socialization greater inter dependence etc

btw the stiglitz greenwald theorem can be relabeled
to show how capitalists drive this  ever greater socialization as they seek
to gouge out in an un macro co ordinated fashion pockets of opportunity
simple flat open level  markets can't reach

by extending the corporate umbrella they  capture as yet "ungotten gains "

but in this very process
corporations  violate their own and each others independent path to wealth

and when that violation   comes conflict
and its conflict made  severe by its communicative contagious effects 
when  organizations are  interdependent 
they can  both mutually support each other  and mutually pull each other down
and on occasion  these inter corporate impacts can propogate and tend to replicate
themselves  very fast and all over the place
 and on  there own without external impetus

and  in these witching hours
suddenly red ink starts oozing out of a zillion places thought properly
 to be the home of steady black ink

you get it right ??

 the present institutional forms this  growing interconnection takes  ?

" combined growth "
thru " governmental organization of the economy/society, large corporations, monopoly, and the increasing role of bureaucracies of insurance companies, large corporations, and the public sector "
which like a vast mating ball of snakes
" reflect the increasing socialization of the economy/society "

but all this is mediated by corporations
that are the ever
"  fracturing capitalist framework..."

yup
fractured by the arbitray incidental partitions
into the sundry groupings of cross purposed private holdings entitlements obligations etc
the latent hobbesian state of all against all

 sum up:

"The effect :
a profit-driven “free market”  is limited in its scope "

bureaucratic " decision-making is often more important.."

so the spontaneous trend of the system is away from simple mindless heedless blind
 profit seeking "marketization"

but the capitalist remedy to the spontaneous contraction of market liberty
 is to try to force  more marketization
push back the tides of development

ie
" the capitalist class has been trying to roll back history."

hence master thesis :

with the coming of this great big crisis of finance capital in 08
the corporate mind thinks

more marketization !!!

whoops
not so fast after this last wild bronco bubble gig eh ??
more of the same ??
sooooo today
"the capitalist class has no further strategy" no stragey at all
" other than a return to classical capitalism
with mass unemployment and a minimal welfare state."
which as strategy goes is no strategy at all

 what  gives'
are they heading us
back to mike whitney's dark age
are we to become ...all of us
simple "naked i came " type
job smurfs  ???

-----------------
some end notes

but what if the crisis is over??

and the protracted stag we're in here
is just part of a long range shift
in the global industrial platform's
center of gravity
from the west-euro /north amigo nexus
to modern east and south Asia ???

the two track development model
we have de facto today may be
an acceptable approximation to a best of all possible corporation-dominated  planets

why fast growth for the emerger national industrial systems  the big EM's of asia
and go slow... snail slow
 for the mature industrial states of we/na

(there is of course the great game of resource extraction
so beloved of tangible types
the games that takes capital
any where mother nature decided
the resources should sit
and the game
which tends to be far more
"security state  intensive
then welfare state  intensive"

( you know activity like
arms to the temple negotiating
and
messages sent by  guided missile )


this seems like great sport
to our late trot  uk based academically employed
dialectical  meat machine here

he gloats at the low rate of industrial investment
in the mature
euphemistically called post industrial nations
like his  england and our  beverly hills

but fuck em
so what i say ...so what !!!

if this is hardly a crisis for capitalism so what

and is it it a crisis
are the corporates forced back to hand to hand combat with their employees ??

MNCs look globally not nationally
or regionally or even hemispherically

they're MULTI NATIONAL

and looked at collectively
the sun never sets on the corporate sphere
so what is a rained on parade here ...
you complete it

part of the neo liberal paradigm shift of the 70's
was indeed the release of far greater flows of funds
 across national borders an unfettering of finance capital


after nixon wrecked that brit fag and jew stalinists
bretton woods gold dollar and national capital controls
it was all in and all out time !!!

big feature
the new global paradigm with flex rates and fast moving capital
  effectively allowed  the US to run signifigant and chronic trade and BOP deficits
all the better to go global eh ??

labor ??? collective bargaining social contract
"nice plant we  have here now isn't it
kind of a  pity to close it tomorrow
instead say three years after you retire  eh sean ...eh ??"

the 40 year great wage moderation commencd right about there

no ??

with the flexible dollar and gargantuan deficits in trade
today post kold war
 with open doors everywhere
its spring time
   all the time and corporate capital flies where ever it may

yes portfolio moves dwarf real direct foreign investment

but portfolio moves in an integrated hi fi system
always dwarf real direct investment

and all you manhattan laputa haters
never forget

the portfolio herd maintains the forex tilt
and the profit arbitrage the real corporations
feed off of
nope it isn't all simple blood sucking of the real corporations
 hell they're really finance outfits at their  core themselves  these days  ---

so  instead  of looking at the old  centers of  real non paper profits
look in the massively revamped  global context
at the new centers of real profit

surely the chindian's twin industrial explosions
with their attendant bright marginal competitive
 areas like vietnam thailand and indonesia etc
provide ample opportunity
for real MNC industrial investment
or to be careful
for ample MNC "real participation"...eh ??

recall the point of major profit extraction
can come anywhere in the geo-temperal transaction chain

in chindia or  ireland or on a space station i suppose

--branson --


so long as THE MNCs control access
to the big mature national markets
and
keep control of the existing "stock"
of technical know how and know what

they can negotiate for themselves
the lions share of the total global profit take

---------------------
stop reading here
the rest is deeply ideocentric

the term "finance capital "gets quite the work out in this piece


--though thankfully as an orthodox late trot
hillel avoids the neologistic buzz varient
" financialization"
which turns out to be left speak for simple securitization---

however instead of barking
this magic word finanzkapital
--and it is one word in german--
at every stop in his pass
over the last 40 years

it might be better to suggest specifically
some of the innovations of the neo liberal era
that supported
the consumerism method of control

example
 post wage price spiral 70's

na/we both moved away from ever more transfers
between the state and the toiling idiot masses
ie welfare state and
  even after mao won the kold war for nixon
  even the security state macro economics began a long slow tapering
-- reagan?? an anomoly of hegemony --
and to replace this drop in policy controled effective demand
we got  the heavy intensification of both collateralized consumer credit
and non collatrealized
-- marvelous  :the bubble value of house lots and the ersatz value of human capital  --

consumer credit .." house as atm and plastic money a go go "

these operated as partial
ED effective demand substitutes
for what had been  take home wage increases 

and indeed not to put too blunt an edge
to this
since 07 that has  run aground

for the near to mid range future at least

but hey as we noticed a stag today is just what doctor sadisticus ordered

btw
there's a nice case of formal convergence here

 our hi fi 's used much the same model for the familly farm economy pre 1929

which equally found itself run aground ...several times in fact
over its epical arc
 from  the end of the civil war to the door step of the  new deal
and the  fundamental "final morphing" of our national  agristructure

the great ease out of the country's old social back bone
  the  familly farming itself

no doubt
trying to ease out
the cottage run
-- even ifin part  socially built ---
commodity form of labor

ie job time raising
may prove more protracted
then easing out familly corn raising  and pig tending

btw
 bureaucrat/ commercial health-higher ed - incarceration complex not withstanding
i predict
no move
from job smerf to  limited liability gulag serf for most of  us


though attaching one self to a corporation
becoming its ward at an early age
might become a lucrative vent for surplus
at the wagery house and hut level
if it can be camoflaged as a system of loans

-----------------------

in general i see no evidence the neoliberal form
of the last 40 years has yet morphed

nor can i see anything here
in mr H's piece to suggest it has

but like all else this must end

and suggesting the answer will be
dismantling the remains of the public transfer system
strikes me as patently wrong

yes the private household credit rush
is for now "over"
and the stag of the job market
stretches ahead to the event horizon

but i submit real honest nasty
deep pruning of the entitlements system
has peaked

the miraculous esape from
" the debt ceiling of death"
demonstrates
the transfer system butchers
are all hat and no knife




sum up

hillel notices a double down on the systemic value of a good sized army of unemployeds

great !!!!

but
and ???

well there he has only the word crisis

and i suspect subconciously the crisis
he feels is not the crisis he points at

the crisis he feels
is right there inside
his inner world poli-econ model

he's operating a creaking marxicocal glass piped jelopy
that can't come up the latest hill to see over it


he needs a really new formulation
to match this grave new world stage
he "sees so darkly" ahead of us

we all do

-----------------------------

there's a clear sense
something changed here around nixon time
and also that the latest crisis marks something
relatively big in the self realization department for global capilal if not global wagery
much like happened in that same 70's period
what's next ???

well to me lots of folks
see here and now as a sort of qualitatiely speaking
1930's rerun

i see more that makes me think
of the 1890's

ya several curtains have risen and fallen
now since 70
but
this ugly gig
is still in its mid acts