The inventor of the velocitometer, David Yaffe, has joined OPE-L. Of course, David Y is known to many on this list for other accomplishments as well (see below). David has been busy at work writing: "an article for our newspaper Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! on globalisation: 'Globalisation: parasitic and decaying capitalism' in FRFI 158 December2000/January 2001. It will be put on our website in a few weeks www.rcgfrfi.easynet.co.uk." (Hmm... maybe you have some thoughts about Paul C's recent questions about imperialism ....) He provides us with the following (controversial?)introduction: >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> I was involved with the British Conference of Socialist Economists (CSE) in the early 1970s. In that period we believed that capitalism had entered a structural crisis which would necessarily lead to a systematic attack on working class living standards. We were confident that Marxist ideas could take root in the working-class movement and that a new political movement was on the agenda. Yet it was just at that time that many of the fundamental propositions developed by Marx in his critique of political economy were being challenged by a group of people in the CSE. They saw themselves as non-dogmatic and creative 'critics' of Marx and believed they were developing Marx's theoretical insights. We saw them quite differently. We argued that they were not simply 'revising' Marx but rejecting the scientific basis of his work. They represented a 'new' bourgeois school of thought - actually an old recurring one - located in the Ricardian tradition of political economy. Their views would inevitably undermine the revolutionary conclusions contained in Marx's work. That is why we, as 'orthodox' Marxists (they called us 'fundamentalists') vigorously opposed the neo-Ricardians in all forums of the CSE. In that period I wrote three articles which I believe contained a systematic defence of Marx's critique of political economy that is still relevant today and which further developed our understanding of capitalism since the Second World War. They were 1. The Marxian Theory of Crisis, Capital and the State in the CSE Bulletin (Winter 1972) and reprinted in Economy and Society Volume 2 Number 2 1973. 2. The Crisis of Profitability: a Critique of the Glyn-Sutcliffe Thesis in New Left Review 80 July-August 1973 2. Value and Price in Marx's Capital in Revolutionary Communist No 1 January 1975. This is available on our website www.rcgfrfi.easynet.co.uk/marxism. These positions were brought together in a much longer article, written together with Paul Bullock, on the structural crisis of capitalism: Inflation, the Crisis and the Post War Boom in Revolutionary Communist 3/4 November 1975. It corrected some of the wrong positions in the earlier material, in particular, on productive and unproductive labour and the role of luxury goods in Marx's analysis of capitalism. In the spring of 1974, after it became clear that the dispute with the neo-Ricardians was no longer fruitful, some of us left the CSE and attempted to build a political movement and produce a communist theoretical journal. We founded the Revolutionary Communist Group in March 1974. I was the editor of the journal Revolutionary Communist which was published from January 1975 until June 1979. From November 1979 we published a 16 page revolutionary newspaper Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism! (FRFI). It is still being published. After the first few issues I became the editor of this newspaper. Over more than 20 years, I have been writing regularly in FRFI on economic and political issues of the day, attempting to expand on some of the ideas developed in the early 1970s, but in a more accessible form. Since the mid-1990s some of the more important articles, which I and other comrades have written, have been placed on our website, including most of the articles I have written on globalisation. I am presently attempting to write a book which explains the political and economic developments since 1975, and which also explains the absence, so far, of a new political movement within the working class in the imperialist countries. I look forward to participating in your discussion. >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> We look forward to your participation as well. David's e-mail address is: <dashyaf@easynet.co.uk> David: welcome aboard! In solidarity, Jerry ____________________________________________________________________ Get free email and a permanent address at http://www.netaddress.com/?N=1
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