What does the empirical evidence tell us about the cause or causes of the current world economic crisis? What are current estimates of changes in the *international* capitalist economy re: a) rates of profit (however defined); b) c/v; c) s/v; d) the ratio of productive to unproductive labor; e) the turnover time of constant fixed capital? Furthermore, what role have changes in the following variables had re both the causes of and possible ways of overcoming this crisis: a) intensity of labor; b) wages in relation to the value of labor-power; c) costs of the elements of constant capital; d) the size of the industrial reserve army; e) foreign trade; f) the 'increase in share capital'? Are there any reliable estimates of how the 'auto-valorization' of the working class has impacted the crisis? E.g. how have changing levels of strike activity and workers' militancy impacted the crisis? (and how would that be measured empirically?) How have changing levels of state expenditure, taxation, and borrowing affected the crisis? How have changes in the average price level affected the crisis? Have changing trade policies and patterns had any measurable affect on the crisis? What about changes in aggregate demand? The 'underconsumption of the working masses'? Is there evidence of a 'disproportionality crisis'? For the above, how are we to empirically separate causes from effects; primary causes from secondary ones; significant from insignificant; causes of the crisis vs. attempts to overcome the crisis? How can the current crisis be explained by or reconciled with 'long wave' theories? Is there any means through which the current crisis could have been averted or delayed by state policy or is it an 'unavoidable' consequence of capitalist production? Perhaps these seem like very abstract questions, but they are questions which bear on an issue of great concern to the international working class: what are the causes of the current economic crisis and what statistical evidence is there to support your interpretation? If you were asked to give an address to a meeting of trade unionists, how would you answer that question? (...and if you don't have answers to the above questions and have other unrelated questions and issues that you wish to raise, go for it! Let's get back to the discussion.) In solidarity, Jerry
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