From: Rakesh Bhandari (rakeshb@STANFORD.EDU)
Date: Mon Jan 05 2004 - 12:17:02 EST
>Paul C response to DY's statement seems to me to be strange indeed. Is PC >stating that 'globalisation' ( whatever this is.......a more amorphous >notion one would find hard to find!) has somehow abolished monopoly? Clearly >then various EU / US state agencies are barking up wrong trees! quite apart >from the serious disappointment in their careers that so many writers and >'economic' investigators will now suffer at the hands of PC's discovery! >What is actually clear is that relatively few producers/corporations in the >world, lets say 300, headquartered in very few states lets say 10, but >mostly in the US, have a monopoly ( in the sensible sense of over 25% of the >market ( UK Competition regs)), and that this 'monopoly' allows huge profits >which are in part are used to provide payments to sections of the work force >to ensure loyalty and stability to the system. > 1. These 300 corporations only employ a small part of the work force in the imperialist countries. Any transfer of value from competitive to monopoly capital should obtain as much intra as inter nationally. 2. If there are monopoly profits they probably are received only by the most advanced technology sectors, e.g. design and logic rather than basic memory chips. But as capital goods sectors tend to suffer first and hardest in a downturn, monopoly profits are also vulnerable to the business cycle. 3. All this reference to monopoly seems to suggest Baran and Sweezy's framework; is this implicit? Please clarify. 4. This explanation for the stability of imperialist countries suffers from a materialist metaphysic--the working class has to be materially bought off or it would be revolutionary. This discounts the role of culture, the media, the legal system and the power of the state, and many other factors. Let's not pretend that the labor aristocracy thesis is the only explanation for the stability of the dominant advanced capitalist countries. 5. David's point is a good one, and reflects his own ambivalence: "Yes, at the same time, ever greater numbers of unproductive workers are being forced into very low paid jobs in the imperialist countries as well. This is a measure of the crisis of imperialism... There is little doubt that the numbers of privileged workers that imperialist economies can sustain is diminishing and will eventually return to a small influential minority of the working class.." 6. David Y is arguing at absolute variance with Grossmann's wage theory. In fact he seems much closer to Bukharin; is David aware of this? 7. David Y fails to consider how imperialist exploitation does not benefit but costs the working class in the imperialist countries. At this time, his emphasis could not be more misplaced. Rakesh
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