From: BHANDARI, RAKESH (bhandari@BERKELEY.EDU)
Date: Tue Oct 04 2005 - 21:28:47 EDT
I must say that your position confuses me; one day you appear sympathetic to Keynes, the other day you are saying pre Keynesian things. On Tue, 4 Oct 2005 21:10:22 +0100 Paul Cockshott <wpc@DCS.GLA.AC.UK> wrote: > Neither of these. > > If the rate of profit is too low relative to long term rates > of interest capitalists decline to accumulate constant capital. > This prevents extended reproduction and, if nothing is done will > lead to contracted reproduction. In either case unemployment will > rise significantly. I get this case. What is the other case? > > State expenditure on unproductive activities can create additional > demand which allows simple reproduction to take place by converting > some of the output into commodities which are not accumulated. > This corresponds to a shift in the working population out of the > production of means of production and into the production > of weapons etc. Huh? This assumes full employment; there need not be a shift in the working population. The absorbtion of another part of the population > in unproductive financial activities also prevents accumulation since > the people who work in stock exchange offices of banks are people > who are not working in factories producing means of production. Yes but by giving a market to div i and div ii excess capacity can be worked off, possibly creating the conditions for an investment led boom. Do you agree with Keynes or not? Rakesh > > -----Original Message----- >From: OPE-L on behalf of Rakesh Bhandari > Sent: Tue 10/4/2005 4:26 PM > To: OPE-L@SUS.CSUCHICO.EDU > Subject: Re: [OPE-L] [Fwd: Re: [OPE-L] basics vs. non-basics and financial services] > > At 11:35 AM +0100 10/4/05, Paul Cockshott wrote: >> >>I agree that mature capitalist economies can have a tendancy to spiral >>into unemployment, and that the expenditure of the state on weapons >>can prevent this. But it prevents unemployment by at the same time >>preventing accumulation and shifting the economy from expanded to simple >>reproduction. > > Not following. Prevents higher levels of employment? And how is the > state preventing accumulation if the economy is already spiralling > into unemployment as a result of slow down in accumulation? Or are > you saying that the state causes that downward spiral by, say, > regressive taxes or the coddling of labor? Were Thatcher and Reagan > right? > > rb > > >> >>-- >>Paul Cockshott >>Dept Computing Science >>University of Glasgow >> >> >> >>0141 330 3125
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