From: david@danyaf.plus.com
Date: Sat May 17 2008 - 11:32:35 EDT
I read Harman's article and it offers nothing. Besides exposing the superficial wishful thinking of some bourgeois liberal standpoints, his own position is a return to the 'underconsumptionism' of the old International Socialists mixed with the lower profit rates empiricism of Brenner. For a so-called socialist to write an article on the credit crunch without acknowledging the importance of imperialism and inter-imperialist rivalries seems to be fashionable these days. It seems that China but not Europe will challenge US hegemony. Perhaps this explains the SWP's total immersion in bourgeois parliamentary politics in Britain these days. David Yaffe At 08:10 17/05/2008 +0100, you wrote: > > I agree to some extent with this. However, for the prediction of > short-term trends, a lot of theory is often unnecessary - just a careful > study of > > empirical trends is often sufficient. But Keynesian theorists failed > spectacularly even in forecasting shortterm trends. > > >Hi Jurriaan: > >Who - if anyone - has a better record? > >Journalists, business economists, and economists employed by states and >unions (whatever their theoretical perspective) have a record, I >think, which is even worse (due in part, to an inherent bias). > >Marxian economists don't have a stellar record on this either. > > > . In my experience, Marxists often assumed that Marx's economic theory > has a direct and immediate empirical relevance, when it only > > described the essence of phenomena, and this results in confusing > short-term and long-term tendencies. > >Right. There's often a fallacy that is applied to the examination of concrete >questions - that the answers to those questions can be deduced directly >from abstract theory. In a way, that's an example of the fallacy of division. > >In solidarity, Jerry > >_______________________________________________ >ope mailing list >ope@lists.csuchico.edu >https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope _______________________________________________ ope mailing list ope@lists.csuchico.edu https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope
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