tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post6125681562477778694..comments2024-03-20T01:04:27.846-05:00Comments on Permanent Crisis: Rand Paul could redefine American politics, straight into disasterUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-11405267751493195622013-07-04T01:04:15.362-05:002013-07-04T01:04:15.362-05:00The reason that workable positive proposals are no...The reason that workable positive proposals are not easy to find is that there's a contradiction between free trade/free movement of capital, on the one hand, and full employment, on the other. In the post-WWII period you could have full employment because the US was industrially more advanced than any other country and was able to run large export surpluses in manufacturing, without much competition at home for mass products. So there was a lot of work in exactly that sector. European social democracies were able to obtain full employment because they had trade and capital controls, plus lots of things to rebuild after the war.<br /><br />Since then, competition has emerged with a vengeance (in our case the first threats came from Germany and Japan, now it's those plus China and many others). What's more, capitalists in search of profits have engaged in automation and outsourcing; and even more, they have largely become transnational. Actually much of US corporate activity now takes place outside the country, both industrially and in terms of where the money circulates: Apple is the very exemplar of all that but hardly alone. Transnational corporations succeed in paying almost no taxes.<br /><br />For these reasons it is not possible to "go back" to a Fordist-type configuration while maintaining the policies of free trade/free circulation of capital. Yet those are exactly the policies that have been pursued most ardently across the 20th century, with no let up in recent years (NAFTA, entry of China to the WTO, now the free trade area negotiations with Europe).<br /><br />Although it is more difficult, what we need is a national and transnational discussion of the social consequences of capital investment. In its current, almost totally unregulated state, capital investment goes to all the wrong places: finance (which is purely predatory), outsourced manufacturing (race to the bottom for everyone), automation (a brighter future for robots). A better regulatory environment could direct capital investment towards more positive social consequences, in terms of employment, environment, and co-development with our neighbors (especially contiguous Mexico). A new, non-predatory kind of cosmopolitanism could be developed. All this is sacrificed in the attempt to make ever declining profits, in a world where everyone wants to capture export markets through the most intense competition and exploitation.<br /><br />It's no wonder that major corporate and financial interests have supported the libertarian discourse: "freedom" from taxation and regulation sounds great for small businessmen and entrepreneurs, but it translates into the formation of giant corporations that are able to attain monopoly positions, like the ones I discussed above and many more (increasing bank concentration tells a similar story in finance). I will try to write up a more precise picture of monopoly and oligopoly in the present global economy. That may help to expose the real problems and open a pathway toward positive proposals.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06093526631127908569noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-26620065356222856202013-07-03T22:32:29.349-05:002013-07-03T22:32:29.349-05:00Thanks for your comments on corporations, I did tr...Thanks for your comments on corporations, I did try to signal that there's something very different about today's big corporations compared to those of the <a href="http://permanentcrisis.blogspot.com/2011/06/glossary-fordism.html" rel="nofollow">Fordist era</a> when I referred to "entrepreneurial, and market-mediated bureaucracies". The nature of contemporary corporate organization, as well as that of the popular antipathy against it, both deserve more analysis.<br /><br />I think you're right that progressive self-identified Democrats will not vote Republican, even for the kind of iconoclastic Republican that Paul has the potential to become. But that group is a very small share of the electorate. What makes Paul so interesting and scary is his weird combination of fundamentalist and anti-authoritarian positions, which uniquely among Republicans could get him past the primaries and into a position as a viable candidate in the general election. In the context of an intensifying crisis and a transparently inadequate establishment candidate like Clinton running for the Democrats, that makes a Paul presidency a real threat. Whether he has the political skills to pull it off is a different question, too soon to answer.<br /><br />But I do think the possibility alone indicates that preventing someone like Clinton from winning the nomination for the Democrats is absolutely crucial, something I'll hopefully write on soon. And of course the key takeaway is, as you say, the urgent necessity for the left to finally produce a positive critique that can go beyond the Occupy impulse to simply secede from society.Walkerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06912406198051338502noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1110115832783903104.post-33346802437762565402013-07-03T06:05:39.429-05:002013-07-03T06:05:39.429-05:00It is very important to explain HOW to impose our ...It is very important to explain HOW to impose our will upon the "great corporate and state bureaucracies." That can only mean sharply critiquing the present forms of state and corporate power.<br /><br />For instance, the Krugman article you cite is about the Apple corporation, which took the second-largest profit of corporate America last year - almost 42 billion dollars, which is an incredible 26.7% of total revenue. They are not a big bureaucracy but the very example of the stripped-down network firm, employing only 76,000 in the US and paying almost no taxes in this country. Opposite to them at the top end of the Fortune 500 list is Wal-Mart, which employs 2,200,000 at such low wages that the employees largely depend on food stamps and other aid to survive. Their business model - just-in-time imports from China - has destroyed large swathes of American manufacturing and retail. Their neighbor at the top of the Fortune 500 is ExxonMobil, which employs about as many as Apple for very similar profits (in fact, as I recall they inaugurated the new benchmark of 40+ billion profits back in the early 2000s, a fourfold increase from earlier prevailing top profit rates). Their specific difference is a far greater capacity to lobby the US government, connected as they are to the heart of what is known as the military-industrial complex. None of these really fits the image of a great corporate bureaucracy... But you know all this, it's common knowledge. The question is how would we really transform today's major corporations, along with the most bloated sector of the US government, namely the military?<br /><br />While progressives would vote for Rand Paul on an independent ticket, they won't vote for him on a Republican ticket. The chances are too great that either chaos would ensue (as you suggest) or that the establishment will take over once he gets in, as it has with Obama. Rand Paul is more likely to continue the Gingrich tradition of destroying the Republican Party from within. I think the serious question - totally in line with your argumentation - is how to transform the current financial-industrial-military structure of the United States? The Democrats as they stand are not going to do it. The Left needs to produce a positive critique, with proposals, and put that on the Democratic agenda. Hillary Clinton will obviously not do this in our place. We need to do our version of what the Tea Party has done, not an irrationally destructive program but a critically constructive one. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06093526631127908569noreply@blogger.com