Thanks Michel

yes, that's what I seem to notice too.

yet Kliman seems to requestion the data Prof Wolff uses ( The professor presenting "Capitalism Hits the Fan" lecture )... hence I get confused about the points Kliman tries to make.

On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 12:53 PM, Michel Bauwens <michel@p2pfoundation.net> wrote:
what I have heard and seen  on this issue, is that

- wages are largely stagnant

- share of gdp constant, which means none of productivity gains were factored in to benefit workers ...

- real estate prices have gone up, taking larger parts of household income, but 4 many items, cost is down ...


On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 6:29 PM, Dante-Gabryell Monson <dante.monson@gmail.com> wrote:
Thanks.
I googled it further,
and ended up reading a relatively recent article by the author of the book, Andrew Kliman ( see below ).

If I understand properly, he seems to argument that real wage income did not go down.
This then leads me to ask : did real spending capacity increase ?
How is the adapted real wage income calculated ?
For example, did the cost of housing in percentage of income increase ?
Is this taken into account ?
Here in western europe, and more particularly in relation to my family,
I noticed for example that over the years, that despite my mother working more, and her children not being on her expenses anymore, she ends up being able to afford only smaller and smaller apartments to rent for herself.

Hence,this leads me to ask if it may be of interest to understand the impact of inequality, and more specifically make usage of data regarding growing inequality of incomes - references needed - ( impacted by increases in productivity and further delocalisation ? ) , on the cost of living, and quality of life ?

Hence look at comparisons of consumption in terms of what one can afford after paying for necessities.  Apparently, when my mother was young, one working parent seemed to be able to cover basic necessity costs of the children.
Today, even two working parents seem to have difficulties in affording a decent living, at least here in western europe.

///


excerpt :

"I do not mean to imply that working people are living well. That isn’t the case. But the reason it isn’t the case doesn’t have to do with the alleged but nonexistent decline in the share of national income they receive. It has to do with a sharp decline in GDP growth that began in the mid-1970s and has more or less persisted ever since. Since GDP isn’t growing fast and working people are getting a close-to-constant share of it, their incomes aren’t growing fast."

On Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 7:57 AM, Michel Bauwens <michel@p2pfoundation.net> wrote:


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: seth weiss <weiss_seth@hotmail.com>
Date: Sat, Nov 12, 2011 at 11:50 AM
Subject: New book: "The Failure of Capitalist Production"
To: newspacegroup newspacegroup <newspacegroup@lists.mutualaid.org>


New SPACE friends, An important new book by Andrew Kliman has just been published. Please have a look! Take care, Seth  



THE FAILURE OF CAPITALIST PRODUCTION

Underlying Causes of the Great Recession


by Andrew Kliman


Paperback / 256 pp. / ISBN-13: 978-0745332390.  Published by Pluto Press, November 2011.


Only $23.40 from MHI + $3.60 shipping in U.S. -- below Amazon's price (foreign purchasers: please contact MHI for rates).

Order here: http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/economic-crisis/new-book-the-failure-of-capitalist-production.html


The reasons behind the global financial crisis and the Great Recession are the subject of much debate. This is the first book to conclude, on the basis of in-depth analyses of official U.S. data, that Marx’s crisis theory can explain these events.

Marx believed that the rate of profit has a tendency to fall, leading to economic crises and recessions. Many economists, Marxists among them, have dismissed this theory out of hand, but Andrew Kliman’s careful data analysis shows that the rate of profit did indeed decline after the post-World War II boom. He shows that free-market policies have failed to reverse that decline. This fall in profitability led to sluggish investment and economic growth, mounting debt problems, desperate attempts of governments to fight these problems by piling up even more debt – ultimately ending in the Great Recession.

Kliman's conclusion is simple but shocking: short of socialist transformation, the only way to escape the “new normal” of a stagnant, crisis-prone economy is to restore profitability through full-scale destruction of the value of existing capital assets, something not seen since the Depression of the 1930s. .


Endorsements:

“Clear, rigorous and combative. Kliman demonstrates that the current economic crisis is a consequence of the fundamental dynamic of capitalism, unlike the vast bulk of superficial contemporary commentary that passes for economic analysis.” 
– Rick Kuhn, Deutscher Prize winner, Reader in Politics at the Australian National University

“Among the myriad publications on the present day crisis, this work stands out as something unusual. Kliman cogently argues against the view that the crisis is ultimately rooted in financialization. He is an excellent theorist, and an equally excellent analyst of empirical data.” 
– Paresh Chattopadhyay, Université du Québec à Montréal

“One of the very best of the rapidly growing series of works seeking to explain our economic crisis. … The scholarship is exemplary and the writing is crystal clear. Highly recommended!”
– Professor Bertell Ollman, New York University, author of Dance of the Dialectic


Chapters:

1. Introduction

2. Profitability, the Credit System, and the “Destruction of Capital”

3. Double, Double, Toil and Trouble: Dot-com boom and home-price bubble

4. The 1970s––Not the 1980s––as Turning Point

5. Falling Rates of Profit and Accumulation

6. The Current-cost “Rate of Profit”

7. Why the Rate of Profit Fell

8.The Underconsumptionist Alternative

9. What Is to Be Undone?

 

For a synopsis of chapters, and excerpts from the book, please visit http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/economic-crisis/new-book-the-failure-of-capitalist-production.html


Podcast (audio) interview:  Kliman and host Doug Lain discuss the book (causes of the Great Recession, inequality, underconsumptionism, the #Occupy movement, and more) on Diet Soap Podcast #125: Crisis and Capitalism’s System Failure (70 mins.), http://dietsoap.podomatic.com .





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