[P2P-F] Fwd: New book: "The Failure of Capitalist Production"

Sat Nov 12 12:29:26 CET 2011

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.

///

http://www.marxisthumanistinitiative.org/economic-crisis/lies-damned-lies-and-underconsumptionist-statistics.html

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 at p2pfoundation.net>wrote:

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