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

Sat Nov 12 12:53:21 CET 2011

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 at 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.
>
> ///
>
>
> 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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