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

Sat Nov 12 12:58:32 CET 2011

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 at 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 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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