[Marxism] Irrational Exuberance

[Sukla Sen]

What Marxism and whose Marxism one is talking of?

Does Marxism preclude high rate of economic growth,
for a while, or an economic turn around under
capitalism?

Forget about Brazil, the Scandinavian countries have
high rates of HDI for a pretty long while.

But that does not in any way mitigate the looming
ecological disaster caused by production for profit
and over-consumption.
Nor the social/political conflicts the world over
cease to exist.

If the point is that the central element of Marxism is
the prediction that the tendency of the rate of profit
to fall with the rise of organic composition of
capital will lead capitalism to its inevitable doom,
then one doesn't have to wait for Brazil to pass an
adverse judgement on Marxism.

Marxism, after all and above all, is in its essence
critical and revolutionary.
Marxists cannot just shy away from examining the
extant and evolving realities and keep chanting
mantras picked up through rote learning with the eyes
tightly shut.
So, in the instant case, one has to look deep into
Brazil's (alleged) case of economic recovery, its
drivers, limitations, prospects and implications for
the struggles for socialism. 
One cannot just give a call to ignore whatever that
does not conform to the scriptures.

Sukla

Date: Thu, 31 Jul 2008 10:58:18 -0400
From: "Ruthless Critic of All that Exists"
	<ok.president+marxml at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Marxism] Irrational Exuberance
To: "Activists and scholars in Marxist tradition"
	<marxism at lists.econ.utah.edu>
Message-ID:

<908b689f0807310758n245bd1c1leb0c6fc855024b58 at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

On Thu, Jul 31, 2008 at 10:43 AM, Walter Lippmann
<walterlx at earthlink.net> wrote:

> What's irrational here? Brazil is doing very well.
>
> Is there something wrong with Brazil's progress?
> Viva Lula! Viva Fidel! Viva Raul! Long Live the
> Brazilian Workers Party! Viva Brazil!

I think the point of concern for Marxists here is
that, if Brazil's
working class is really doing so well (the picture
painted in the
article) even while Brazil is accommodating to
neoliberalism, then (1)
either the picture painted is incorrect, or (2)
Marxism is incorrect.


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