[Marxism] [Pen-l] Michael Hudson: The game is over

[S. Artesian]

IMO, the stronger position of US capitalism is based on profits and 
profitability.  My argument is that we are not about to see the 
"replacement"  of US capitalism as the lynchpin of the world markets by the 
EU, BRICs, Japan, Southern Alliances, etc.

Certainly the ability of the US to dictate to the world can and has been 
diminished, but I would caution that too has a cyclical nature.  No 
combination of EU, Mercosur, China, India, Brazil, Singapore, etc.  amounts 
to a death knell for the US bourgeoisie.

Will there be a serious contraction of the US economy?  I have no doubt 
about that.  Are bank failures going to rise?  No doubt about that either. 
We've seen write downs of about $380 billion dollars (almost evenly divided 
between US and European banks), and we are only 1/3 through this. The 
regulatory agencies are advertising for and hiring "work out" specialists in 
anticipation of this.

Will US industrial output decline?  No doubt about that either.

At the same time, serious contraction of the US economy is a dire threat to 
the economies of India, Brazil, China, Singapore, and Europe-- something 
that the recent stock market performance in India and China seems  to 
reflect.

Certainly the economic predicament of US capitalism can worsen, but as it 
does it will stress the entire fabric of capital with serious damage to 
allies and competitors-- as has occurred in the past.

And yes, any capitalist country can "weather" its contractions provided it 
stifles the revolt that follows-- and in that regard I think the US has had 
the historical advantage-- and in that regard I think maybe not everything, 
but a big part of everything hinges on mobilizing all, and all workers, 
around defense of immigrant workers, a class based defense against the 
super-exploitation of those workers..


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Steve Palmer" <spalmer999 at yahoo.com>
To: <sartesian at earthlink.net>
Sent: Monday, June 23, 2008 9:47 AM
Subject: Re: [Marxism] [Pen-l] Michael Hudson: The game is over


> OK ... but now I'm really not sure what IS being argued anymore. In 
> theory,
> *any* capitalism can get out of its problems at the expense of the rest of 
> the
> world and the working class.