[Marxism] A New Deal under Obama?

[Jim Farmelant]

On Sun, 01 Feb 2009 08:56:03 -0500 Louis Proyect <lnp3 at panix.com> writes:
> http://monthlyreview.org/090201foster-mcchesney.php
> 
> ________________________________________________


Like many of Sweezy's own writings, that piece seems to 
combine a Keynesian economic analysis with a Marxian political analysis.
Sweezy in fact was one of the pioneer Keyensian
economists in the US, right alongside his more
famous colleagues like Paul Samuelson and
J.K. Galbraith (all of whom were BTW students
of the conservative economist Joseph Schumpeter).

In fact as I understand him, his point of view in his earlier work 
(like *The Theory of Capitalist Development*) was that 
Keynesian macroeconomic tools could in principle provide effective 
management for capitalist economies. However, capitalist
ruling classes would never be willing to embrace the complete and 
permanent adoption of Keynesian economic management policies 
because the creation of a permanent “full-employment” economy 
would necessarily empower labor at the expense of capital, 
which, of course, would be unacceptable to the capitalists. 
Hence, capitalist ruling classes would be most likely to accept 
Keynesian policies in periods of economic crises 
when workers unrest would pose a threat to their rule, 
but they would be resistant to them at other times. 
In this respect, as in some others, Sweezy was influenced 
by Michal Kalecki and also by Joan Robinson.
(The one exception to this would seem to be Nazi
Germany, where big business seemed largely
acquisecent in Hitler's adoption of Keynesian-type
economic policies.  But then again, Hitler had already
smashed the trade unions).

Sweezy’s later views concerning as expressed in 
*Monopoly Capital* for instance suggest that he felt 
that starting with the Second World War and continuing on
in the cold war period, the US ruling class had found ways 
of applying Keynesian economics so as to bolster (rather
than undermine) their own domination. The development of 
military Keynesianism in which the economy was stimulated 
through military spending was one example of this. 
And military Keynesianism, of course, dovetailed with imperialism, 
which was the more traditional method by which capitalist economies 
could overcome tendencies towards underconsumption.

Jim F.
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