The Economics of Global Turbulence
Robert Brenner
Language: English
Pages: 369
ISBN: 1859847307
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
For years, the discipline of economics has been moving steadily away from the real world towards formalized axioms and mathematical models with only a precarious bearing on actuality. Commentators seek to fill the gap as best they can, but in the absence of real background scholarship, journalism is vulnerable to the myopias of fashion and immediacy. The deeper enigmas of post-war development remain in either case largely untouched.
Bringing together the strengths of both the economist and the historian, Robert Brenner rises to this challenge. In this work, a revised and newly introduced edition of his acclaimed New Left Review special report, he charts the turbulent post-war history of the global system and unearths the mechanisms of over-production and over-competition which lie behind its long-term crisis since the early 1970s, thereby demonstrating the thoroughly systematic factors behind wage repression, high unemployment and unequal development, and raising disturbing and far-reaching questions about its future trajectory.
Inside the Crystal Ball: How to Make and Use Forecasts
Development and Sustainability: The Challenge of Social Change
The Economics of Global Turbulence
The Methodology of Experimental Economics
Currencies, Commodities and Consumption
demand so much reduced-as an expression of the slowdown of the growth of the capital stock and of the growth of 1 For a comprehensive account of the quantitative dimensions of the long downturn, see Armstrong l't al., 'The reat Slowdown', in Cn,dalislll Since 1 945, pp. 233-61 . See also below, p. 240, Table 13.1. 2 A l'l' nst rong t al., Cnpltn/1�,, Sinn• 'f 9t15, p. 356, Table AS. OE 0, Hl61oP/cnl Slriil-1/t ·� t9MI .'l.'i, l't1 1'l" 1 997, pp. 53 , Tables 3.7, 3. 1 0; AGH for '.1 950s. The
precluded the use of Keynesian measures to restore growth and employment. For, by hypothesis-given the continuing untoward influence, direct and indirect, of organized workers over the labour market-increased government subsidy of demand to reduce unemployment would lead once more either to runaway inflation or a renewed squeeze by wages on profits.10 2. Conceptual Difficulties with the Supply-Side Thesis There is, of course, no reason to deny that, all else held constant, ongoing capital accu
Tokyo 1 986, p n'� l 1 1 d u•t rl I Lilt ur� Md L bor Mana gcm 1 1 1· R lations', ir1 . un <111 11d I I . Ro�ov�k y , <'dl!, '/'/11' l'ol/1/nrl l :f'mto!lly •!1' '"'"'"• , ' tnnfOI'd 1'1'12, Vol. �. 1'1· . 270- 1 ; nd l l'oh, jfiJiflll#�l nJII!albmt, 1'1 . 1 47 . Pew 11 nt•ro11111 11f th I hour upMurK�. M " )ol' Moor�. /11{//IIW�r' Wurkr•rM 111111 111� Slrui(JII� fnr I '"'"'' J .W.� 47, M 1ll•m I �H�. pp. 27-�, 49-5::1, t'>d-.�; I !. Shim dn, 82 THE ECO NOMICS O F GLOBAL T U R B U L E N C E
might have been expected, if not to squeeze profitability, at least to prevent profitability from much increasing. But the profit share and output-capital ratio were able to grow continually (with only very brief breaks) for close to two decades. According to neoclassical economic expectations the plentiful supply of cheap labour should have led the economy towards a labour-intensive path. But, while nur turing major labour-intensive industries such as textiles and clothing, the Japanese economy
manufactured goods fell to zero in 1971 and to $2 billion in deficit in 1972. These merchandise trade deficits were far too large to be counterbalanced by surpluses on trade in services and returns on foreign investment and in 1971 and 1972 the balance on current account a lso went negative, by $1.4 billion and $5.8 billion. As US external balances fell and those of Germany and Japan rose, the money ma rket inevitably placed renewed downward pressure on the dollar and upward pressure on the