He spoke for an hour mostly
He spoke for an hour mostly on, as we had asked, why underconsumption theories of capitalism and capitalist crises (and how to get out of them) are wrong. He did say explicitly that, as there was no economic tendency for capitalism to collapse economically, it could in theory continue for ever though he hastened to add that that didn't mean that it would. This follows from what we say too, though of course it's not what many critics of capitalism like to hear and makes us appear to being saying that capitalism is not as bad, or flawed, as they say (nor is it a good motivator for people to engage in urgent socialist activity).He also developed his argument that the oft-repeated view (sometimes by some of us) that real wages in the US have been stagnant since 1970 is a myth. According to him and the statistical evidence he has marshalled, labour costs in the US have gone up ( I think he said, but am not sure, more or less in line with labour productivity there). This was challenged by a non-member in the audience. Personally I think Kliman is right: just like here living standards in the US will have gone up not stagnated since 1970 (even if "labour costs", which include employer contributions to pensions, health care, etc for workers as well as taxes they deduct from wages, are not the same as "take-home" pay). I suppose that accepting this is once again seen as undermining the case for socialism, but I don't see why, though it might be one explanation why most workers are prepared to put up with capitalism. Anyway, Kliman took our view that you have to keep raising the issue of an alternative society (without wages, money, finance, value, etc) as the way-out for the working class and not get bogged down in defensive struggles to survive under capitalism or imagine that these by themselves will lead to an understanding of the need for an alternative society.The issue of how precisely the long-run tendency of the rate of profit to fall is linked to the capitalist boom/slump cycle, another of Kliman's theories, did not come up. A pamphlet of his he had for sale at the meeting (a debate with David Harvey) suggests that he doesn't think that there is any direct link, only an indirect one by making overproduction and/or financial crises more likely. But then, of course, there are other reasons for these (not that he would deny this either) ….