Andrew Kliman (Marxist-Humanist) slams underconsumption theorists at Monthly Review

[LBird]

colinskelly (about Kliman), wrote:

That what is require is not leaders but popular consciousness: “…the core issue is not one of “taking power,” but of what happens after… There needs to be a new relation of theory to practice, so that regular people are not just the muscle that brings down the old power, but become fully equipped, theoretically and intellectually, to govern society themselves. Nothing short of this can prevent power from being handed over to an elite. It seems very utopian, but there really is no alternative.”

[my bold]This is the key factor, in my opinion. And if the Leninists want to damn me as a 'utopian', so be it.And I include 'science' in this scenario.

[ALB]

Another article (short and not difficult to follow) by Kliman aguing against those who see "neoliberalism" rather than capitalism as the problem:http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/2014/10/09/falling-profits-rather-than-increasing-financial-investment-led-to-decreasing-rates-of-capital-accumulation-by-american-companies/Actually, the title is a little misleading as the two of them are not arguing that continuously falling, not even slowly, profits are responsible but only low profits. It might have been better called "Fallen profits rather than …"

[Anonymous]

Killman is just a product of News and Letters and Raya Dunayeskaya ( his organization is a splitt of N&L ) . Probably, they will be forced to dump Rosa Luxembourg and some of Raya writtings too.  I Thibk Peter Hudis and Kevin Anderson hold much better political and economical stands than him ( They were part of his organization and N&L too ), both have been for a long period of time within the Marxist and working class movement

[alanjjohnstone]

On some thread i think it is stated that Kliman goes against the common belief that workers income has declined and it is all about which statistics to use in definining wage levels and profit.I came across this and not sure if it it supports Kliman's view but it seems to at first glance although the website itself appears to sit on the right-wing and anti-trade unionhttp://www.economics21.org/commentary/inequality-create-productivity-compensation-growth-2014-12-17

[DJP]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

On some thread i think it is stated that Kliman goes against the common belief that workers income has declined

Well that's not quite it. He says that there wasn't a decline in workers income before the advent of the crisis and that the workers share of surplus value should be calculated including non-wage benefits such as health care etc…

[ALB]

I think that should be "workers' share of newly created" or "added value" since, by definition, "surplus value" is the part of this that precisely doen't go to the workers.

[DJP]

ALB wrote:

I think that should be "workers' share of newly created" or "added value" since, by definition, "surplus value" is the part of this that precisely doen't go to the workers.

Yup 

[Author]

Posts