Friday, February 28, 2014

Interview with Paul Mattick Jr

More business as usual. It complements very well his book Business as usual and is fairly comprehensive. I wonder whether some human elements are ignored though he talks of the way people organize during disasters, of Paris commune and Russia around 1918. There is more recent one in Telanagana from 1946-52 led by communists. Finally it was crushed by the Government of India by the liberation of the Hyderabad state and the communist high command's lack of independent thinking; they looked up to Stalin for advice. In the current Telangana movement, some of the leaders are descendants of those who lost power (The son also rises). There is also theory of capitalism as power where Differential accumulation rather than absolute capital mattershttp://www.paecon.net/PAEReview/issue66/BichlerNitzan66.pdf 
And then there is the special role of USA with dollar as de facto international currency. So many countries are forced to accumulate dollar reserves which means that USA will have perennial problems with deficits in both trade and budget unless they can export the problems to other countries. This may explain the scramble for Africa and developing countries which is also mentioned by Paul Mattick. So my reading is that American type capitalism will survive for a few more decades.

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