anwar shaikh, crisis: the punchline of the story (lecture 15 – 12/14)

each of the economists that we've studied have stressed the centrality of profit to the reproduction of the capitalist system.

if you eliminate profitability, then the system contracts sharply. this can happen for various reasons – bad weather events, etc.

that's why we begin, always, with the question—where does profit come from?

1. the aggregate profit (surplus)

2. the rate of profit – all three authors make a distinction between the expectation that profit will be rising absolutely (surplus), and the idea that the rate of profit will be falling. in other words, there is a distinction between 'growth' of the surplus product, and the question of the rate of profit.

Marx, like Smith and Ricardo, argues that the rate of profit falls. he roots his claim in the argument that accumulation undermines itself—the pursuit of profitability itself sets in motion dynamics that undermine profitability. in Smith and Ricardo, this is viewed as a secular trend; there's a debate in the Marxist tradition, about whether this ought to be understood as a secular trend (which Shaikh believes), or more a long-wave type dynamic.

recall that one (conceptual) limit to the growth rate is the profit rate (you can't re-invest more than your profits). this is just a counting identity. at a more concrete level, it obviously also depends on the interest rate – the growth rate will be limited by the difference between the profit rate and the interest rate (the 'risk-free' rate)

Adam Smith says that there's a stable relationship between the interest rate and the profit rate ('in the market, a rule that the interest rate be half the profit rate'). in that case, you would expect that the interest rate follows the profit rate. there's a long discussion that follows, here – Shaikh is alluding to his answer to this question.

wants to put together a concrete history of accumulation, based on the argument that capitalism is driven by the profit rate on enterprise. that's the link to the material that we've done, thus far.

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first, a distinction between 'cause' and 'trigger'

a cause is something underlying—something fudamental that predisposes an outcome (for instance, if you have a particular health problem, a weak heart—then it's not very surprising that you get a heart attack. this might be, however, an immediate result of winning the lottery, or something. so the trigger is not the same as the cause).

there's a strong tendency to suggest that the shock is the cause. it might be (asteroids hitting the dinasour), but it could very well not be. in accounts that aren't systemic, of course, they focus on the shocks/triggers.

mortgage crisis as the trigger; immediate cause is the huge credit bubble which preceded it by decades.

deregulation, however, was going on since the 1970s because banks and busineses were pushing it for reasons of profitability (inevitably, the pressure on banks is to make profits, take risks – the trouble is that, you're not telling banks to throw around your gold, that's for investment firms. if they're limited by the State, then they chafe under those limits. some countries resisted this pressure (Canada and India)).

so was it just deregulation? no. it is silly to say had deregulation not happened, the crisis not have happened (we're going to substantiate this, now)

thus, there is a deeper question that needs to be asked here: why was there a huge credit bubble, in the first place?

was the credit bubble just Greenspan's folly, an atmosphere, etc.?

no – what we are experiencing is a structural crisis, part of a recurrent pattern (and what's surprising is that we're remarkably 'on pattern')

Great Depression of 1840s, 1880s, 1930's, and 1970's

some of these were sharp collapses in the real economy (late 1840s and 1930s)

others were protracted declines (1840s and 1970s)

again, profitability is the driver of growth – not by 'sales'

the point where profit stagnates in more than a temporary way is a point of absolute overaccumulation (when the mass of real profit of an enterprise stagnates or falls). individual capitalists may gain, and others may lose – but the capitalist class as a whole is losing.

this triggers a 'phase-change' in the behavior of the system. those that are doing badly start pulling back, etc.

the key point Shaikh is making, is that the phase-change triggers a change in the system's dynamics. the tide that was moving in begins to move out (remember, the future just evaporated – a lot of financial profits are booked on future expectations)

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let's begin the story from the last Great Depression (the 1970s)

1. accumulation is driven by profitability

2. accumulation undermines profitability –> rate of profit falls

3. the stagflation crisis of the 1970s and 1980s across the capitalist world was a Great Depression with widespread failures (a lot of this was covered up by inflation – the stock market collapsed in real terms, if you account for this). of course the death-knell for Keynesian theory (loosening labour markets and inflation)

4. it didn't lead to the enormous collapse, recovery was driven by three extraordinary developments

   1. an extraordinary fall in the global interest rate, which raised the profit rate

   2. an historical attack on the welfare state, destroying the standard of living

   3. an extraordinary recourse to debt to fuel the global expansion of capital, and to cover up the declining living standards of workers

in short, Shaikh painting a picture of a crisis postponed.

looking at a graph of the general rate of profit – suggesting that if we get rid of the 'noise' (impact of war, etc), you have a declining rate of profit trend.

the 1982-2005 'boom', moreover, saw more-or-less constant profit rates. how did we get a boom? how did we get accumulation.

key: you have to look at the interest rate. something extraordinary happened to the interest rate.

(question of where the inflation in the 1970s comes – Shaikh referring us to his paper on inflation. if profitability is falling, then even the same rate of accumulation can be inflationary. remember, the difference between the growth rate and the profit rate is a throughput measure, how 'tight'/'loose' the system is)

we tend to think of the interest rate as a 'riskiness' measure, etc. but there's another way to think of it. the interest rate is the 'price' of the money you borrow/lend. if you put it that way, you can think of the 'interest rate' as a natural price – something that gives banks normal profits. if that's the case, then the interest rate will rise with the 'cost of banking'.

so you would expect the interest rate to follow the price level, all else being equal; this is important, because orthodox theory disagrees. they think of this as Gibson's paradox, which is the observation that interest rates rise with the price level (empirically this holds until around the early 1980s, Volcker shock, after which deviation begins); they can't explain this, because of their theoretical apparatus).

you can have two explanations for this: (1) policy; (2) the costs of banking decrease, meaning that the interest rate declines (Shaikh's position)

Shaikh also noting that global interest rates match US interest rates. whatever the explanation, the fact that lower and lower interest rates explain the great credit bubble.

the reason we got out of the Great Depression of the 1970s was not because of a recovery of profit rates, but because of a fall in interest rates.

obviously, though, this has limits. you couldn't offset the profitability problem forever; and we arrive at the 'recovery's' limits.

what happens to labour, in all of this? real wages and productivity are linked until the early 1980s (thanks to the balance of class forces, in short). but after, you have a rise in the rate of exploitation, and workers pile on household debt (from 30% in early 50s to 140% in 2007/2008). about 15% of annual income went to dept repayments, at the peak.

remember, despite this, the profit rate was still constant in this period – despite the fact that the rate of exploitation is rising.

General Implications:

1. occurrence of Great Depressions is an intrinsic outcome, even if it's modified in its path/expression by conjunctural factors

2. Great Depressions have built-in recovery mechanisms: lowering of real wages relative to productivity, global reserve arem of labour, concentration and centralization, etc.

3. shift in hegemonic balance of powers will not alter this intrinsic dynami

what can you do, in periods like this?

well, we have the example of Japan – Japan didn't let the kind of forest fire that the US and England (sort of) let happen. they just let interest rates fall.

what is quite striking is that we've got a quasi-boom, now – the 'recession' is allegedly over.

in 1933 the NBER would have declared the recession over, don't forget. there was a recovery, after the jobs programs, etc. (emphasis that this is a very different kind of stimulus—offering employment, rather than shoring up the liquidity of investment banks, or less stimulatory 'Star-war' wars).

the deficit is only 1% in the early 30s (it'll be 12% in WWII, of course, which tells us something about how class interest and wars) –but this is largely a result of the fact that natural recovery mechanisms were allowed to express themselves (massive unemployment, enormous business failures, etc.)

an important point about stimulus – the contemporary model is the preferred one for capital (shoring up banks, etc.); the second, of course, makes the profit motive subordinate to social goals which is correctly seen as a threat to capitalism (giving to the reserve army).

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question: 'natural recovery mechanisms' mean austerity and unemployment, etc. but presumably Shaikh would agree (a) that this doesn't include the kind of austerity that is being discussed, today, given the fact that we're not letting banks collapse, etc. (in other words, is mass unemployment more important, or bank failures, business failures, etc.); (b) are there alternative ways of unleashing 'natural recovery mechanisms,' by sponsoring alternative centers of accumulation, etc. (and/or stimulating job growth?).

anwar shaikh, growth (lecture 14 – 12/7)

to begin with, when you talk about theories of growth, you have to distinguish between

1. exogenous theories of growth

2. endogenous theories of growth

what drives growth in the neoclassical theory, as actually growth in the labour supply. the supply of labour is the restriction, provided for full employment (this is all in the absence of technical change, remember—through the assumption that technical change is exogenous; as is population)

in neoclassical theory, supply determines growth rate at the most abstract level.

technical change can change this limit, yes – but it's still linked to the growth rate of the labour supply. the growth rate of capital is 'exogenously' determined (not 'contingent,' per se – it would have to do with slow-changing attitudes toward reproduction, etc.)

the key point that Malthus erred in, according to Marx, was this one – it's not the case that labour is the limit to the growth rate of capital.

in Keynesian theory, 'aggregate demand' is the critical variable.

1. Y = Consumption + Investment

2. Consumption = f(Output)

3. Investment = exogenous in the short run

Thus, Y = Investment / (1 – Consumption) ['the paradox of thrift' : if you save less, you get a larger multiplier]

Investment is exogenous in the short-run. The growth of output will be the result of the growth of investment.

Investment, in Keynes' argument, is dependent on the expectations of future profitability. This is why it's volatile, etc. This is getting closer to a classical model, insofar as your long-term expectations will be driven by your current profitability.

this is a point that Joan Robinson makes about Keynes, arguing that he's part of the tradition that argues that profitability is central.

in one sense, then, Keynesian theory is similar to the neoclassical story – possible to understand 'expectations of future profitability' as exogenous (the growth of the system depends on 'how capitalists feel,' on their animal spirits). many many Keynesians follow this line.

on the other hand, Joan Robinson insists that this can be assimilated to an 'endogenous' theory of growth.

(mentioning Soros and the 'valium cycle' theory of crisis: Soros is not suggesting that expectations determine fundamentals entirely – that would mean that there could be no such thing as bubbles – he's arguing, instead, that expectations can affect fundamentals without entirely determining them).

the third school – the 'classical' school – agrees that growth is driven by investment, but this, in turn, is centrally determined by profitability. therefore the laws of profitability are crucial to understanding accumulation.

at that level, in the abstract, we could skip over much of the concrete discussion of 'aggregate demand', etc., etc.

in neoclassical theory, there is an assumption that supply and demand match each other – the supply is full employment, and demand has to adjust to supply. the formal mechanism for this bringing into equality is the interest rate, which determines the level of investment, etc. (a Say's law type argument)

Keynesian theory flips it – supply adapts to demand. you get the story of the multiplier.

Marx doesn't have either argument – Marx's answer is that both supply and demand are regulated by profitability. this is the whole point of the schemes of reproduction.

(important to remember that Marx didn't write Volume II of Capital – schemes of reproduction come from 1870 and also from 1878)

Marx begins, of course, with a putatitive puzzle: every capitalist throws in a certain amount of money, which they use to buy labour-power and means of production, in order to produce more commodities and ultimately acquire more money. how is it possible for every capitalist to sell at more than they put it? where does that 'extra demand' come from? who buys the surplus product?

Malthus' answer was the 'unproductive consumers' (the landlords)

Luxemburg's answer was that this 'demand' has to come from the non-capitalist sphere of production. if that argument is correct, than the suggestion would have to be that capitalism cannot grow after it has become generalized.

Marx wants to show us that it doesn't come from outside the system, but inside it.

the broad answer is that the demand comes from the interaction between the circuit of capital and the circuit of revenue.

the argument, of course, is that it is possible to have balance (see attached sheet). he is NOT saying that any supply creates its own demand – that if I double my supply I will automatically get demand. this second proposition is Say's Law.

he cannot, at the level of the schemes of reproduction, give us an answer about what happens when you stray from balance.

(there is a dynamic solution to this adjustment process – John Hicks)

if it's true that you can show an adjustment process, then it's possible to have fluctuations around a growth path. so you can have a turbulent adjustment process around a growth path. demand and supply can mutually adjust to each other, despite overshooting, etc.

remember Marx has not had to incorporate credit into this argument, at all – all you need is an expanding money supply (some argue that you need 'credit' to make this work; Duncan Foley, for example).

remember, this only establishes that 'balanced growth' is algebraically possible (Kalecki and Luxemburg would stress the necessity of imbalance, in this way – Shaikh arguing they were mistaken). nor does it tell us what the level of the growth rate will be.

you have to answer the (a) adjustment to equilibrium question, and (b) the level of investment question (profitability) – and this will take you toward crisis theory.

any system which has available labour, etc., can't possibly grow faster than the profit rate (the rate at which it produces surplus). that is the upper limit of growth.

this, Shaikh is adding, also suggests that this is the root of a theory of 'inflation.' the third theory for the 70s – if profitability is following, and the growth rate was not falling, then you're getting closer to this 'limit' ('the throughput'). Shaikh's argument is that this explains excellently the fluctuations in the rate of inflation.

anwar shaikh, competition on a global scale: trade and uneven development (lecture 13 – 11/30)

paul krugman as a 'conservative,' when it comes to trade theory.

China as having 'undervalued' its currency; having run a balance of trade surplus.

the assumption, here, is that the currency should appreciate, of course—under free trade we should return to equilibrium ('the sacred tenet of international trade theory', since the time of david ricardo)

the classic story begins with two people (wouldn't trade if it was good for each) – generalizes to two countries (obfuscating all important questions)

in the world out there, of course, we see trade surpluses/deficits because we don't have enough competition (manipulation, etc) – not because the theory is wrong.

the counter-argument is made by Marx, Keynes, and Harrod (sp.?) – we need to look at the logic of the counter-argument. this has no presence in the textbooks, of course, despite these being major economic thinkers.

Marx's writings on Ricardo's theory of trade don't show up in what we have from Marx. it's inconceivable that he didn't write about it; but we don't have any public documents.

if you believe the Krugman story, then third world countries, with flexible exchange rates, ought to open up their economy. they can become competitive through opening up their barriers, rather than through development, etc.

logic of the conventional argument:

trade deficit –> finance outflow –> exchange rate decrease –> relative prices come down –> becomes more competitive

trade surplus –> finance inflow –> exchange rate appreciation –> relative prices go up –> becomes less competitive

what's Marx's argument?

if you have a country that has a deficit, money leaving the country doesn't produce a fall in prices (Marx doesn't buy the quantity theory of money, remember) – what happens, instead, is that liquidity dries up, raising the interest rate.

in the country that has a surplus, the opposite would happen – money inflow would produce falling interest rates.

this means that finance capital has an incentive to lend to the country with a trade deficit, which would produce an inflow of caiptal, counterbalancing the outflow that was produced by the deficit. this would, in turn, mean that prices wouldn't fall (as in the conventional theory), which would mean you could lock in trade deficits and surpluses.

the consequence of that is that the country with a trade deficit becomes an international debtor.

there's a deeper question, here, too. what happens when financial capital is unwilling to invest in a place with low interest rates to the extent that would offset outflows? the exchange rate moves. but what happens as a result of movements in exchange rates.

is it true that the exchange rate is determined by the balance of trade?

what's the relationship between competition and the exchange rate?

remember—on the basis of this theory, you will see the equalization of interest rates [what does this mean, though, re: the flows?]

krugman argues that competitiveness is not the source of trade deficit/surplus

classical theory says that what balances is the balance of payments, whereas neoclassical theory suggests that it's the balance of trade

what are the laws of competition, in this example? what are the laws of international competition?

in order to answer that, we need to know about intra-national competition – between firms

classical theory

1. competition within an industry: turbulent and rough; equalization of selling prices (the law of 'one price' says that prices are bound together, and would fall/rise as 'clusters')

2. competition between industries: turbulent and rough equalization or profit rates

in the event of differential profit rates, where firms from Industry A are looking to invest in Industry B, they'll reproduce the labour conditions of the 'regulating capitals'

equalization of profit rates happens across regulating capitals – the profit rate on new investment ('incremental profit rates') [equalization across industry and financial assets, interestingly enough]

these laws of competition are laws that punish the less competitive and reward the more competitive.

let's assume, then, that we have regional competition within a nation. you have three industries, both located in two regions.

some of the producers in each region will be 'exporting'/'importing' across regional boundaries. suppose you were to discover that one region was selling much more than it's buying. it had a trade surplus, in other words, due to its lower costs/superior competitiveness.

since there's no exchange rate movement to make it 'equal' (as per the neoclassical theory), there's no mechanism to prevent unevenness. in other words, the weaker firms are eliminated.

so it is bizarre, then, to hear the argument that if New York became a separate country, with its own currency, it would no longer have to worry about high costs, productivity, etc. (you don't have to have infrastructure, development, education, etc.) [cf. Ha-Joon Chang, “Kicking Away the Ladder”]

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having answered why trade imbalances can be sustained, we also have to ask how/why trade imbalances emerge.

remember, natural prices depend on costs – the fundamental regulator would be direct/indirect labour costs plus the rate of profit.

so in regions, relative prices will reflect regulating capital costs in one region divided by regulating capital costs in other regions

how does this relate to trade?

in international trade, relative prices are determined similarly – real costs in export industry A divided by real costs in export industry B (so high costs would mean that you would have relative difficulty selling your goods abroad). competitiveness, then, enters through the cost structure – productivity, real wages, long working days, etc.

so now you have an argument of the determination of the terms of trade that rests centrally on competition. the terms of trade are regulated by real costs.

(P Xa* Nominal Exchange Rate) / P Xb = Real Costs Xa / Real Costs Xb

relative costs change relatively slowly, remember (real wages and productivity don't change dramatically, over short periods of time). suppose a country's inflation rate was changing much faster, which would mean that you would expect nominal exchange rates to be depreciating. for low inflation countries, the nominal exchange rate doesn't need to move very much, since relative prices are moving together, more or less, and would be regulated by real costs.

(showing data on persistent trade deficits and surpluses)

for heterodox economists, the response is that the world is imperfect – so progressive economists will advocate that the State intervene to counter these imperfections.

for orthodox economists, the response to the world's imperfections is to demand as perfect a world as possible (no unions, no State, etc.)

anwar shaikh, unemployment (lecture 12 - 11/22)

the theory of unemployment in marx, as contrasted to the theory of unemployment in Keynesian and neo-classical theories

(1) 'have you worked in the last week?' (1) if you've worked even ten minutes in the last week, you're counted as employed; (2) many countries 'make up' their unemployment rates (Pakistan, etc.)

(2) if you've become discouraged and aren't looking for work, you are not counted as unemployed. the unemployment rate drops when people fall out of this category (people who just 'give up')

(3) people in institutions are not counted as unemployed—it's a voluntary measure, not residual (if you lose job and go crazy or get jailed, you're not counted as part of the labour force)

even this very restricted measure is used in the US, this is 9.6%

if you use the scandinavian measures (incorporating discouraged, and weighting by length of time), then the measure jumps to 17 and 17.5% [and even that doesn't count the measures of people who drop out, or who are institutions]

marx's concern, of course, is with real unemployment, unencumbered by this nonsense

the neoclassical theory of unemployment: that unemployment is automatically eliminated by free markets—if the labor market were allowed to work properly, than unemployment would vanish. the story is fairly simple—the unemployed will bid wages down, until all are employed.

if the real wage is flexible, it settles at a market-clearing price (what happens if the real wage is below subsistence? well they don't have a concept of subsistence, but an implicit claim that it's below the mkt wage—at a theoretical level it doesn't appear)

from this point of view, the source of unemployment is gov't/institutional intervention.

a further suggestion, here, if the government tries to pump up the economy, you're going to get 'full employment' (because you are at NAIRU – 'effective full employment')

the problem, of course, is that over the 70s and 80s, you didn't see the patterns expected—and they suggested that NAIRU just needs to be adjusted.

this argument goes one step further—if you're at full employment and you try and pump up the economy (and rational expectation says everyone knows inflation is coming), you go to the employer and demand higher wages (because of that, there'll be no change in employment) [“policy impotence” – the government cannot change the unemployment rate]

this is the debate that's going on today, in the world right now

keynesian theory of unemployment: neoclassical theory implies that the output and effective demand are full employment-enabling (that all labor can be effectively employed when the real wage goes down)

keynesian theory says that you're going backward – aggregate demand (which is exogenous) determines the level of output, which in turn determines the level of employment. the output level at any given money wage is the determining factor.

the fulcrum of the story is aggregate demand (the 'commodity market', as it's called)

the central conclusion, then, is that there's no reason that the aggregate demand will give you full employment; you can have persistent unemployment, etc., depending on AD.

policy-wise, to make the demand go back up, you have monetary policy (cut the interest rate), or fiscal policy (spend gov't money, run gov't deficits), by borrowing/printing money,etc.

the difference between the neoclassical theory and the keynesian theory is that the former thinks you are at full employment, and the latter thinks that you might or might not be (but can very well be). both agree that full employment is a sustainable situation in capitalism—but unlike neoclassicals, keynesians think that you need the government to do it.

what about wages? what about the labour market, etc?

here Keynesian theory becomes very unclear:

1. money wage doesn't change if there's unemployment. why is that though? (b/c of unions—well that's the neoclassical argument). Keynes himself admits that if there's persistent unemployment, another solution is to let the market work itself out—instead of pumping up the economy, you can let the economy be dragged down (in this case, he reverts to neoclassical theoretical precepts—but he also adds that this is going to happen at great social cost).

2. money wages go down, but prices will also go down (entails a mark-up theory of price). therefore real wages don't change, but are sticky

important--in both theories, inflation is a full employment problem (both for neoclassical economics, and for keynesian economics, you can't pump up the economy once at full employment or you'll get inflation. in the 70s, of course, you got inflation—and neoclassical economics won the debate).

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the marxist argument

in marx, you don't have this duel between inflation and unemployment.

but let's construct the argument first.

the central point in Marx is the idea of a normal rate of persistent unemployment (reserve army of labour)

what Marx means by that is that capitalism produces and maintains a pool of unemployed labour (the question, we should ask, is what's the mechanism?)

here's how the argument goes:

suppose that employment is growing. there are two possibilities: either this growth in employment is faster than the growth of population, or the opposite is true—the reserve army will fall or rise, accordingly (hydraulic – inflow and outflow q.)

(1) so Marx says, let's start by imagining the best circumstances—the reserve army is shrinking, employment is doing well. as this happens, the real wage will begin to rise (relative to productivity)

(2) as this happens, worker's bargaining power will start to increase.

(3) in this case, though, the impetus to accumulation will decrease (because the profit rate will fall). the demand for labour will fall.

(4) the reserve army of labour will increase, in size

exactly the same story works in the other direction.

in the second part of the argument, he makes the further claim that the size of the reserve army (and the real wage) will also have an impact on the rate of mechanization. on the one hand, the growth of jobs comes from more accumulation; but more accumulation means increased mechanization.

the same dynamic that pulls workers in, also tosses them out.

the end result is a balance at some rate of persistent unemployment. [richard goodwin formalized the theory in a very nice way – 'wage employment cycle'] it's a predator-prey story – you don't ever stabilize, but are caught in a set of dynamic cycles.

so what does it mean, then, to say that there is a reserve army of labour, in practical terms?

(1) one, it means that 'full employment' is not a stable result.

(2) the reserve army is not located in one particular location—but in the sphere of capital as a whole. the appropriate backdrop, today, is the reserve army of labour, as a whole.

what's critical, also, is that Marx's conception of the 'labor power' is distinct from his understanding of all other commodities? labor power's supply is generated by social factors (social relations dictate the supply in a way that's different from other commodities); the demand for labour power depends on profitability. supply depends on social-historical conditions (the limit is not the availability of supply of labour)

this leads to the issue of real wage determination—the real wage, in Marx, is determined by three sorts of things:

1. depends on the degree of unemployment (size of the reserve army)

2. the productivity of labour (in the wage bargain, how much workers produce is relevant to how much they can ask for)

3. social-historical factors (unions, the State, culture, history, etc.)

the immediate question is what are the limits of this?

one limit is that the real wage will have to be above the socially-determined the minimum

but also will have to be below some maximum below some measure of productivity (can't capture all gains)

wage_{socially-determined minimum} <>productivity-limit

this is why—in two countries with the same productivity and employment—you can see differences. class struggle matters, but it matters within limits.

one of the central differences between neoclassical economics and marxist economics is that labour-power is not the same as any other commodity (and thus labour-markets operate differently)

unlike neoclassical theory, where the wage is only a function of the unemployment rate, in marxism the wage is a function of much more. there is also the fact of endogenous technical change, which distinguishes it.

in Marx the problem of unemployment is not a function of interference, but is a product of the character of the labour-market

anwar shaikh, the labour process (lecture 11 - 11/16)

the most important point about the labour process under Marx is that it unfolds under capitalism (this is the contribution of Marxism, remember—the 'social context' matters critically). concepts can't be understood outside of their context ('use-value,' profit, etc.)

the subsumption of the labor process under capitalist relations of production gives it a specific dynamic: endogenous technical change.

first, there is the relation of class and exploitation, which—again—acquires a specific character under capitalism (profit, remember, doesn't appear miraculously—but comes from the possibility of extending the working day past the time taken to reproduce labor-power; the extra length of the working day, of course, is something that labor has to be induced to accept (involves but not reducible to coercion, of course).

here mentioning the feudal labour process, as per Robin Hood; in it, Prince John doesn't control the labour process, doesn't supervise it (peasants are required to produce a certain surplus at certain poitns of time; if they fail, they are punished); under capitalism, of course, this changes.

how does it come about, then, that the labor process can have dynamics, under capitalism?

Prince John was pretty much doing what kings and lords before him, were doing. there was a parallel/auxiliary structure of inducement (Church, ideology, etc.).

labor process in general: materials, instruments (plant and equipment) are used by labor, and out comes a product.

labour, in this view, is the 'active' element – labour works on materials and with instruments.

this is very different from the view of the labour process in neoclassical economics: capital and labour together create a product (via a production function).

in this view, K and L are complementary factors in a production function (here you can't discuss 'struggle', the length of the working-day, etc.). all the elements of the class relations are erased.

[here, the antagonism between workers and tools—which is real, of course—appears in the cultural trope of the 'rebellious robot']

labour process under capitalism: materials and instruments (capital) are worked on by labour (subsumed under capiatlism) to produce capital (not a specific product—what matters is 'profitability'--think about 'bumper crops' under capitalism vs. 'bumper crops' in pre-captialist producion).

Marx distinguishes two types of labour subsumption under capitalism

1. the formal subsumption – (a) it means taking a pre-capitalist labour process and putting it under capitalist 'oversight' (not necessarily direct control, etc). (b) typically it means that workers who are working on making products, but who might still own their own means of production ad/or they may still do things in the old ways. (c) but you have the beginnings of real subsumption and the collective laborer, as individuals are brought under one roof, and submitted to a common/linked rythmn/pace.

2. the real subsumption – (a) involves the rise of detail labour (this is Smith's focus, of course), which is simultaneous to the restructuring of the labour process. (b) involves also the rise of machines – think of the pin factory, again – > with the rise of detail labour, specific tasks can be replaced by specific machines (this technological revolution becomes possible because of the restructuring of the labour process—the worker has to be transformed into an automaton before he can be replaced by an automaton) [under capitalism, remember, the measure is not productivity, but profitability—productivity is a collateral consequence]. despite having made the machine, the worker comes to stand in its way.

we come, then, to the consequences of this transformation.

one, again, is the endogenization of this process of technical change.

the issue of technical change/mechanization, of course, raises a central issue: namely, what is the effect on employment? this will be discussed in more detail next week, but the basic elements: mechanization, in an immediate sense, lowers the demand for labor.

it may be, of course, that increased profitability (the boost to accumulation) might induce me to absorb this displaced labour, elsewhere.

these two effects appear to be independent. given this, we could go both ways—mechanization might always create an additional demand, or mechanization might displace more workers than it can absorb

neoclassical economics' position is that the displaced workers will go to other jobs, dropping the real wage until everybody's employed (as long as there's no unions, government, etc.). the real wage will accommodate any excess supply of labour by falling until everyone's employed. it follows, therefore, that mechanization can never create unemployment.

Keynesian theory had significant objections to this, trying to show that capitalism was compatible with unemployment. the neoclassical response is that it was simply because impediments existed that didn't allow the real wage to fall. Keynes don't offer a good answer to this; tried to argue that if money wages were to fall, then prices would fall, meaning that workers wouldn't actually be paid less (but this assumes/implies (a) workers can't affect their real wage; (b) wages can't rise)

Marx's account, of course, involves this claim about the flexibility of real wages (this is not the objection—real wages are affected by labour supply), but posesses an entirely different account of where this is going to lead (to a permanent surplus working population).

this is not only an unemployment creating process, for labour, but it also has a peculiar impact on capital—the 'falling rate of profit' argument has its origins in this dynamic, remember.

anwar shaikh, karl marx (lecture 9 – 10/26)

the exchange of money and commodities is complex, Shaikh is suggesting, even when derived simply from the circulation of commodities.

credit in the circuit of revenue (not necessarily profit-oriented, casual; from parents, etc.) is different from credit in the circuit of capital (from banks, etc., and charge of interest, etc.) Each form of credit relates to the circuit C-M-C (revenue), and M-C-M' (capital), respectively.

the motivations in each are different, the dynamics are different. the former is like a circle. the latter however, is better thought of as an expanding spiral.

- - - -

difference between a money commoditiy and a token is that the 'value' of the latter is linked to the issuer of the token. every degree of hierarchy has an element of faith (people flee to higher levels of respectability at times of crisis, of course). gold has the property that it's not backed by any issuer.

there's a shared expectation that it will be the ultimate form of 'backing in the last instance', valid even when national/world economies are under threat. it's still a form of 'faith', of course – its value relates entirely to social-historical relations (if you crash on an island, gold will do you no good). similary, the unique property of gold, note, has nothing to do with the labor-time invested in its production/procurement, but is solely a social construction. its value as a referent/measure is social.

Marx's initial objection to the Quantity Theory of Money has to do with this notion of being 'fixed'. for neoclassicals and for its initial promulgators, the supply is something fixed by the State/etc. for Marxists, Shaikh is suggesting, the situation is much more flexible. here bringing up the example of elevated level of reserves, today; due to the lack of a pull (profitability) in the economy at-large. Money flows in and out of circulation as the need for it varies, more-or-less. [he brings this out in Volume I, assuming a fixed velocity and the use of gold]

interesting case of British and Japanese colonial powers having to resort to brutal methods to destroy local currencies

- - -

how can money be endogeneous?

I take my real money (gold) to a bank (originallly a goldsmith), and I'd like you to store my gold. give me a piece of paper, and I can pay people via you, etc. originally just deposits.

but, historically, these money-vaults became attached to a different sort of economic activity—namely, lending. this is the origin of the modern bank, of course.

in practice, banks have to figure out how often customers come, statistically. they need lots of customers who take out small numbers, etc.

- - -

discussion (with graphs) on what prices look like over the long run, for the US and UK. you have had inflation and deflation beween 1790-1940. inflation is a very recent historical phenomenon.

the price of gold is maintained until about 1930, when Britain goes off the gold standard. in 1970, it shoots up.

if you look at the price level till 2008, then, you see something very new after 1940. prices never come down – this is the era that we call the era of inflation (concomitant to the end of the gold standard)

what's new about this era? not gov't deficits – 'when my book is done you can take a look'

notice, though, when you express the price in gold (instead of expressing it in terms of the currency), the pattern of prices that prevailed prior to 1940 returns. the long wave is back. price levels don't explode, as they do on the other graph.

when we ask about moneys/commodities, we have to ask what's the referent by which we're measuring price.

Kondratieff falls out of favor, after the price explosion seems to obviate the argument about long waves. Shaikh suggesting that when you measure in terms of gold, though, you see that the long wave is back.

one question, of course, is why is there this steady up and down in gold – you see people retreat to gold before a crisis [question, then, is what explains crisis—can't get into it now, of course]

no other way out, jeff goodwin

(5) two questions/contributions

1. looking at revolutions during Cold War era, in peripheral/dependent societies
   
2. refuses to look only at 'successful' revolutions (otherwise you have a problem of sampling on dependent variable, which doesn't allow you to think about causes of revolution clearly--because you conflate longer, common causal processes like poverty/inequality with the specific causes of revolutions)

(10): radical revolutionary movement -- aims to overthrow State, but also to transform society

(19): modernization theory focuses on 'elite intransigence'/inflexible States -- the obvious question, though, is why are States inflexible (to which they don't have a good, theoretical answer)

(21): for Marxists, revolutions in peripheral societies owing to weak national bourgeoisie, worker-peasant alliances, etc. when they don't develop, attributed to: (1) strong peripheral bourgeoiseis, (2) lack of revolutionary leadership, (3) the fact that not all types of peasants are inclined to support revolutionary movements.

(22): Wolf vs. classical Marxism -- middle peasants vs. landless rural workers/poor peasants (and middle peasants waver in allegiances)

(23): two responses to Marxists

1. a wide variety of rural and urban strata have played important roles -- not mainly as economically exploited classes, but as violently repressed State subjects
2. success or failure of revolutionary movements depends fundamentally on nature of specific states that revolutionaries seek to overthrow (not whether or not movements have a critical Mass

(24-25): vs. Parsa, revolutions can emerge without expanding political opportunities* or State breakdown (but the caveat -- pg 43 -- is that this happens with 'infrastructurally weak' States; so it's not a repudiation of the basic insight)

(25): "state constuctionism" -- revolutionary movements are largely artifacts or products of historically contingent political context.

(37-44): state-centered approaches (state-autonomy--conflicts w/ elites, state-capacity--to implement agenda, political-opportunity--incentives to organize, state-constructionist--construct social forces around grievances/actions) help us answer four puzzles and address four questions:

1. why is revolution a modern phenomenon? no states, no revolution
   
2. why are radical movements concerned with seizing power? those who want to change society, must go through the State
3. why must States breakdown?
   
4. why do revolutions occur when they do?
   

(44): why do groups attract popular support?

1. state sponshorship of unpopular economic and social arrangements*
2. repression and/or exclusion of mobilized groups form State power -- political incoporation of radiczlized groups is deradicalizing*
3. indiscrinate state violence against mobilized groups and oppositional figures
4. weak policing capacities and infrastructural power
5. corrupt and abribtrary personalistic rule that alienates/weakens/divides counterrevolutionary elites*
   

(52): State autonomy discussion [there is a theoretical discussion to be had here, though it's not particularly useful to probe this question, I don't think]

(53-54): nice rejoinder to Timothy Mitchell's line that there is no State-Society boundary

(55-57): weakness of State-centered arguments

1. don't account for social networks
2. don't account for resources
3. don't account for ideology

(59-63): State constructionist acct of Cuban revolution

(82-83): (1) exploitation, (2) class basis cannot make sense of why revolutionary movements emerged in some places, but not in others

(84, 91): in Vietnam and Indonesia, broad multiclass coalitions were formed*

(87): in Indonesia, Communists couldn't make inroads because of the popularity of Sukarno and the nationalist leadership (party was removed as a threat after 1948 Maidun revolt; though they made a quick comeback!)

(90): Japanese occupation as a godsend for the Communist Parties, who could fight fascists without collaborating with Western imperialists (in India opposite, of course)

(170): proof of no revolutionary movement in Honduras is that it doesn't have much mass support*

(183-186): personalistic vs. institutionalist dictatorships*

(192): 5,000 guerillas in Nicaragua, but 50,000 dead

(220): excluding separatists

(231): Land Reform might not be necessary to defeat insurgencies -- see Philippines and Malaya (US land reform advisor denounced as communist by Phil HoR!)

(237): 'massive state terrorism' mentioned as explanation

(266): radicalizing, but not runing to violence (as he'll say later, partly because of the 'infrastructural power' of these regimes--relatively 'strong States'--just doesn't make sense)

(284): Romainia like Haiti in 1986 (flight of dictator, but elite stays in power)

(290): implausibility of a general theory of revolution

(294): armed insurgencies on the wane [?]

(296): increasing infrastructural power --> prevalence of non-violent strategies*

(300): democracy predominantly counterrevolutionary consequences -- no popular revolutionary movement has overthrown a consolidated democratic regime [does this argument, though, depend on a conflation of revolution w/ mass rebellions/popular insurgencies? are we talking about all forms of rebellion? isn't an E. Europe-type affair fairly plausible?]

- - - - -

[1] there's a question about where State breakdown fits: for Parsa, it's an alternative way you get to revolutions; here, they're being associated (i.e., expanding political opportunities are produced by State breakdown), but Jeff is saying state breakdown/political opportunities don't represent the universe of cases]

[2] point about State in political/economic life --> revolutionary movements raises the same questions as the Parsa, re: ideological/structural problem (comes out very clearly on p. 268)? (note that he raises, on p. 169, the point that not all of the grievances that lay behind the revolutionary movements pertained directly to the actions of the States--indeed, I'm sure that they understood themselves as fighting States that were in the service of landlords and capitalists, no? isn't this important? it, at the very least, helps us specify why and how States matter)

[3] the point about 'incorporation' raises several questions, in Jeff's account.

(a) who, exactly, is being incorporated, and why does incorporation work (in the Malaysian and Philippine cases, it really does seem as if 'inclusion' means something more like 'co-option' -- see p. 127, p. 233)? (indeed, the limitations of 'incorporation' become part of Jeff's explanation of persistent insurgency.)

is it that elites are able to offer the State a sufficient social base? or is it that the social base of erstwhile radicals enter into the political process rather than pursues arms (this seems not to be the case, in any of the examples -- it's more and more unlikely, the less thorough incoproration is, no? maybe it works in Honduras, but where else?)? or, is it the fact that people withdraw support from radicals, even if they don't actively offer their support to moderates?

(b) there is also the question of whether it isn't the case that -- in Jeff's case studies -- particularly successful 'repression' (or even, particularly successful 'divide and rule', in the Malayan case) is doing more work than 'incorporation' (in Malaya, British launch 'Operation Starvation', forced urbanization, 'expense and ferocity of the 'Emergency' -- there isn't much evidence given that the Chinese collaboarationists had much of a base (p. 116-118); in El Salvador and Guatemala, repression was tremendously violent and only a narrow elite were incorporated, who very narrow grievances (p. 198-200, p. 205, p. 207)). given the fact that so many of these elections/incorporations were tremendously narrow--was it really the fact that people 'believed' in more moderate solutions that explains their unwillingness to support radicals? couldn't it just be the fact that they were unable to support them?

[4] when we say that personalistic regimes alienate counterrevolutionary elites, who are the sectors that we're talking about (high elites, or -- pace Parsa -- small 'capitalists'?) , and what exactly is the logic/mechanism (is that that they're not able to organize or they don't want to organize? if the latter, why? given that they understand the threat of a revolutionary movement arrayed against them?)

[5] important question about 'radical revolutionary movements,' given the fact that we're considering Communists who were organizing multiclass nationalist movements. to what extent to we miss something (which would be strategy--see p. 210, where it's suggested that Sandinista strategy was important to their success), when we ignore that they were organizing as natoinalists? (Viet Minh organizing 'patriotic landlords', withdrawing land reform slogans in 1941; 'executive committee of bourgeoisie' largely supported the Sandinistas -- pg. 189).

this relates, obviously, to Parsa' insistence that some measure of 'coalition' is critical, in the absence of total State breakdown (although, at the same time, these were examples of military victory, which Parsa excludes from the set of cases where coalition is important)

the question is raised, again, when it comes to Eastern Europe. not only is 'radical' in question (p. 270), here (means just 'something really different', rather than an identifiable ideology--which may be defensible), but also 'revolutionary'?

[6] key question about 'conducive political contexts' and 'State constructionism,' in general -- if certain colonial rulers/States were more open to 'opening up' the political system/incoporating elites, why is this? (Jeff, to his credit, addresses this at some points). why was Japanese rule in Indonesia different? why was Honduras different (p. 173 -- no landed elite (which it had in common with Nicaragua, though), and relatively plentiful supply of land. but if this is the explanation, doesn't class re-enter?) similarly, why do you get personalistic dictatorships and closed colonial rule in Nicaragua and Vietnam, respectively, but not in the other cases (Guatemala/El Salvador and Malaysia/Philippines)?

the theoretical stakes are real, are they not? doesn't this point us away, though, from the idea that the explanation is "State-centered," insofar as that, itself, begs a question: in other words, are we failing to highlight that which is fundamental in the causal chain?

[7] what's interesting -- though we don't want to take this too far -- is that even in cases where the revolutionary movement is successful, they are actually quite weak up until a few years before taking power (in the Parsa, Iran/Nicaragua; in Goodwin, noted at quite a few times that these were relatively weak insurgent groups). this shouldn't discourage us from making the contrast Goodwin does (between Honduras and the rest), but it should give us some pause, I think.

[8] given the importance of this for the conclusion, at the end -- might we need a causal theory of 'infrastructural weakness'? moreover, is 'infrastrural power' a relative or absolute problem? because if relative, it has existed forever. if absolute (a la George Orwell), then we're in trouble...

misagh parsa, states, ideologies, and social revolutions

(7, 10, 21): structures are insufficient to explain revolutions -- need to discuss structures + process; "structural vulnerabilities by themselves do not inevitably produce social conflict, let alone revolution... there is always more than one potential outcome... any analysis of revolution must also take into account the revolutionary process"

(8): problem w/ Skocpol:multiple actors and multiple conflicts ('labor radicalism might affect capitalists from taking on the State'); States in developing countries do not necessarily rule in tandem with capitalist classes

(8-9): problem w/ ideology in explanations -- the burden of proof is actually quite serious, for a claim like this: have to show that actors were both aware of and supportive of a given ideology, and weren't supporting it out of tactical convenience.

1. methodological reductionism ('ideology of successful revolutionary challengers, assuming that participants adhered to those ideologies)
2. explantions use outcomes of revolution to account for its causes
3. ideological debates might be cryptic in revolutionary situations

(11): [1] Exclusive rule, centralization and repression -- consequences:

1. states resort to violence at time of social conflict, reducing support for regime
2. may weaken elite/moderate challengers, strengthen radicals [a la Jeff's argument]
3. more likely to be externally dependent, which might be detrimental at times of crisis

(12-21): [2] State intervention and target of social conflicts: regulative (conflicts will occur in civil society -- State is unlikely to be the direct target of collective action)* vs. administrative vs. hyperactive (State more vulnerable to challenge and attack -- also likely to negatively affect a segment of elites, even the majority of elites depending on the extent to which the rule is personalistic)

(19): conflating the 'self-employed' with the capitalist class [bizarre!]*

(21 -24): [3] Collective action and coalition formation: large-scale insurgencies emerge when political opportunities emerge (b/c state feeling external pressures, schisms within the state, or state reforms). in the absence of state breakdown or military victory, insurgencies are more likely to succeed if they are organized as a cross-class coalition (cross-class coalitions are encouraged, remember, by a high level of state intervention and a low level of open, class conflict). there is something, here, about disruptive collective action, also, suggesting that it can weaken the State's hold over society.

(24-25): [4] Ideology and social revolution: the challengers that seize power matter, for whether you will have simply political change or social revolution. all things being equal, moderate challengers are typically in a better position to win power (more resources, less repression, allies within gov't) -- but there are limits to their activism. radical challengers lack these advantages, and only a few will succeed -- they are likely to do better the more exclusive the regime was, when moderate paths to the State's overthrow have been exhausted. but radical challengers will benefit from 'toning down' their radical platform.

(26): in sum -- classes are important, but intensified class conflict can hurt, reducing the likelihood of social revolutions.* students reveal the greatest propensity toward adopting revolutionary ideologies, following intellectuals.

(26): Iran--Shah constructed exclusive polity, intervened in capital allocation/accumulation and working of market; government policies increased inequality;* political opportunities arose in 1977, as external pressure forced repression to decrease; different groups mobilized and made different claims; forced to mobilize through the mosque; a coalition succeeded in overthrowing the monarchy; but soon after the overthrow, a small minority of the clergy succeeded in repressing coalition partners and establishing a theocratic state.

(27): Nicaragua--Somoza constructed exclusive state; state intervened in the economy and capital accumulation; policies increased inequality;* after 1972 earthquake, there were mobilizations against the regime, which lasted until 1974; a new round began in 1977, when external pressures led to reduced repression; assasination of Chamorro in January 1978 intensified the conflict; a coalition overthrew the state in 1979, led by the FSLN; FSLN had turned to armed struggle because moderate tactics had been ruled out (but they had credibility,* for this reason)

(27-28): Philippines -- formal democratic institutions till 1972; Marcos imposes martial law, repressing moderates and creating a centralized executive; expanded State intervention in the economy; country comes into crisis after period of spectacular growth, and experiences rising social and economic inequalities; in 1981, in response to external pressures Marcos lifts Martial law and some repression; political mobilization emerges in 1983 as a result of the assasination of Aquino; for two years opposition can't remove Marcos b/c of lack of broad coalition, as Marcos is able to tempt moderates into running for elections in 1984; from there, a complex set of processes (having to do with elevated levels of class struggle, and the strength of the Communist Party) lead to an elite-brokered transition (elements in the Army are important); this results in a political revolution.

(36): Iran, in sum: Shah had constructed a State that excluded the population, no real social base,* external dependence on US --> rendered regime vulnerable

(44): Nicaragua, in sum: Somozas built a dynasty excluded the population, based on National Guard, no real social support* --> rendered the regime vulnerable

(53): Philippines, in sum: Marcos built centralized regime after '72 martial law, abolished democratic institutions, no real social base* and support of US --> rendered the regime vulnerable

(54): regimes varied in the success of their repression -- Iran was the most demobilizing, and Philippines the least

(66): in Iran, gov't policies --> rising economic inequalities*

(85-86): summary of account is that participation on/exposure to market --> crisis in all three cases*

(89): summary of argument that declining repression (due to external pressures) --> favorable opportunities for collective action. in this context, further repression may actually make the regime more vulnerable (the Aquino and Chamorro assasinations, he's thinking of)

(94-96): students as 'relentless revolutionaries', ideological radicals*

(96): students' role was contradictory -- frequent mobilization important part of challenge; but students' ideological orientation was also polarizing, preventing the formation of a broad coalition.

(99-101, 104): assertion that, for the most part, students were basically secular in orientation/outlook (repression of 1963 did lead a 'sizable minority' to adopt Islam, but this then waned in the 70s; some rebound after of 1978 (Khomeini becoming popular), but didn't change this basic fact)

(102): student activism predates the clergy, who did get involved until January of 1978

(106-107): in sum, students in Iran

(108): in Nicaragua, expansion of education + role of US + Sandinistas --> radical students

(110): two bouts of struggle, in Nicaragua: (1) post-earthquake (1973-1974), and (2) pre-revolution and post-opening (1977-1979)

(112): it was in the second phase that students began to draw close to the FSLN

(115-116): in sum, students in Nicaragua

(127): in sum, students in Philippines: like elsewhere, most active social group, at the forefront of collective action; assumed a radical character towards the end of the 'revolutionary' process, as the failure of the moderates became obvious

(127-129): in sum, students: (1) first social group to mobilize; (2) acted with most frequency (he acknowledges, of course, that this doesn't at all mean that they wield significant power--he's not noting their capacity/threat, but rather their proclivity. here he once again makes the point about how radical students can prevent the formation of the necessary coalitions)

(130): the breakdown of the clergy-State pact results in the politicization of the clergy--and while most stay conservative, a minority break off as radicals

(131-132): only a minority of the clergy become radical: in Iran, they advocated the formation of an Islamic government; in Nicaragua and the Philippines, they shifted to the left and liberation theology. the explanation of this is the 'weakness of the religious left, the Islamic mohajideen, in Iran [pushes the question back, to an extent]

(132): upper clergy varied--in Iran on the sidelines, in Nicaragua and especially the Philippines, in support of the regimes

(133, 140): again, in Iran, radical clergy demanding an Islamic government were a minority [this is a good example of why Parsa's right that the 'process' is important; revolutions as highly 'open' times]; moderates were the majority; conservative backers of the Shah were also a minority.

(134): the 'White Revolution' in the late 50s marked the end of the State-clergy pact: 'land reform' (opposed by Khomeini) and 'female franchise' (which he said was Baha'i)

(135, 145): in sum, in Iran, the clergy was undermined as a source of support by the Shah's policies

(143): Taleghani ('Red Ayatollah'--who demanded popular democracy, workers' councils to run factories, etc.) was actually asked by Khomeini to lead the Tasoua march on December 10, 1978, which became the largest march in Iranian history

(145): in sum, clergy undermined as a source of support. but the clergy's response to the State was not unanimous. most were moderates, which made the mosque comparatively repression free. ideal places in which to organize. this helped Khomeini and the small minority that supported him.

(146): until 1970, Catholic Church supported Somoza

(146): 'all authority comes from God; He who resists authority resists God'

(153): in sum, in Nicaragua the Catholic Church was unable to play any significant role in the months leading up to the revolution, because of Somoza's unwillingness to tolerate non-violent solution. Church hierarchy remained largely inactive, despite the fact that a minority were radicalized.

(155): radical clergy vs. Church leadership, in Philippines (Father Conrado Balweg: the gun as 'an instrument for a higher value, the value of justice...')

(157): in early 80s, clergy is becoming politicized, but still in weak ways ('reconciliation,' etc.)

(159-161): in sum, role of the clergy in revolutions--segments became politicized, after the breakdown of the clergy-State alliance (greatest in Iran). but there was heterogeneity in their response (mainly along lines of rank, though). in only the Philippines were leading clergy able to impose their will on the outcome; in Iran, it was a small minority that had their way.

(162): vs. Marxists, on workers -- too much class struggle can be a bad thing, by threatening privileged social classes, preventing coalition

(163): large-scale mobilization of workers could only emerge where opportunities were favorable

(164): workers, in sum:

1. in Iran: a low level of organization + targeting of the State --> a coalition with capitalists (here, remember, he means shop-keepers/petit-bourgeois elements)
2. in Nicaragua: better organization + targeting of State and Capitalists in '72-74, but State in '77-79 --> a coalition with capitalists, but one that the Sandinistas led ('workers shifted their support to the FSLN, after moderates failed)
3. in Philippines: well-organized radical segment, post-Martial law + targeted State and Capitalists ('low level of State intervention') + economic deterioration in mid-1980s --> prevented coalition*
   

(169): not unlike Fitzpatrick claim re: Russia, noting that high level of State intervention was 'inherently politicizing' when workers went into struggle

(171): although vast majority of workers supported Khomeini, they did not display ideological, but political support.

(172): Marxists/socialists were in the leadership of the workers' movement

(172-173): workers in Iran, in sum: needed an opening to organize (workers started mobilizing in August 1978, after reforms); most workers were neither political nor revolutionary at outset, but were politicized (because of the State), even if it was quite late in the game; leadership of movement was in hand of socialists; mobilization was crucial to the outcome, through disruption.

(182-183): workers in Nicaragua, in sum: better organized than Iran; more employed in private sector, targeting capitalists and the State; for a long time workers' activism rendered ineffective by repression; in 1978, quickly focused attacks on the State*

(184): 23% of the labour force unionized, in the mid-1960s to 1970 in the Philippines (a robust labour movement, in short)

(186-187): radicalized in the early 1970s

(192-193): in sum, workers in Philippines: tradition of collective bargaining in 50s and 60s; institutionalization of industrial conflicts generated a reformist labour movement; radicalized in early 1970s, after (1) moderates didn't gain concessions, (2) repression, and (3) rise of radical allies; favorable opportunities after 1983 brought workers' movement out; militant workers attacked States and capitalists; this threatened the social structure, and helped prevent the formation of a class coalition.

(197): key amendment -- the defection of the capitalist class is not sufficient to explain revolutions; instead, the capitalist class must take an active role in the conflict, and pursue disruptive tactics; capitalists can be scared away from this by radical threats.*

(198): in protectionist States, division between minority of capitalists, who benefit, and majority, who do not

(198): you can have 'reluctant rebels,' provided that they're not scared off by workers

(199): in sum -- capitalists in all three countries opposed because of lack of access to the polity/economy*

(201-203): Bazaaris -- not w/ clergy, but with liberal-nationalists

(214): minimal mention of Islamic gov't in statement

(215-216): Bazaaris in Iran, in sum -- political coalition rather than ideological conversion (not interested in a theocratic State)

(220): private sector wasn't politicized in '74, in Nic, but by '77 and '78 the 'desperate economic situation' and assasination of Chamorro had politicized them [so there's a story of their radicalziation, too]

(224): capitalist support for FSLN was tactical, not ideological--happened only in the final few days [and didn't live long in the memory]

(239): coalitions are important because:

1. isolate the government [aren't they an effect of this?]
2. increase the likelihood of factionalism in the armed forces
3. essential to initiate disruptive tactics [you need capitalists for the general strike]
4. broad coalitions may encourage greater support for armed struggle (thinking of Nicaragua)

(243-247): reason for the failure of secular challengers, in Iran, is repression (for the Feda'iyan, who were anyway quite weak) and political mistakes (for the National Front, who prevented students from organizing after June 1965 uprising, after they themselves had been repressed)

(247): Khomeini's rise was for political, rather than ideological reasons: (1) he had the advantage of the mosques; (2) he made good, strategic decisions (such as not to publicly advocate for theocratic State in build-up to revolution)

(254-255): the moderates fail, in Nicaragua, bringing the Sandinistas to the fore ['coalition-building'?]

(256): in 1974, FSLN had 100 members!

(261): members of Chamber of Commerce occupied Church in Leon, after FSLN deaths

(267): New People's Army/ Communist Party Philippines had a 'social base' of one million [so, so much stronger than the FSLN!]

(270):NPA had enormous power in countryside, but couldn't overthrow Marcos by rural insurgency. this is why a coalition was needed*

(270): in line with Jeff's argument, Marcos pre-empted them and brought moderates over to his side, with elections in 1985 (this also then explains something about Nicaragua, in the way Jeff wanted to).*

(275 - 278): in sum, coalitions: in the absence of State breakdown, coalitions are important for the success of 'revolutionary' challengers; broad coalitions in Iran and Nicaragua (explained by low level of class conflict) brought the regimes down; in Philippines, broad coalition could not form.

(277): in Iran, army was integrated with population, which faciliated revolution; in Nicaragua, National Guard was insulated, which meant they fought till the end

(287): vs. Skocpol, upper class defection is not the only reason that revolutions happen; here, external pressures can open up opportunities, which coalitions can take advantage of

(288): Iran, whose revolution is supposed to be explained by a 'culture of martyrdom', lost far fewer people per capita than in Nicaragua's revolution

- - - -

[1] on the one hand, it could be argued that this a recognition problem (in which case ideology, we might further argue, becomes a central determinant of whether this holds true?) on the other hand, Parsa means that this applies somewhat unconditionally -- meaning that it is impossible to make the case, to people, that the State is complicit in their suffering even when it isn't actively involved in the economy. this is either because (a) people won't accept it, no matter how accurate it is [why?]; (b) because it's true, in his opinion [no it's not!]

[2] the strangest part of his argument is the case that these small, discontented capitalists can be captured by the category 'self-employed' (this may include shopkeepers, but also those scraping for survival in the informal sector -- and, in Pakistan's case, peasants!). it is quite strange, needless to say, to stick with figures that suggest that the size of your 'capitalist class' is larger the lower your level of development.

on p. 199, they're one-third of the labour force! this is important also because it suggests, to me, that --even while his 'interventionist State offends most capitalists' line is important--he is mis-specifying the causes behind much-bourgeois activism. he thinks exclusion from the State/economy --> 'capitalist' activism. this is no doubt true, for some big bourgeois types. but when we're talking about a third of the labour force in underdeveloped countries, this is going to be, mainly, a story of pretty impoverished types, i'd expect--in that case, what's doing the work isn't really exclusion from the State (I suspect), but insecurity/poverty/etc.

[3] the suggestion that intensified class conflict reduces the likelihood of social revolution rests on the Nicaragua/Philippines examples. in Nicaragua, a coalition led to social revolution; in the Phillipines, the failure of a coalition to form (due to heightened class conflict) explains the lack of a social revolution.

but Parsa is ignoring the profound limits of what then happened in Nicaragua, as elements of the elite turned on the 'revolutionary coalition,' profoundly limiting the nature of the 'social revolution' (making it a political revolution?) -- and setting the stage for the reversal of the 1990s. this is not to suggest that a social revolution was possible; but it ought to suggest that the counterintuitive conclusion he reaches (a social revolution is more likely when you have less class conflict) is actually not perplexing (because it didn't happen!)

a related concern, here, is with revolutionaries and their audience -- he seems to suggest that the most critical constituency to 'get on board', for revolutionaries, is elites, basically. analytically this might have some insights, though not without the enormous caveats mentioned above. but politically this is ludicrous--at some level isn't it true, also, that the only reason you can force elites to sit at the same table with you is because you have a measure of popular clout that threatens them (in this sense, there might be a middle ground, where elites are intimidated, but not scared enough to run to the arms of the State)

[4] is Parsa's argument about why people become revolutionary like Skocpol on peasants, insofar as 'increasing inequalities' are sufficient to produce revolutionary outcomes. or are these real grievances, which different State policies could have avoided? put differently, is there something specific about people's rage, that can be connected to specific government policies. or are people always ready to rebel? (alternatively, maybe 'crises' are doing most of the work in the argument? in which case the extent to which you can hold the government responsible would be in question)

the case of Iran, for example, it's not at all clear, from his narrative, that it's the fact of State intervention itself that's responsible for greater inequalities (he seems to want to indict State development strategies). in one sense (taxation policy), it seems to be the fact that the State is partial to a particular elite (big capital, rather than small traders) -- the fact that the State is unwilling to move against the wealthy (p. 66), that land reform was weak (p. 67), etc. -- which is surely independent of whether or not the State chooses to intervene. indeed, it's almost as if the State couldn't become 'autonomous enough' from certain elites

so, in short, one question is what exactly about these States --> rising inequalities/unfairness in economic benefits (can we indict State intervention in the economy?)

a second question, also, is whether any of this can explain the nature of the crises they confront. the just-so stories he tells (pp. 79-85) rest on the claim that increasing integration on the world market with specialization in a few commodities --> being prone to crises. but this is independent, we should be clear, of the fact of the State's involvement in the economy.

[5] seems at first as if the State intervention claim explains, for his schema, whether or not workers will be radical and closed to 'coalition-building' (because they won't attack capitalists).
if it is his argument, this seems insufficient. even in the examples where there is supposed to be heavy State intervention (Iran), a majority of workers are employed in the private sector (is the mechanism for his argument actually ideological, as was suggested earlier?). note also that the 50s and 60s in Philippines (p. 193) are almost the opposite argument--a lack of State intervention produces a reformist trade union movement. though this presumably has something to do with the political climate at the time?

regardless, in his reconstruction of the claims, on p. 193, it's not exactly State intervention that's doing the work -- instead, it's lack of success of moderates + repression + rise of radicals --> social revolution. is this plausible? (it partly lines up with Jeff's account)

in the Nicaragua example (182-183), two of these three things are also here (repression + lack of success of moderates)? so what needs to be explained is rise of radicals?

on the one hand this might be a State intervention claim? so the repression of the Somoza regime leads not to radical hegemony, but to a coalition with the capitalists, because workers focus on their primary antagonist, the State. in the Philippines, what's supposed to be different is the lower level of State intervention (because there's severe repression in the Philippines, too, but workers still indict capitalists), and thus the heightened level of explicit class conflict, which scares the moderates away from a coalition

but (a) what seems to be doing much more work is the longstanding strength of radical elements in the labour movement in the Philippines (vs. the much weaker position of the FSLN in Nicaragua, which wasn't supported by the trade unions until later, correct?), which cannot be best explained by conjunctural (repression) or this structural ('State-intervention') factor. this gives them the ability to refuse an alliance with 'capitalists'; (b) if not the above, perhaps strategy would be a superior way of understanding this? I understand the importance of a structural theory of strategy (to a point); but Parsa's account just doesn't sit right.

[6] worth thinking about, in the context of theories of the State, what it means for a State to 'lack' a social base. on the one hand, this history could be read as a perversion of the theory -- the State must serve society, so how you can you have a State that fails to serve society? more accurately, however, the narratives of these regimes' collapse might better be understood as a confirmation of that same argument: it is precisely the fact that these States failed to serve the social base that explains elite opposition to them, and the instability in which they found themselves (though it's not simply elite opposition, of course, that explains the social revolutions; there would be other mechanisms for elites to discipline the State, more like what happens in the Philippines)

[7] on the claim about students: it's unclear whether this is best understood as students --> radicals, or whether it should really be 'the historical context' --> radical students. the explanation on pg. 98 makes the latter seem much more plausible (a 'just-so' kind of story about student radicalism)

[8] he's not particularly alive to the passive weapons that the capitalist class wields over the State.

[9] NPA and coalition -- it's not at all clear that what's at issue is the fact that they weren't in coalition with elites. what's at issue is the fact that they were strong in rural areas and not the city (whether this is for reasons of strategy or not, is irrelevant to this point).

[10] Jeff's argument seems to have more purchase on Philippines vs. Nicaragua, which cuts against what Parsa's trying to do. the critical difference in explaining the lack of revolution is Marcos' 1985 concession. Somoza's intransigence is important to the Nicaraguan outcome. this means, also, that 'coalition' isn't the real issue -- that the FSLN was in coalition, is true, but presumably this was a tactical decision which they didn't, necessarily, need to take. could they have won, without coalition, given Somoza's intransigence?

[11] can you really measure the strength/leadership of a movement through 'newspaper reports'?

william sewell, logics of history

(6-8, 10): time as 'fateful -- because events occur once and only once in a given temporal sequence, there is something irreducibly contingent about events. historians see enormous events having the same sort of fatefulness and contingency as smaller events

(10): here the claim is that social life is fundamentally consituted by culture (in the widest possible sense). social relations can be transformed, when cultural systems are transformed.

(14): 'underlying causal structures themselves undergo mutation' [again, a priori this can't be conceded -- there has to be some account of how and why this takes place. Brenner's argument about the transformation of fedual rules of reproduction into capitalist rules of reproduction is an excellent example]

(16): against naturalism

(16): 'societies are culturally distinct at some deep level'

(84): 'eventful temporality' (against 'teleological' and 'experimental' temporality)

(84): a telelogical explanation as one which attributes a cause to 'abstract transhistorical processes' [this is a mischaracterization, if it's meant to apply to Marx -- especially once we've purged him of his Smithianism]

(86-87): rejoinder to Wallerstein -- can't understand the part, from the whole, as he tries to do.

(90): the objection to Tilly [in the concrete, we see the pay-off -- which is nothing, really. all you have done is said that Tilly has mis-specified, and that a different causal argument makes better sense of his findings]

(93-94): similarly, the objections to Skocpol (that she doesn't have the full gamut of empirical cases she would need to make her argument solid and that some empirical examples demonstrate that 'revolutions' may happen in the absence of military reversals and fiscal crises; her cases are not 'equivalent' and 'independent'

(100): 'events as the relatively rare subclass of happenings that significantly transforms structures'

(102): proving Marxism as 'teleological' by pointing to how it thinks we 'can't go backwards'.

(103-105): on the Paris Commune [again, the argument is a reasonable, concrete amendment to a causal claim. instead of social class --> attitude, we get social class --> organization --> attitude. the fact that there may be contingencies here doesn't change the fact that there is a causal argument being offered]

(109): in the Longshoremen example, he's suggesting that 'strategy''s importance demonstrates the iportance of contingency. [nonsense! strategy can matter, but it is not an ontological statement about the way things work. sometimes it will, sometimes it won't. you can only make the point in the concrete]

(114-123): response to the "scaling-up" objection (that contingency matters for small things, but not for big things) -- and here, telling, that Michael Mann is his ticket out [again, it's not clear that he really proves what he wants to prove, by it]

(125): 'structure' arguments lose the importance of agency

(139): important reminder that ideas are thoroughly inconsistent -- a theory of ideology can't purport to explain everything

(143): to be an agent means exerting control over the social relations in which one is enmeshed

(146): 'depth' and 'power' (how structures vary, in his argument)

(148-149): his brief statemtents on the State and Capitalism are almost intentionally opaque -- and entirely unhelpful

(236): 'came to be understood' (the Bastille came to be understood as a revolution in which the people rose up) [but who's doing the understanding, here? his argument is a chronicle of the delegates to the National Assembly. this proves a world-historic transformation in the understanding of people to power???]

(220): watch, as contingency is stretched to its most absurd limits: had they slaughtered the soldiers (and not just de Launay), the modern conception of revolution might never have been born!!! [no comment]

(257): the 'tissue' of privilege destroyed, a new social order [here the Revisionists would be helpful; he's factually mistaken]

(268): a profound emotional experience matters causally [the trouble here, as with much of his argument about culture, etc., is that there is no way of proving that this is unique (let alone the difficulty of proving (a) that it happened; (b) that it had the effect he is suggesting it had]

- - - -

[1] temporal heterogeneity -- this is unapologetically violent to the tasks of social science ('explanation')! you can argue that events occur once and only once -- which is of course true, formally; it was the grounds of Hume's skepticism -- but social science is the attempt to abstract from that which is irreducibly particular to arrive at general conclusions across contexts.

not unlike Chakrabarty, the claim that events are always 'unique' (or the claim that a given act is affected fundamentally by the nature of the social world in which it happens, such that you can have 'different logics'; that societies are 'culturally distinct' at some deep level) is very unstable. if that's the case, then what are the grounds to speak across any contexts whatsoever? and what's to stop 'contexts' from becoming infinitesmal, without some larger account of why general conclusions are possible. of course, all good social scientists can admit that things can have different "logics," but because they are distinct instantiations of a common logic which prevails at a higher level of abstraction.

part of the problem might also rest in the definition of 'logic' (I am understanding it as 'laws of motion,' give or take -- what does he mean? something like the 'laws of gravity' don't apply here?)

[2] 'global contingency' -- either this means something basically trivial (that people have to be attentive to context, that one's causal argument might be rendered invalid when transposing it), or it means something completely ludicrous. in the former case, it's a fine objection to make -- but it is impossible to make in the abstract. his concrete example (the longshoremen) are interesting, but are nothing more than highly specific causal sequences. in the latter case, he is making this a statement of abstract principles. in which case social science becomes impossible. you and Niall Ferguson share this commitment, if that's any consolation.

this isn't entirely a question of scale. you can have contingencies that matter in big ways; but there is a presumption that as you zoom out, contingency becomes less and less relevant as an analytical tool. in the passage where he cites the Mann, though, one gets the sense that he wants to resist even this.

[3] 'cultural transformation' -- this is fundamentally unhelpful, though. at one level, there is no account of causal priority. when he qualifies this, Sewell will want to say that this can be true within limits. that culture matters, but not absolutely. but if the importance of 'cultural transformation' is true within limits, then how do we specify those limits in the abstract? his formulation has the effect of leaving it entirely 'open'. moreover, doesn't there need to be some account of why cultural systems might be transformed? otherwise 'changes in meaning systems' is totally opaque, as a causal argument -- unless you have some account of how and why they change, how do you resist the argument that they're always changing. there's, further, a problem of measurement -- to which Skocpol calls attention, in her rejoinder to the Bastille argument -- the ability to speak of a unified 'cultural system' (and, by extension, uniform changes in that unified cultural system) demands enormous proof. one would have to show that this works its way through a number of social actors that find themselves in various places in the social hierarchy, etc. quite inconceivable, really -- as it should be, given a materialist understanding of how culture operates.

[4] 'societies as culturally distinct at some deep level, meaning that putative 'social laws' can only be valid locally': i'm sorry, but aside from the fact that this depends on the arbitrary assertion of 'unitary societies' (so India can be a whole, perhaps?), which raises the whole question of instability again -- this is utter Orientalist gibberish (the 'Hindu' logic). that he has abandoned their normative project is no credit to him. you can valorize it whichever way you like (nativist, orientalist, or ambivalent); but this can tell you nothing about India, China, etc.

now, you can make a case -- like Wolf did, or Marx did -- about how different rules of reproduction might prevail in different, owing to the existence of different socio-property relations, whatever. but in this case Society A and Society B are distinct elements of the same Set (so, they are related at a higher level of abstraction--both are societies in which humans enter into definite relations of production in order reproduce themselves). there is no statement of essential difference, here.

[5] rejoinder to Wallerstein -- KNAVE! Wallerstein is making a concrete argument. it might very well be the case that you can't read the part, from the whole -- this is the thrust of Brenner's objection. that what's happening in England is internal to its socio-property relations. but you can't make this objection as an abstract declaration of faith. it needs to be made concretely; show that the specific causal claim Wallerstein is making is invalid.

[6] objection to Skocpol -- he purports to demonstrate a 'crisis of method', but all he shows are empirical weaknesses, and concrete difficulties. the claim that Skocpol's cases aren't 'equivalent' and 'independent' misunderstands the fact that this is an exercise in approximation -- the claim has to be that these are 'equivalent'/'independent' enough to be compared in this fashion. Burawoy makes a decent claim that they are not, but it's a concrete evaluation. it does not follow, from this, that there is no such thing as 'equivalence' and 'independence'. say, for example, you want to compare welfare state retrenchment? what does his assertion mean for that research project? hogwash, that's what.

[7] events transform structures -- whatever we think, surely this claim has to meet two challenges: (1) logical, you have to demonstrate that there's a mechanism. what is the mechanism, in his argument? how do events transform structures?; (2) empirical, you have to show us that 'events' reliably did this. the Bastille example, for all the reasons Skocpol enumerates, is unsatisfying.

[8] Marxism as telelogical -- but there's a logical reason for that, as Erik Olin Wright and others argued, in the Theory of History debates. it will not be in any social actor's interest to oversee the degradation of the productive forces. whatever you think of the claim, it ceases to be 'telelogical'. he has to do a hitjob on the theory in order to make it seem mystical.

[9] Structure and agency -- no, it's just that agency gets incorporated into a 'structural' argument. action can matter, but it matters within limits that are set by forces beyond any give agent's (or collective agent's) control. there are infinte examples of this, of course: take the theory of the capitalist State. mobilization can matter, but it matters differently, and within limits (until the final showdown!).

incidentally, I have never understood the temptation to stress the importance of agency (as he puts it on p. 143, "to be an agent means to be capable of exerting some degre of control over the social relations in which one is enmeshed"), despite everything. it becomes emphatically reactionary. are people poor because they failed to pull themselves up by their bootstraps? this is just silly.

[10] his rejoinder to Bourdieu, where he raises the question of 'existing social conditions' and ideas' relation to them -- in this he is correct to stress the heterogeneity of ideas, but he throws out the baby with the bathwater. theories of ideology cannot, he's right, hope to explain everything that people believe. it has to be a story of propagation of popular, salient ideas, in the aggregate