Please join us at the 2010 Historical Materialism Conference in NYC for a talk by Andrew Kliman on the “Roots of the Economic Crisis: The Persistent Fall in Profitability & Debt Financing.”
Friday, January 15, 2010 at 10:15 a.m. At the CUNY Graduate Center, 365 Fifth Avenue (bet. 34-35thSt.), Room 6417.
Kliman will be speaking on a panel with Fred Moseley and Simon Mohun entitled “Origins of the Current Crisis.” He will present a challenge to common left views of the crisis:
Various leftists are trying to have working people march behind the banner of some statist version of capitalism, as a supposed solution to the economic crisis and/or a way of preventing a recurrence of crisis. Frequently the turn to statism is justified on the basis of the claim that the current crisis is a purely financial one, caused by free financial markets, unrelated to and distinct from profitability problems within capitalist production. This paper will show that the claim is incorrect. Properly measured and assessed, there has been a persistent fall in U.S. corporations’ rate of profit and declining GDP growth, the effects of which have been continually papered over with ever-growing mountains of debt. But the excessive indebtedness leads to bubbles and the bursting of the bubbles. The latest crisis is the most severe yet. A further rise in debt is not a genuine solution to the crisis; only a new human society is. In the meantime, working people should fight for concessions without subsuming their self-activity under the agenda of some section of the ruling class.
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Be sure to visit MHI’s book table at the Historical Materialism Conference.
For information about the conference, which takes place Thurs. Jan. 14 through Sat. Jan. 16, visit http://www.hm2010nyc.org/
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