A video of this meeting is now posted at http://marxisthumanistinitiative.org/economic-crisis/video-can-income-redistribution-rescue-capitalism.html
[added Oct. 17, 2013]
On Monday, September 16, Marxist-Humanist Initiative (MHI) will host a public discussion of Andrew Kliman’s just-published pamphlet, “Can Income Redistribution Rescue Capitalism?,” which challenges Monthly Review’s account of the latest capitalist economic crisis. The claims made by the Monthly Review school have dominated the U.S. Left’s thinking for decades, but the pamphlet argues that its account of the crisis, and others that similarly attribute the crisis to rising income inequality, are riddled with a great many serious deficiencies – factual, theoretical, and political. The pamphlet suggests that the crisis is instead rooted in the decades-long decline in profitability and associated problems within capitalist production. What is at stake is whether the prevalent Left goal of income redistribution could actually solve the current economic crisis and prevent the recurrence of similar crises. Before embracing such notions, it would do us all good to carefully scrutinize the factual and theoretical claims that underlie them.
Open discussion will follow presentations by the author and Mike Dola.
The meeting will take place between 7 and 9 p.m. in Room 403 of Pearl Studios, 500 8th Avenue (between 35th and 36th Streets), Manhattan, New York City. People outside of New York City who wish to participate via videostream should write to MHI at mhi@marxisthumanistinitiative.org.
MHI requests that participants in the discussion purchase the pamphlet and/or make a donation. The pamphlet is available now for $8, plus $2 shipping in the U.S. It can be purchased on our literature page, or by writing to MHI, P.O. Box 414, Planetarium Station, New York, NY 10024, or by calling MHI at 1 (888) 579-2245.
The contents of the pamphlet include:
Preface and Acknowledgements
“More Misused Wage Data from Monthly Review: The Overaccumulation of a Surplus of Errors”
“‘The 99%’ and ‘the 1%’ … of What?”
Selections from The Failure of Capitalist Production : Underlying Causes of the Great Recession
The Underconsumptionist Intuition
Baran and Sweezy’s Logical Error
Whither Underconsumptionism?
“Trickle-Up” Economics and its Political Implications
I look forward to reading this. It is always interesting to learn more of Marxist thought in particular the economical because that is the real groundwork. Though I am not as educated as others and really only know a bit so far. Aside from it being for fun I will find it helpful because people still make the mistake and(typically from the right) that wealth/income distribution is socialism and as a result doomed to failure. False but not much of leap to see why the mistake is so common. I look forward to it and thank you!
The dog & pony show of Republican-Democrat goes on, and the theater of debt limit debate was wonderful comedy, yet Monthly Review still has the gall to continue to BEG the government to correct its course and spend itself out of depression. Please invite us to help formulate policy, they plead! It is the weak and humble expression of theoreticians gone stale. Andrew’s work is the first step in getting MR and its true believers out of the way, as the rest of the “left” should’ve done decades ago.