Sunday Q&A
Added 2023-08-17 13:33:55 +0000 UTCThe liveatream Q&A will take place on Sunday from 11:00 - 13:00 so place your questions below.
Comments
A question for the next Q&A: David Harvey advances this criticism of socialist policy in his discussion of Capital vol. 2 chapters 20 & 21 (on the accumulation of capital): "In Marx’s arithmetic example, the whole expansion is driven by changes in department 1 [heavy industry]. From this derived the view, already mentioned, that economic and developmental planning should concentrate investment in the production of capital goods and means of production, and then let the production of consumption goods follow on later. The socialist development model adopted this convention to the letter. Postcolonial governments, such as that of Ghana, also fell victim to this style of thinking in the 1960s, and have still not fully recovered from its effects. There is absolutely no reason why department 2 [consumer goods] should depend on department 1. This all arose because of an arbitrary choice by Marx and because of the lopsided character of relations between the two departments that arose from the differential impact of a greater level of hoarding in department 1 relative to department 2. The point of a socialist transition would, of course, be to eradicate that differential. This would make it entirely possible to reverse the relation and put department 1 at the service of department 2." How would you respond to this position? Why do you think he is bringing up Ghana as a example in support of it? It seems to me that he is underestimating the importance of bridging the gap with imperialism in department 1. Of interest is also his openly anticommunist assertion earlier on that "the experience of communist and social-democratic planning has been in aggregate far from benign".
moMaximo
2023-08-22 12:28:23 +0000 UTCWhat was the strategic reason for the US going into Afghanistan? Was it purely a muscle flexing exercise as Chomsky has said, a money laundering scheme as put forward by Assange, or was there a grander strategic purpose?
Hugh
2023-08-21 10:58:50 +0000 UTC
