http://www.midiaindependente.org/pt/blue/2010/01/462820.shtml?comment=on

“Harvey is trying to understand if historical circumstances are likely to support rather than oppose to that kind of measures, and why.
This doesn’t mean He neglects a priori any attempt of deficit-spending, something that Robinson attached to Baran as She successfully understood that -AT THAT TIME- deficit-financed growth was possible.

Harvey “re-opened” the debate because -instead of the narrow minded dogmatic attitude of Mr. DeLong- Harvey knows that historical context DOES matter in order to fully understand the potential of models.

Models are built on assumptions, and assumptions are no less and no more than historically-defined normative statemens. Reasoning on a model like the Hicks IS curve without any historical contextualization of its assumptions, something that today clearly concerns the sustainability of american debt in comparative terms, is profoundly erroneous.

In building his model, Hicks forgot to take care of uncertainty, he admitted this fact and eventually abbandoned the model. No risks are accounted in IS curve. This could explain DeLong arrogance in his postmodern empty self referential sarcasm, pretending to invalidate Harvey’s highly articulated intervention with the mere “evidence” of a model. It’s clear that today the uncertainty hoovering around the question of how long the foreign contribution to the us debt will sustain the american economic policy at the moment the government annouces huge public programmes its quite an important, if not the main factor to be accounted.

It’s incredible that DeLong fails to understand that. Really.

About Harvey advocating for more intervention, it could be “more” without meaning “more public spending”. “More” could mean a new international monetary system, a new round of international regulation -completely different from the neoliberal ones- focused on relocalization of production through standard setting and institutionalisation of regional unities like EU and MERCOSUR, turning them from mere free trade arenas into political blocks, so able to govern the crisis at the proper geographical scale. It could mean also emproving changes in the productive process rather than mere state interventionism on the market.

To think otherwise is to be un-American, non-patriotic and leaves one open to denunciation by one’s peers.

The USA educational systems from Kindergarten to 12th grade (typically ages 5 to 18 or so) both public and private (public schools in the USA are the taxpayer-paid-for schools) are a primary indoctrination tool.

Also, the USA mass media is mainly a for-profit affair owned by the wealthy elite class who mainly do not upset the status quo that serves our elite class here so well.

We are lucky in carrying the general culture created in western Europe. Mainly, the masses of commoners are ruled by a benevolent elite class who coerce via peaceful means rather than raw brutality as seen with Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and other evil cruel dictators.

Yes, the USA’s elites HAVE used the barrel of the gun to maintain the status quo as a search of our history reveals.

Generally, however, on the whole, the ruling elite class of the USA and their minions and lackeys (and there are many in their pay) tend to be gentle tyrants but tyrants they are and…..

I fear that if the masses of commoners rose up in revolt that the ruling elites might be willing to murder millions to maintain their positions of wealth and power.

Sadly, with the USA’s vast resources, the elite’s military and law enforcement bureaucracies from the smallest local level to the nation-wide FBI and the massive military would easily be able to muster the resources to quell a revolt even if 50 million armed citizens marched against the elite class.

Trained disciplines troops have proven a multitude of times their ability to defeat opponents that vastly outnumber them. Add in pre-existing infrastructures, communications, supplies and vastly superior armaments and I believe that only a military coup led by patriotic freedom-loving military officers could oust our elite class and initiate meaningful changes in the USA’s political, economic and social structures.

The odds of that happening are extremely slight though I DO believe a growing percentage of USA citizens are fed up with our current elite class and would welcome some major changes… and the current president Obama is not the initiator of that change. He is merely yet another figurehead for the elite class, corporate America and wealthy/powerful special interest groups.

If curious what an American commoner thinks about affairs within the USA, a member of the USA working-poor underclass who via much education, extensive non-fiction reading and introspection was able to shed a fair amount of the brainwashing/indoctrination that has stifled the thought processes of so many Americans I invite you to visit this blog:

obbop.wordpress.com/

“By the same token, what leverage does the proletariat have?”

Assuming they learn to use their position, the proles as a class can simply take over work-places, effectively elbowing out the owners. But this also needs political power to back up that take-over legally.

“Unfortunately, the western-world proletariat holds the values and ideology induced by the capitalists – individualism, consumerism, private property, etc.”

Right (which was also the case for Marx’s time); we’re talking here about false consciousness, ruling class ideology being picked up by workers, etc. This is where Marxists step in and show the problems, contradictions, truths, and out-right lies. Especially after the long attack on “Official Communism” (and the problems and that manifested with it) as well as socialists of all stripes, is it any wonder that there still _are_ commies around any more to teach this stuff and fight against the ones who can afford the best megaphones?

“Our case is much worse than in Marx’ time – mass media has a tight grip on the minds of us all”

Oh, they had a mass-media then, too (not as pervasive as ours, true, but it was still performing the same function); besides: if the media has us in such a tight grip, how do freaks like you, me, and Prof. Harvey happen along? !{)> Supermen, we are not!

“while social structures have totaly disinetgrated.”

Oh, things’ve definitely gotten worse in the past fifty-sixty years (much worse in some places), but doom-saying’s not very helpful. Look around! See the good and the bad instead of hewing to an ideology of pessimism!

By the same token, what leverage does the proletariat have?
Unfortunately, the western-world proletariat holds the values and ideology induced by the capitalists – individualism, consumerism, private property, etc.
Our case is much worse than in Marx’ time – mass media has a tight grip on the minds of us all, while social structures have totaly disinetgrated.

“we should look for the “agents of change” in long term unemployed people, 45 + y.o, of the middle and upper middle classes”

What leverage do the unemployed of the middle and upper-middle classes have? And if these classes are so close to the owners (and I have no reason to doubt they are: they were so in Marx’ time as much as in our own) ideologically, why would they, as a group, turn on the hand that feeds it (except maybe to set themselves up as “new bourgeois”)?