Millies and underconsumptionism

I think I may have posted this link before but here's Kliman explaining in 3 minutes why redistributing income to the working class is not a way out of the crisis. Anyway, it bears repeating:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O47sXexnM9A#t=6m40s

The website comrades have just added another article to the Socialist Standard archive here which exposes Militant's confusion over another economic question: banks and credit. This article criticises a pamphlet they brought out in 1977 in which they argue that banks can create credit out of thin air:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1980s/1981/no-917-january-1981/militant-confusion-about-inflationThis might go down well today in some reformist circles but is just as much mistaken today as it was then. They are still fishing in currency crank waters as this article calling for the "banksters" to be jailed shows. It also shows that a nationalised bank is a key part of their reformist plan to relaunch the capitalist economy by a massive programme of public works:

There's a You tube video of this meeting here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGxp4C04YbA#t=4996In their opening speeches the four speakers virtually put our case against "underconsumption" theories of crises and of an increase in popular consumption as the way-out.One of them coins the new word "redistributionism". I think that might convey better what we mean as it's a good description of the policies of those who say "Tax the Rich to pay for the Crisis they caused", e.g. the trotskysit groups and leftwing trade union leaders.All the speakers call for the aboition of wage-labour (as opposed to higher wages, which like us they are all for, though not for "redistributionist" reasons), though only one (McIntosh of IP) explicitly spells out that this involves the abolition of money too. He also rejects "labour-time vouchers" (whick Kliman and the MHI don't, but they didn't rise to the bait).          

There's a review in the January Standard (already out but not online till 1 January). I don't think we are necessarily committed to his view (extensively argued, with graphs and statistics, in this pamphlet) that there was no redistribution of income (which would be brought about by the spontaneous operation of the economic laws of capitalism) from the working class to the capitalist class in the years preceding the outbreak of the present crisis in 2008. This would certainly show that crises are not caused by the working class coming to consume too small a portion of national income but is not absolutely or logically necessary to demonstrate this point.The speakers from "Internationalist Perspective" disagreed with him on this and I think we too, accurately or inaccurately, have accepted and publicised that working class living standards in the US have stagnated over the past 30 or so years. He may be right that in fact they didn't but have even increased (taking into account the so-called "social wage") but this is still a matter of controversy. In any event, as one of the IP speakers pointed out, quoting CLR James (originally Marx), that whether their wages be higher or lower the working class are still exploited.

http://www.moneynews.com/Elias/Invest-income-revenue-consumption/2014/01/03/id/544982I'm not sure how relevant this is to over-consumptionist theory but i got a feeling it does have a point."In 1980, $1 in money supply generated $3.50 of income. Today, that same dollar only generates $1.40 in income, based on data from the Fed. The primary reason for this decline has been lower levels of investment relative to GDP. Investment has a greater economic multiplier than consumption does. It generates more income per dollar of expenditure, since the spending occurs at the beginning of the production process, not at the end, as with consumption. Expenditures at the beginning create collateral expenditures to support the production process of cost-effective, high-quality, value-added goods and services for the masses."From 1980 through 2008, consumption as a share of the economy rose from 61 percent to 68 percent, while the share due to gross private domestic investment fell to 12 percent from 20 percent, according to the Federal Reserve – So how can under-consumptionism be a cause of the crisis when consumption actually rose. Whereas if Rand D is a reflection of capital consumption from 1987 through 2008, U.S. research and development rose a mere 0.3 percent per annum, compared with 4.9 percent annually from 1953 through 1987.   

Apparently the SPEW member who wrote this criticism of their theory of crisis has now been expelled:http://socialismiscrucial.wordpress.com/2013/08/16/how-many-straw-men-does-it-take-to-reply-to-my-critique-of-the-cwis-crisis-theory/?relatedposts_exclude=329Like this last point (but not too sure about all of the rest):

Not surprising they've booted him out as his reply undermines their whole strategy of seeking a working-class following on the basis of demanding that the government can and should stimulate the economy by spending more on building houses, infrastructure, etc as a way out of the current slump.