Andrew Kliman speaking in the UK
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Andrew Kliman author of “The Failure of Capitalist Production: Underlying Causes of the Great Recession” will be speaking in the UK soon:
March 5. LONDON. 6:30 PM. Bookmarks Bookshop. 1 Bloomsbury Street, WC1B3QE. Introduction by Joseph Choonara, talk by Kliman, discussion, wine.
March 6. SALFORD / MANCHESTER, UK. 6 PM. Mary Seacole G21 (ground floor), Salford University, Manchester.
March 8. SHEFFIELD, UK.
March 10. NEWCASTLE, UK.
I was going to post this myself since I got the email from the MHI. I read the synopsis of the book with great interest although I get confused by a lot of the technical details sometimes. What is the Party’s position to what Kliman is saying? He rejects under-consumptionist ideas.
Ozymandias wrote:I was going to post this myself since I got the email from the MHI. I read the synopsis of the book with great interest although I get confused by a lot of the technical details sometimes. What is the Party’s position to what Kliman is saying? He rejects under-consumptionist ideas.From what I have read of the book, the first 3 chapters, there would be know major quibbles with his views on the crises. The Socialist Party does not subscribe to underconsumptionist ideas either, that’s best left to the ICC or SWP.Where the difference is more in terms of political ideas, Kliman is a founder of the Marxist-Humanist Initiative which seems to have some funny ideas.
Here is his full programme as emailed to Head Office:
Quote:Sat., June 27, 1-3pm, informal meeting on “Neoliberalism and financialisation–active or reactive features of the crisis of capitalism?” The Lucas Arms (pub), 25A Grays Inn Road, London (near Kings Cross) Sat, June 27, 6:30pm – 9:30pm. “Andrew Kliman debates with Peter Taaffe and/or Lynn Walsh – invited.” Birkbeck College, University of London, Malet Street, Room B36. (https://www.facebook.com/events/617588808344740/628385757265045/) Thurs.-Sat., July 2-4. Southampton Solent University, conference of Association for Heterodox Economics (http://hetecon.net/).1. Thurs., July 2, 1-2:40pm, “The Whiggish Foundations of Marxian and Sraffian Economics,” presentation in panel on “Growth/Ideology”2. Fri., July 3, 9:20-11am, “Is Marx's Theory of Profit Right? Lessons for Pluralism,” presentation (with Nick Potts) in “Marx I” panel3. Sat., July 4, 11:15am-12:30pm, panelist in “Crisis” plenary session. Other panelist is Geoff Tily of the Trades Union Congress. Sun., July 5, 3pm-, “The Failure of Capitalist Production: Political Implications of the Great Recession,” at premises of the Socialist Party of Great Britain, 52 Clapham High Street, London (http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/event/talk-andrew-kliman-head-office-3pm) Thurs., July 9, 3:35-5pm, “Economic recovery & the prospect of ‘secular stagnation.’” SWP Marxism 2015 festival. Clarke Hall, Institute of Education, 20 Bedford Way, London (http://marxismfestival.org.uk/timetable/thursday) Sat., July 11, 2-5pm, informal meeting on the TSSI and a Marxist-Humanist view of revolutionary organization. In pub near Kings Cross Station. Write to ravibali@btinternet.comto confirm attendance and obtain exact address. (TSSI = temporal single-system interpretation of Marx’s value theory.)DJP wrote:jondwhite wrote:So the SPGB steal a march on the SWP????
5 July Kliman speaks at the SPGB meeting9 July Kliman speaks at SWP eventthen again I'm assuming27 June Kliman talk is CPGB-PCC?
I made the suggestion previously that the person who chairs the meeting takes some online questions to ask Andrew Kliman for the Q and A …Has this been raised and taken aboard at all by the organisers of the meeting and what will be the arrangements made to take such questions? I am particularly interested in his views on the "new economics" of Wolff and Alpervitz and their advocacy of co-operatives and 'public' ownership so if the chair has the opportunity and Andrew has not addressed the issue in his talk …perhaps in a lull the chair can ask Andrew on my behalf What specifically do you consider the weakness to be of the proposals of those two economists, Richard Wolff and Gar Alpervitz who are receiving a lot of attention on the so-called progressive websites. Can they be treated as similar manifestations of a 21st C utopianism similar to the Proudhonists and other mutualists of the 19th C? How vehement should our critisms of them be?……(three in one)
We've already asked him a similar question here:http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/2010s/2014/no-1316-april-2014/relevance-marxian-economics-today
I do know his views on this, DJP, but i like to offer him an opportunity to reiterate them and hopefully expand upon those points, particularly since the meeting is being videoed for a wider audience and i anticipate will get linked to on those 'radical' websites i referred to to rebut 'Mondragon worshippers'.So my request still stands for the chair to pose my question…….on the understanding that he has not pre-empted it and given a substantive comment in his talk already….that would be repetitious and superflous….I'm also sure he will be asked again about his economic analysis of crisis theory too at the meeting. There is no harm in asking someone to go over his or her core ideas again. They often come up with other ways of expressing their answers.
Andrew delivered an excellent talk to an audience of 29 (14 members and 15 visitors). A discussion period of over an hour followed. Further exchanges continued afterwards over refreshments and later in the beer garden of a nearby pub (photos below). An audio recording was made as well as a video.Andrew Kliman
He spoke for an hour mostly on, as we had asked, why underconsumption theories of capitalism and capitalist crises (and how to get out of them) are wrong. He did say explicitly that, as there was no economic tendency for capitalism to collapse economically, it could in theory continue for ever though he hastened to add that that didn't mean that it would. This follows from what we say too, though of course it's not what many critics of capitalism like to hear and makes us appear to being saying that capitalism is not as bad, or flawed, as they say (nor is it a good motivator for people to engage in urgent socialist activity).He also developed his argument that the oft-repeated view (sometimes by some of us) that real wages in the US have been stagnant since 1970 is a myth. According to him and the statistical evidence he has marshalled, labour costs in the US have gone up ( I think he said, but am not sure, more or less in line with labour productivity there). This was challenged by a non-member in the audience. Personally I think Kliman is right: just like here living standards in the US will have gone up not stagnated since 1970 (even if "labour costs", which include employer contributions to pensions, health care, etc for workers as well as taxes they deduct from wages, are not the same as "take-home" pay). I suppose that accepting this is once again seen as undermining the case for socialism, but I don't see why, though it might be one explanation why most workers are prepared to put up with capitalism. Anyway, Kliman took our view that you have to keep raising the issue of an alternative society (without wages, money, finance, value, etc) as the way-out for the working class and not get bogged down in defensive struggles to survive under capitalism or imagine that these by themselves will lead to an understanding of the need for an alternative society.The issue of how precisely the long-run tendency of the rate of profit to fall is linked to the capitalist boom/slump cycle, another of Kliman's theories, did not come up. A pamphlet of his he had for sale at the meeting (a debate with David Harvey) suggests that he doesn't think that there is any direct link, only an indirect one by making overproduction and/or financial crises more likely. But then, of course, there are other reasons for these (not that he would deny this either) ….
Seemed a very worthwhile talk and i look forward to it going online.Did anybody press a Form A into his hand before he left?What was his opinion of ourselves as socialist party?In the beer garden, did he explain where he disagreed and agreed with us on other issues of establishing socialism such as Parliament? Did he or any members think it worthwhile to explore and develop further and future links with the socialist humanist group he is involved with? Did he buy a round?
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