The Hollow Colossus

Description

Preface Working people enjoyed relative prosperity in the decades after World War Two, despite significant exceptions. Many a senior remembers good times then, but they have turned into insecurity and degraded employment today. This essay studies why. The investigation looks into changes in the nature of work, the inevitability of economic slumps, and the subjugation of technological advance to the dictate of profit. The facts are readily observed, and the data are routine tallies. The challenge is to comprehend the historical path of capitalist accumulation and the barrier it hit. We find that two frequent themes of economic commentary, financialization and globalization, are superficial jumbles of description; the phenomena are effects more than causes. Our explanatory model uses a few propositions from the labor theory of value, but since they do not upset honest common sense, an exposition of the theory is unnecessary here. Study foretells a different future, but only action makes it real. The principles of a new order call out: this we must do, we can do it, and it will be glorious. Preface 5 1. Production Advances But Prosperity Recedes 2. Their Analysis and Our 57 3. The Third Contradiction of Capitalist Accumulation 95 4. Socialism Develops 151 Tables 187 Notes 191