On the Economy

(Letter)

28 January 2009

Comrades,

Enclosed find a copy of The Furrow for January 2009. Please note the article on Cuba. When I was at the John Deere Pavilion in Moline, Illinois recently I saw the publication (free for the taking) and the article. I thought it might be useful to you. Page 3 of the publication explains well what it is.

I also would like to make a few comments on Seymour’s article in WV #927 [2 January] “Capitalist Economic Crisis:….” Over all I think it was a good article, and I have no serious problems with it. I did notice that in discussing the economic history he completely missed the so-called “farm crises” of the mid 1980’s. This was the result of overextended Agricultural credit among other things. It had effects beyond the farm sector. Also there is an attempt to minimize the effect of deregulation, especially in banking, on the cause of the current economic crises. True, this is bigger than the banking crisis, and the economic cycle is inherent in capitalism. However, each individual economic fluctuation has its own unique causes or triggers if you will. There is a lesson to be learned. The capitalists established regulations after the disaster of the great depression of the 1930’s to prevent some of the speculative schemes that led them to disaster in the 1930’s. These were made law. A later generation, notably the Reagan years and after saw any hindrance to capitalism as bad, hence the laws were repealed. The point is that you cannot reform or legislate your way out of the capitalist economic cycle. Even if you can control aspects of it for a time the interplay of politics and economics (or capitalist greed) will overcome-change the laws.

In Solidarity
Loren