Btw, "We're all Keynesians now" was a knock at Keynes, not a support. It was said by Friedman, who is as right wing as an economist gets.
This is very minor, but this is inaccurate. It was said by Richard Nixon. Again, a right-winger, but it was not a knock on Keynes, rather it was meant ironically. It was in recognition that deficit spending and Keynesian social programs were accepted by all good bourgeois politicians, Democrats and Republicans, by the 1970s. Search Wiki under JMK and you'll find it. Friedman may have said it later, I have no idea.
As for your broader argument, some of your points are valid, but the broader argument that Keynesianism represents some form of "third way," I just don't find to be correct. Part of this may or may not arise from our different ideas of what "socialism" is. For me, socialism doesn't amount to government spending or social programs, but the question of
power for the working class. You are correct when you say that I see Keynes as just the opposite side of the same capitalist coin, an advocate of a light form of state capitalism and extreme deficit spending. This does not mean that I'm for "balancing the budget" on the backs of the working class, as you seem to imply, as the alternatives are not Keyesianism on the one hand and the Chicago School on the other. In fact, as I implied, I don't find these to be alternatives at all. The alternative is a workers' policy, a
real workers' policy, that places the top corporations under public ownership and under the democratic control of the workers'. Before we're able to that, we can by every means necessary make the ruling class pay for their crisis, taxes, wage increases for their employees, etc. This is the only policy that is very clear which class it speaks for.
As for the "upward slants" in the economy in the '30s, if you trace the full economic cycle, you will see that these upward pushes were just part of a normal economic cycle (they were accompanied by downward movement prior to the war). The economy did not recover from the crash and depression until the war. This is really accepted by all Marxist economists that I'm familiar with and a majority of conservative economists as well, if I am not mistaken. The only people I'm aware of arguing the alternative view are Keynesian and Roosevelt partisans, e.g. Paul Krugman and co.
Your point about dollar revaluation is also incorrect. Dollar revaluation can hardly be rewarded with the prize of creating the economic recovery. Sorry, this award still goes to war production. However, even the role dollar revaluation played in the post-war period could only be temporary, as with deficit spending, and neither was primary, as I'm still sticking to my "destruction of the existing means of production"/"new markets" argument there. In fact, the "revaluation" actually had the effect of detaching the dollar from the gold standard entirely, which has not been positive for the U.S. economy in the long-term.
As for your globalization point, I do not oppose Keynesianism because it supports globalization. I'm not sure how you got that out of my argument. I do not support it because it presupposes
imperialism, which is not the only direction globalization need take. You cannot base your deficit expenditures on the
extreme exploitation of the Third World and at the same time call yourself an internationalist and a socialist.
By the way Ceaserscook, it should be stated that I'm onsessed with macroeconomics. Don't break my wee heart too much on this one:p
I'm glad you have an interest in economics and wish you all the best of luck, but the primary question is
whose economics are you going to defend? The main thrust of what I was getting at in my first post is, whether Keynesian policies work or not (I still say that the fact that deficit spending inevitably results in massive inflation makes it impossible to see it as a long-term "solution" or an "alternative" to the capitalism vs. socialism divide.), who do they work for or who are they intended to work for? One can have respect for him a brilliant adversary, but his economic theories still do not have the working class's interests at heart. We don't even have to speculate. Keynes was quite explicit. You're better than him.
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