[Riley and Brenner] link these new electoral dynamics to the new political-capitalist regime, itself a kind of morbid adaptation to the ‘long downturn’: the system-wide, global slow- down that set in in the early 1970s, catalysed by declining profitability in manufacturing as intensifying international competition mired successive national industries in chronic crises of overcapacity and weak aggregate demand from which they are yet to escape. Eroding wages to subsidize profits only exacerbated shortfalls in consumer spending, while state interventions—from Keynesian stimulus to accommodating monetary policy and the massive expansion of public and private debt—stabilized the system but at the cost of entrenching its structural weaknesses, preventing a replenishing shake-out of unproductive capital. . . .
In response, Benanav argued that Brenner’s theory of overcapacity is in fact dynamic rather than static. The ‘zero-sum game’ doesn’t imply a ‘fixed amount of demand’, but a fiercely competitive world system in which the ongoing slowdown in average rates of economic growth pits capitalist firms and states against each other, such that the rise or recovery of manufacturing in one country, often achieved through currency revaluation, can only be achieved ‘at the expense’ of other countries’ industries.
https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii142/articles/lola-seaton-reflections-on-political-capitalism
Let’s agree for the sake of argument that in aggregate, global overcapacity in terms of manufacturing and industry has dampened economic growth. A common enough follow-on would then be to differentiate by scale, pointing out regions and sites where overcapacity is less or more of an economic growth depressor.
But overcapacity with respect to what? is the intervening questioning before any knee-jerk scaling.
For example, take seriously the growing literature on regionally-based foundational economies:
In recent years, a number of alternative approaches, such as everyday economy (Reeves, 2018) and foundational economy (FE) (FEC, 2018), advocated for regional policy that directly aims at well-being of all citizens, rather than emphasising a narrow set of R&D-intensive industries. This means moving the focus to the ‘part of the economy that creates and distributes goods and services consumed by all (regardless of income and status) because they support everyday life’ (Bentham et al., 2013, 7). This includes material infrastructures (utilities and transportation) and providential services (health and education). It is proposed that such activities should be put forward in regional development efforts, as the interruption in their provision causes an immediate crisis for all households. . . .
Following Braudel’s (1981, 23) recognition that ‘there [are] not one but multiple economies’, the term foundational economy (FE) was introduced by Bentham et al. (2013) to denote the part of the economy that supplies goods and services meeting essential citizen needs and providing the infrastructure of everyday life. The FE is, thus, fundamentally defined by the necessity of consumption (Hall and Schafran, 2017).
Now presumably overcapacity in manufacturing and industry has a major critical infrastructure dimension (water, electricity, transportation, telecommunications). But who would even start with the proposition that overcapacity in critical infrastructures necessary for regional foundational economies has and is dampening regional economic growth?
WHEN COMPLEX IS AS SIMPLE AS IT GETS 