Marxist Political Economy and the Crisis in Japan and East Asia
A response to Paul Burkett & Martin Hart-Landsberg's "Crisis and Recovery in East Asia: The Limits of Capitalist Development" (2001). Burkett & Hart-Landsberg's principal contentions that current Japanese production strategies are contingent upon Western nations' con...
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| Published in: | Historical materialism : research in critical Marxist theory 2001-07 (8), p.89-117 |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | eng |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | Get full text |
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| Summary: | A response to Paul Burkett & Martin Hart-Landsberg's "Crisis and Recovery in East Asia: The Limits of Capitalist Development" (2001). Burkett & Hart-Landsberg's principal contentions that current Japanese production strategies are contingent upon Western nations' consumption & that the East Asian region is characterized by uneven economic development are discussed. Although Burkett & Hart-Landsberg's concomitant assertion that such overproduction & unbalanced economic development were partially responsible for the regional economic crisis in 1997 is supported, several problems with their argument are noted. Specifically, rather than identify decreases in the rate of demand as the primary cause of the crisis, a Marxist perspective is used to assert that declines in the rate of profit had a greater effect in accelerating the regional economic catastrophe. Moreover, Burkett & Hart-Landsberg's account is critiqued for failing to sufficiently consider Karl Marx's understandings of money, credit, & financial systems in explaining the crisis. Despite these theoretical shortcomings, it is concluded that Burkett & Hart-Landsberg have provided a necessary account of the human & environmental damage caused by capitalism in the East Asian region. 61 References. J. W. Parker |
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| ISSN: | 1465-4466 1569-206X |