14 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
no means is a qualitatively new situation.
It is however absolutely true that the package called monetarism is definitely more oppressive to small capital, and likewise, through creating unemployment and recession, to the working class. Keynesi-anism was so far the best conceived package for State monopoly capital. But like all policies for a dying system, it has got its inadequacies. In its reaction against these inadequacies, monetarism is withdrawing the best possible remedy from the dying patient. Naturally, the phase of monetarism cannot continue unless it can evolve positive policies that will preserve the system. Whether any such new policy package follows or whether there is going to be a reversal towards Keynesianism, is not of much importance at the moment. Much more important is to realise that since monetarism is essentially aimed at reversing the ills of Keynesian policies, the capitalist States are at the moment passing through a de facto 'policy void', so far as economic policy goes. For the working classes in the advanced countries, it seems one of the best opportunities to strike against State monopoly capital.
1 Quoted in William McElwee, Britain's Locust Years: 1918-1940, London, 1962.
2 See V I Lenin, Collected Works, Vol 23, p 267.
3 Joan Robinson "What has become of the Keynesian Revolution?'* in After Keynes (edited by Joan Robinson, Basil Blackwell). Oxford, 1973.
4 Compare for example the statistics on concentration of capital cited by V I Lenin in Imperialism with the statistics cited in Modern Imperialism: An Economic and Statistical Survey, A1TUC Publications, 1968.
5 See J M Keynes, The General Theory, Ch. 2.
6 It may be argued at this stage, as indeed it has been, that the same profitability can be ensured without tampering with the real wage by scaling down the interest rate. This, according to some authors, was the real essence of the Keynesian doctrine which they claim was basically anti-rentier in its thrust. But, first of all, this is nowhere suggested in the text of the General Theory. Secondly, as argued in the rest of the present paper, historical evidence does not support this view of hostility between large industry and finance.
7 See Amal Sanyal, "The Political Economy of Keynesianism", Social Scientist', No.103.
8 See the review article on A Leijonhufvud's and R W Clower's works by H L Grossman in the Journal of Economic Literature^ 1972.
9 Karl Marx. Capital, Vol III.
10 J M Keynes, The General Theory, Ch. 2.