Outlook line rates of growth tion, Chinese growth actually constitutes one background factors leading to tae crises ciscwacie in esta in 1997. Gowan does not deal in any detail with relations between capital and labour. Yet surely the rise of tensions in this area in South Korea since 1987, and in particular the success of Korcan workers in resisting austerity plans in the winter of 1996-7, are as important as US ccoan explaining the development of the crisis there.
owan's concenG Stration on the financial underestimate the importance of renewed US strength in production. lt out, that the boom information technology the USA has not significantly raised productivity growth there. and that it has led to a dangerous speculative DuDDIe in the stock market. However. it is also surely the case that in a number of key industrics whien apocar central to capitalist acumulation over the next two decades - telecommunications, computer software, biotechnology US capital has manased to be more innovative and successful in the 1990s than cither lapanese or German capital 03S0 COSOs this. for example open immigration policies, the nature of the financial system, spin-offs military production, have been hotly dis. puted. But inasmuch as the USA has reasserted economic leadership in the capitalist world over the last opments in production as well as financial leverage. A notber about Gowan's book is atacave fact This willingaess to sus gest concrete policy deal with the international instability which he diagnoses. His prescriptions (pages around two pirots - taming the power of financia. markets and Debts and dependency also help secure US domination reorganising the relationship nece seres autos bate ularly Eastern and Western Burope.
At this point Gowan righily financial and productive relations and that the financial sector will not be brought under control without a strategy for economic growth.
a mas strateks, in aos view, is to be centred on the provision of massive financial coouseca Bastero European development, which will in turn allow for a virtuous cycle of growin in Western Europe This vision is compelling and inspiring. However, it nomic stagnation Western Europe is caused not simply by a mined strategy the part of European capital to break the rela tive social and economic power of labour. I would argue that this gap Gowan's linked to his central stress on interstate competition at the expense of other social conflicts.
For Gowan, attempts to break up primarily from an American initiative, backed by Britain, to impose ism on the continent. The interests of European capitalists are recognised but allotted a subordinate place in this process.
Yet it could also be argued that the line of causation runs the other way. It is the project of European capital achieved by labour which has led reverse both to siow growth and the ascen dancy of finance rather than the power of finance imposing a social strategy on Europe. References R Brenner (1998) "The Economics of Global Turbulence: Uneven Development and the Long Downturn - The Advanced Capitalist economies from Boom to Stagnation, 1950-1998". New Left Review. no.229 May-June. R McKinnon and K Ohno (1997) Dollor and Yen: Resolving Economic Conflict between the United States ond Jopon, MIT Press. R Wade and F Veneroso (1998) *The Asian Crisis: The High Debt Model Versus the Wall StreetTreasury-IMF Complex', New Left Review, no. 228. March-April. • This is a slightly edited version of a review which was initially published in Labour focus on Bastera Europe