Can this last?

[Fabrizio]

As you will know people, the Noughties are over and we begin a new decade; therefore it seems the time to ask: can our current system of global capitalism last?

There is a tiny amount of the world's population, based in the west, consuming the majority of the resources, while in the majority of the world the elites only survive through despotic rule, and only serve to oversee American looting of their countries resources. The US government and its native lackeys are hated by the great majority of people in these countries, who are also the majority world population.

We're already seeing the American/Western (same thing, the former is the only sustaining factor of the latter) influence in terminal decline in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Latin America.

The attempts to make examples of Afghanistan and Iraq have only strengthened Iran. Israel is more marginalized than ever and now even Obama and the Tories in Britain have to pay lip-service to condemning this racist state. Putin has flexed his muscles in South Ossetia and Germany and Italy didn't even back the yanks, a truly historic abstention.

In Latin America the oligarchic opposition to Chavez, Morales, Correa, the Kirchners, Lula/Dilma, have all failed, and these regimes enjoy continuing popularity. The US can't even get it's way in it's own backyard, ALBA advances, and their only response was a vicious coup in Honduras, which has helped to wake up the rest of the continent, and to disgrace the once popular Obama in their eyes.

Even in the heartland of global capitalism itself, the elites have turned on their own middle classes and workers. Their only answer so far has been austerity, no progressive New Deal style policies.

What an enlightened American and EU leaderships would have done of course would be to smash the banks for their specualtion and use their money for a massive investment in infrastructure at home, and a Marshall Plan for the Third World. But will they learn this in time, or will we keep going headlong for social conflict? Will the world look to the BRIC countries to provide an alternative? Will they be able/willing to?

HAPPY 2011!:cool:

[Dimentio]

It will largely collapse between 2030 and 2070 if they insist on keeping it.

It would most likely be replaced by... well, Somalia... but on a global scale.

The rich people will live in gated communities, while the rest would be left to manage themselves somehow.

[FreeFocus]

It won't last forever but it will survive this decade.

[The Fighting_Crusnik]

It will largely collapse between 2030 and 2070 if they insist on keeping it.

It would most likely be replaced by... well, Somalia... but on a global scale.

The rich people will live in gated communities, while the rest would be left to manage themselves somehow.


So in essence, it'd be feudalism all over again...

All in all, I think it will fall sooner than that especially considering how reckless the tea-party infected GOP has become. And as for our influence in the middle east, I figure that the majority of that had died already. The American people are now becoming sick of it including staunch conservatives like my family... who after finding out that my cousin got shot today is starting to change their minds on the war... When the final chime rings, it won't be a pretty thing for the world because I sense that many powaers will attempt to fill the vacuum that will be left after the US loses it's global power.... and the result of that will be the wasting of life and the lost of security throughout the world...

[Goatpie]

Don't worry aslong as theres the chance of people becomming rich Some day we will all be okay now get your mind off all this and go shopping or watch some Tv.

Id give it till 2030-2050 When people see through the bullshit of the wars and realize the destruction of our rights.
The People will be pushed in a corner and the only way out is a bloody revolution :(

[ExUnoDisceOmnes]

I would like to propose a scenario... if capitalism and the American and British governments/bourgeois were to collapse, WHAT WOULD WE DO? Would we be able to organize? What action would we take as of now?

[Broletariat]

I would like to propose a scenario... if capitalism and the American and British governments/bourgeois were to collapse, WHAT WOULD WE DO? Would we be able to organize? What action would we take as of now?
Why would they collapse? In what class's interests is it for them to collapse without an already organised working class?

[ExUnoDisceOmnes]

It's just a hypothetical... come on. What I'm saying is that we don't actually really have a set way or idea of a way that we would act. We need that if we're going to make revolutionary progress...

[Broletariat]

It's just a hypothetical... come on. What I'm saying is that we don't actually really have a set way or idea of a way that we would act. We need that if we're going to make revolutionary progress...
Why create tactics for a hypothetical situation when we have real situations to deal with?

[psgchisolm]

Why create tactics for a hypothetical situation when we have real situations to deal with?
Why not worry about a hypothetical collapse in 2030-2050? It's a real suitation to deal with. What if they did collapse, we would've spent so much time waiting for people to change and come to realization that when they did we wouldn't have a plan in action and we would have to endure possibly decades under reign of a fascist government or a similar capitalist government because we couldn't act fast enough to capture control and organize the workers. The world is full of possibilities I'm not ready to discount, not because their not "probable" or because their "impossible" to consider happening, but because It's always when you're at your weakest does the enemy strike and do the most damage. If you slip up there will be someone who won't and they'll be ready to take advantage. Personally I'm not willing to be sent to a work camp for 5+ years or maybe for life because a fascist government took power and imprisoned socialists and communists because when the time came we didn't have a plan in action, I refuse to let the past repeat itself. History is written by the victors, I plan on having my pen ready.

[Die Neue Zeit]

It will largely collapse between 2030 and 2070 if they insist on keeping it.

It would most likely be replaced by... well, Somalia... but on a global scale.

The rich people will live in gated communities, while the rest would be left to manage themselves somehow.


I sense that many powers will attempt to fill the vacuum that will be left after the US loses it's global power.... and the result of that will be the wasting of life and the lost of security throughout the world...

First, let's deal with the inter-imperialist war.

Obviously because there would have been no improvement in the political situation, it would be idiotic to call for "revolutionary defeatism." As I said in another thread, it applies only in a revolutionary period, and otherwise one has to determine if it's imperialist aggression or an inter-imperialist conflict, progressive or reactionary "anti-imperialism" in the former case, and which imperialist power stifles worker struggles more in the latter case. HINT: Engels sided with the imperialist power Germany against the imperialist powers of the Entente.

Second, with such anti-political climate necessitating a less-than-ideal form of party-based takeover, some form of Socialism From Above with Socialist Primitive Accumulation and all the Red Terror that goes with it would have to be necessary, and the political agency/"subject" would be focused more on economic reconstruction (more micro-managed than Stalin's) than working class emancipation.

I don't want all these to happen.

[Dimentio]

Why would they collapse? In what class's interests is it for them to collapse without an already organised working class?

They are not all-powerful. They could collapse from external pressure, without any strong opposition movement. The Roman Empire did for example not collapse because of a slave revolution, but because of economic overstretch and environmental decline.

[Broletariat]

They are not all-powerful. They could collapse from external pressure, without any strong opposition movement. The Roman Empire did for example not collapse because of a slave revolution, but because of economic overstretch and environmental decline.
The Roman Empire might have collapsed, but did that mode of production fall with it?

My point here being that the current bourgeoisie institutions may crumble, but unless the proletariat decide to revolt, then Capitalism is going to stay.

[Die Neue Zeit]

Yes the slave mode of production did. Feudalism replaced it.

I hear shouts from bourgeois economic determinists (http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/v-vcrisislate-capitalism/420307/) saying that systems cannot be changed politically until they're fully exhausted economically. I say that Rome could have lasted a little longer with a more expansionist policy, ditto with European and Japanese feudalism, and ditto with Oriental modes of production.

[Broletariat]

Yes the slave mode of production did. Feudalism replaced it.
I thought those were essentially the same thing >_>

But lets not derail this thread.