The Incoming Finacial Collapse

[Vince]

I know its important to try and convince people of how terrible the capitalist system is but I have been wondering exactly what we plan on doing in the next few years, after another financial collapse.

Given that Wall Street is still playing by its own rules and Congress and the Obama administration are still doing everything they can to protect the bankers and corporate executives, I think its obvious that a financial collapse is inevitable is and only being accelerated by lack of justice. Since such a collapse will most likely be much worse than the one in 2008, what should we expect the peoples' reaction to be? Will people finally realize that state capitalism and our government are not working and organize for a new system? Or are the details of such an event to difficult to predict?

[Mackenzie_Blanc]

The capitalist system is bound to collapse either through a rapid financial meltdown, as Wall Street messes up its derivatives trading and goes out of business, drying global capital markets; or a protracted budget crisis in Europe and America as Keynesian policies leading to deficits and currency inflation, which always hurts the working class. Couple that with a stagnant economy where inequality increases every year, and people are bound to reject capitalism. But it is utterly hopeless to try this change through electoral politics.

[Sentinel]

While the current model of capitalism, neo-liberalism, indeed is digging it's own grave and might not find a way out of the current crisis, we unfortunately can't afford to lean back and eat popcorn. Capitalism finds a way and mutates to new forms, unless replaced by socialism through a workers revolution.

In the best scenario it would develop into a keynesian (social-democrat) direction, but that isn't the trend when you look for example at most european countries. With the risk of sounding 'alarmist' authoritarian forms are unfortunately a much more realistic option.

This is why it's urgent that we act right now to bring people over to socialist ideas in the most effective way; by supporting and initiating workers struggles. We indeed can't just point at capitalism and say it's bad, that's not how it works.

A transitional program is necessary if we are ever to reach out to the workers and win them over to our alternative. We in the CWI argue that new mass workers parties with clear anti-capitalist programmes should be built through workers struggles around transitional demands.

Others propose different ways of action. But one thing is sure - it's time for action right now.

[Klaatu]

I do not see this alleged financial collapse, per se, as a bad thing.
On the contrary, I see this as an opportunity for the inevitable Socialist Revolution to take root and flourish.

In this collapse, we kick the Capitalist while he is down (as he has been kicking the working man while he is down) :cursing:

[tuwix]

People finally will destroy capitalism. It is inevitable. Form me it is irrelevant how.

[Blake's Baby]

...

In the best scenario it would develop into a keynesian (social-democrat) direction, but that isn't the trend when you look for example at most european countries. With the risk of sounding 'alarmist' authoritarian forms are unfortunately a much more realistic option...

You think 'Keynesianism' can't go hand-in-hand with 'authoritarian forms'?

You do know that the Nazis were Keynesians, that the Swedish Social-democratic Party (head of the most Keynesian government team in Western Europe since WWII) had an enforced sterilisation programme for Gypsies and the mentally ill until the 1970s, that the USA (in the midst of its Keynesian policies of the '30s-'40s) atom-bombed two Japanese cities, that the Keynesians of the Labour Party in the UK supported the US in Korea and Vietnam, etc?

[Orange Juche]

I know its important to try and convince people of how terrible the capitalist system is but I have been wondering exactly what we plan on doing in the next few years, after another financial collapse

Dispell the myths and inform people what leftist ideologies actually are about, so when it hits the fan, people realize there are alternatives.

[RebelDog]

Another financial collapse will mean another austerity orgy. God help the NHS.

[heylelshalem]

its definately getting close to a window where change could happen quick enough. i mean even the government adopted "socialist-like" programs during the great depression. MAybe people could do an advert on how all their electronics pretty much and all their clothes and shoes are basically made with slave/serf labor lol. Wish i could hijack the tv and the internet for a week and just put it out everywhere.

[heylelshalem]

you know when times get leaner working people will listen more.

[Blake's Baby]

They'll also listen to fascists more.

In times of hardship there will be some people who liten to those voices saying 'you're out of work and it's all the fault of the Blacks/Jews/Mexicans/single mothers/unemployed... what the country needs is to persecute them'.

So, let's not get too complacent and go 'hey capitalism's going to hell, isn't it brilliant?' because as it collapses the conditions for the successful transformatioon of society are actually disappearing. The total collapse of capitalism won't produce socialism; it'll produce a feral blighted wasteland. We need to, to borrow a phrase, destroy capitalism before it destroys us.

[Luís Henrique]

They'll also listen to fascists more.

They will listen to anyone who speaks. Which is a good reason we shouldn't be silent.

Luís Henrique

[Sentinel]

You think 'Keynesianism' can't go hand-in-hand with 'authoritarian forms'?

You do know that the Nazis were Keynesians, that the Swedish Social-democratic Party (head of the most Keynesian government team in Western Europe since WWII) had an enforced sterilisation programme for Gypsies and the mentally ill until the 1970s, that the USA (in the midst of its Keynesian policies of the '30s-'40s) atom-bombed two Japanese cities, that the Keynesians of the Labour Party in the UK supported the US in Korea and Vietnam, etc?


You're right, obviously. I should have said 'authoritarian austerity government' or something instead, as that is what I meant.

[Vladimir Innit Lenin]

Socialists seem to have a basic mis-understanding of economics.

Financial volatility is mutually exclusive to the health of the capitalist system. Aside from low interest rates and inflation problems, volatility in financial markets is how financial capitalists tend to make their money, in its rentier form. Financial collapse, due to the hegemony of banks and financial capital, tends to hit industrial capital hardest but, seeing as financial capital has gone some way to replacing industrial capital in the most developed countries, i'm not sure why financial volatility and its resultant negative effects on industrial capital should automatically lead to the collapse of an entire system?

I have to say, I just don't see capitalism collapsing any time soon. It may lurch from crisis to crisis and indeed one of the criticisms of long-wave Socialist analysis (Kondratieff et al.) is that economic cycles have been getting shorter and shorter. Whereas previously one could go 50 or so years without desperate crisis, today we see the cycle in terms of 10 or even 5 year periods.

So yes, capitalism overall is becoming more volatile and this undermines the fundamental production process of the system, so it's not something that can last forever but, unfortunately, I don't see the entire system collapsing in on itself any time in the near future.

[ckaihatsu]

Socialists seem to have a basic mis-understanding of economics.

Financial volatility is mutually exclusive to the health of the capitalist system.




Aside from low interest rates and inflation problems,


These are *contradictory* dynamics -- by definition low interest rates correspond to *deflation*, meaning that reserves of capital vastly outsupply feasible investment opportunities ('demand') for the use of those capital goods.

Inflation problems are associated with *high* demand for capital, usually for purely speculative financial activity. Any "inflation" problems we may be currently seeing, as in higher prices for everyday goods, are actually due to *speculative* financial activities in these markets, creating artificial volatility, since there are no 'sexier', real-growth markets available anymore.





[V]olatility in financial markets is how financial capitalists tend to make their money, in its rentier form.


In the sense of charging fees for facilitating financial transactions, and/or for a client's short-term access to capital.





Financial collapse, due to the hegemony of banks and financial capital, tends to hit industrial capital hardest but, seeing as financial capital has gone some way to replacing industrial capital in the most developed countries, i'm not sure why financial volatility and its resultant negative effects on industrial capital should automatically lead to the collapse of an entire system?


Financial volatility is symptomatic of predatory speculative financial activity -- it means that investments are *not* long-term, because there are no possibilities for seeing returns on actual long-term growth.





I have to say, I just don't see capitalism collapsing any time soon. It may lurch from crisis to crisis and indeed one of the criticisms of long-wave Socialist analysis (Kondratieff et al.) is that economic cycles have been getting shorter and shorter. Whereas previously one could go 50 or so years without desperate crisis, today we see the cycle in terms of 10 or even 5 year periods.

So yes, capitalism overall is becoming more volatile and this undermines the fundamental production process of the system, so it's not something that can last forever but, unfortunately, I don't see the entire system collapsing in on itself any time in the near future.


If the economies of the main developed (imperialist) countries become subject to sustained superficial speculation-driven volatility, then the whole existential *meaning* of the market mechanism is thrown into disarray -- economic activity is no longer about the underlying *real* goods and services. Even the most staunch market apologist will have to admit that areas of economic / material activity are wholly dependent on superficial casino-like popularity, with no regard over who would like to sell real goods and services, and who would like to buy.

Also, on the topic of world-war-spurring competitive currency devaluations:





The finance ministers’ statement reiterated “our commitments to move more rapidly towards more market-determined exchange rate systems and exchange rate flexibility to reflect underlying fundamentals, and avoid persistent exchange rate misalignments.”

It added: “We will refrain from competitive devaluation. We will not target our exchange rates for competitive purposes, will resist all forms of protectionism and keep our markets open.”

The key phrase is “for competitive purposes”. Provided countries say that increasing the money supply through central bank intervention in financial markets is aimed at boosting the domestic economy, then their actions will fall within the G20 guidelines. But the inevitable consequence of such action is to weaken the exchange rate of the given national currency in international markets.




http://wsws.org/en/articles/2013/02/18/econ-f18.html

[#FF0000]

I do not see this alleged financial collapse, per se, as a bad thing.
On the contrary, I see this as an opportunity for the inevitable Socialist Revolution to take root and flourish.

In this collapse, we kick the Capitalist while he is down (as he has been kicking the working man while he is down) :cursing:

lmao nah dude collapse favors the "forces of reaction" and capital more than anyone.

[Blake's Baby]

They will listen to anyone who speaks. Which is a good reason we shouldn't be silent.

Luís Henrique

I agree. I was pointing out that the capitalist crisis is not something that automatically guarantees people will come round to 'socialism', in the face of what seem to be suggestions that we should just sit back and wait for the crisis to deliver the revolution.

[Winkers Fons]

lmao nah dude collapse favors the "forces of reaction" and capital more than anyone.

Unfortunately that is often the case. Expect to see more anarcho-capitalists, Ron Paulites, and maybe even fascists in the event of another major crisis. It all depends on whether or not the reactionary media will be able to effectively blame "socialists" for the crisis as they have done in the past.

[Vince]

Unfortunately that is often the case. Expect to see more anarcho-capitalists, Ron Paulites, and maybe even fascists in the event of another major crisis. It all depends on whether or not the reactionary media will be able to effectively blame "socialists" for the crisis as they have done in the past.
If the Ron Paul version of libertarianism were to take root it would be a disaster almost immediately. From my understanding, its almost corporate anarchy. There is a government but does next to nothing to help workers. Its basically allows for privatized tyranny.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Capitalist crisis opens up the conversation of how such material abundance can be here in the U.S., Canada, in Europe, etc, yet there being a large amount of joblessness and poverty. It shows capitalism's inner most contradictions of a economy based on production for exchange, not production for use. It doesn't mean we're going to win people over though just that it makes the anti-capitalist stance that much easier to make.

[ckaihatsu]

Capitalist crisis opens up the conversation of how such material abundance can be here in the U.S., Canada, in Europe, etc, yet there being a large amount of joblessness and poverty. It shows capitalism's inner most contradictions of a economy based on production for exchange, not production for use. It doesn't mean we're going to win people over though just that it makes the anti-capitalist stance that much easier to make.


Arguably a good inroad-type argument to make would be one that counters identity-politics-type thinking, or demographics-based worldviews, like that of nation-and-race. (I'll counterpose the actual social reality as being that of *class*-and-race.)

People need to see that privatization is not the answer, so that means that all private-property-based cultural enclaves are now like stranded islands of micro-culture as *all* private property becomes wholly unproductive (in this current economy) -- why should people let themselves fall victim to *any* stranded-island-consciousness when they could instead join forces on a *class* basis and make the entire world our own, once and for all -- ?

[A Revolutionary Tool]

Arguably a good inroad-type argument to make would be one that counters identity-politics-type thinking, or demographics-based worldviews, like that of nation-and-race. (I'll counterpose the actual social reality as being that of *class*-and-race.)

People need to see that privatization is not the answer, so that means that all private-property-based cultural enclaves are now like stranded islands of micro-culture as *all* private property becomes wholly unproductive (in this current economy) -- why should people let themselves fall victim to *any* stranded-island-consciousness when they could instead join forces on a *class* basis and make the entire world our own, once and for all -- ?
I don't see how this is a response to what I said :confused:

But yeah, I don't think nationalism is a progressive force at this point, at least not in the USA.

[ckaihatsu]

I don't see how this is a response to what I said :confused:


You alluded to engaging others in political conversation around the impending event of renewed capitalist crisis, with an eye toward bringing them around to socialist / class consciousness:





Capitalist crisis opens up the conversation




win people over




it makes the anti-capitalist stance that much easier to make.


---





But yeah, I don't think nationalism is a progressive force at this point, at least not in the USA.


We should be clear that the *only* time nationalism was *at all* a progressive development was when it first formed, because the emerging city-states of northern Europe gave refuge to serfs escaping from landed estates. These days, no.





Towns began to revive as craftsmen and traders settled in them, erecting shops and workshops around the castles and churches. Trading networks grew up which tied formerly isolated villages together around expanding towns and influenced the way of life in a wide area.101 To obtain money to buy luxuries and arms, lords would encourage serfs to produce cash crops and substitute money rents for labour services or goods in kind. Some found an extra source of income from the dues they could charge traders for allowing markets on their land.

Life in the towns was very different from life in the countryside. The traders and artisans were free individuals not directly under the power of any lord. There was a German saying, ‘Town air makes you free.’ The urban classes were increasingly loath to accept the prerogatives of the lordly class. Traders and artisans who needed extra labour would welcome serfs who had fled bondage on nearby estates. And as the towns grew in size and wealth they acquired the means to defend their independence and freedom, building walls and arming urban militias.




Harman, _People's History of the World_, Chapter 6 - European feudalism

[Ostrinski]

Capitalist crisis opens up the conversation of how such material abundance can be here in the U.S., Canada, in Europe, etc, yet there being a large amount of joblessness and poverty. It shows capitalism's inner most contradictions of a economy based on production for exchange, not production for use. It doesn't mean we're going to win people over though just that it makes the anti-capitalist stance that much easier to make.It makes the case of fascists, religious reactionaries, and various other rightists (which are in abundance in the US) just as much easier to make, though.

Periods of crisis breed the conditions ripe for various degrees of false consciousness. The more fucked up the situation is, the more fucked up explanations, excuses, and antidotes will make start to make sense. That is why an economic crisis is a demagogue's playground.

So I think saying that economic crisis = masses will realize socialism is the answer and revolt is faulty and historically unsupported. Unless you're saying that socialists should themselves become demagogues and inspire revolution through fiery speeches and romantic propaganda, and that by extension raising consciousness is a mere matter of competing political campaigns with the right and series of pedagogic exercises where we beat into those darn workers' heads that socialism = good and x = bad.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

It makes the case of fascists, religious reactionaries, and various other rightists (which are in abundance in the US) just as much easier to make, though.

Periods of crisis breed the conditions ripe for various degrees of false consciousness. The more fucked up the situation is, the more fucked up explanations, excuses, and antidotes will make start to make sense. That is why an economic crisis is a demagogue's playground.

So I think saying that economic crisis = masses will realize socialism is the answer and revolt is faulty and historically unsupported. Unless you're saying that socialists should themselves become demagogues and inspire revolution through fiery speeches and romantic propaganda, and that by extension raising consciousness is a mere matter of competing political campaigns with the right and series of pedagogic exercises where we beat into those darn workers' heads that socialism = good and x = bad.
Did you miss the part where I said "It doesn't mean we're going to win (http://www.revleft.com/vb/#) people over though"? Clearly that's me saying that economic crisis =/= masses will realize socialism is the answer.

Economic crisis makes our case easier because the contradictions are so glaringly obvious to the people that just about everyone in the system is scrambling for answers. The laissez-faire type suddenly don't think nationalization of banks is a ridiculous idea as long as it keeps the system in tact, millions get thrown out of jobs and homes while workplaces rust, etc, etc. I'm the last guy that's hoping for an economic crisis(being that my family and I aren't doing too well at the moment without a huge economic crisis that wouldn't really help the situation) but the inevitability of crisis in capitalism means that we should be somewhat prepared for when shit does hit the fan.

[aty]

While the current model of capitalism, neo-liberalism, indeed is digging it's own grave and might not find a way out of the current crisis, we unfortunately can't afford to lean back and eat popcorn. Capitalism finds a way and mutates to new forms, unless replaced by socialism through a workers revolution.

How can capitalism mutate when it cant accumulate more capital growth? Both the keynesian and neoliberal policies have failed because the productive forces have developed beyond the capitalist property relations. Capital cant find new ways of growth because the new technogical advancements/productive forces is in a conflict with the capitalist system itself. The microelectronic revolution means that the tendency of the rate of profit to fall have become a reality.

Capitalism needs capital growth to survive, but the amount of total labour in the material production process becomes less and less because of technological advancements and no new real value is created.

We cant just undo the technological advancements, they are a reality. And the technology is moving towards the destruction of the commodity system and thus capitalism itself. I cant see what sort of capitalist mutation that could stop this technological development?

Communism is more than ever the future. There is no way forward for capitalism. It is time for every communist to realise this, there is no longer such a thing as a "transitional period" as it is impossible to manage capitalism any longer. It is a clinical dead system on life support by debt.


At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production or – this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms – with the property relations within the framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure. /Karl Marx 1859

[ckaihatsu]

How can capitalism mutate when it cant accumulate more capital growth?


Currency / trade wars, warfare, the destruction of economic and human capital, and fascism.

[aty]

Currency / trade wars, warfare, the destruction of economic and human capital, and fascism.
But how is that different from capitalism today? We are talking about a mutation in the economical structures of capitalism, such as fordism to postfordism...

[ckaihatsu]

But how is that different from capitalism today? We are talking about a mutation in the economical structures of capitalism, such as fordism to postfordism...


I don't disagree. I don't mean to bicker.

[Blake's Baby]

But how is that different from capitalism today? We are talking about a mutation in the economical structures of capitalism, such as fordism to postfordism...

Not really. Capitalism has used two main mechanisms for 'managing' the crisis, state capitalism and debt; it hasn't doe away with the contradictions, it's just moved them around. So in one sense, it isn't different from capitalism today. The only way it can survive is by using bigger and bigger financial drugs (primarily debt) to keep the system afloat (at the risk of meltdown if ever anyone tries to call in the debt - once upon a time, firms went bankrupt; then banks that guaranteed firms went bankrupt; now countries that guarantee banks that guarantee firms go bankrupt - what's next?).

The alternative is massive war to destroy excess capital. And excess people.

Or, of course, revolution.

[Delenda Carthago]

The first and most important thing, is to clarify what caused the crisis.

Is it a debt crisis? Is it a eurozone crisis? Is it a PIGS crisis? Is it a neoliberalist crisis? Or is it a domestic capitalist crisis of overproduction?

Of course, whoever answers anything but the last, can go fuck himself.

Studying and understanding is the key to a successful revolutionary strategy.

Hints: look at the percentage of involvement of "dead labour" for the last decades. Marx was so dead right...

[ckaihatsu]

[o]nce upon a time, firms went bankrupt; then banks that guaranteed firms went bankrupt; now countries that guarantee banks that guarantee firms go bankrupt - what's next?).


nato. [--?]


[edit: Doesn't post in all caps as it should.]

[TheEmancipator]

I'm not quite sure why you support Keynesianism, but for different reasons eluded. The problem with neo-keynesianism is that most of the money they give out will go to bankers, "entrepreneurs", investors, big construction corporations, not to the actual workers boosting the economy. This isn't really Keynes' fault, more like the lobbyist-fuelled politicians who like to prop up big time charlies.

The idea behind keynesianism is a good, humanist solution to a capitalist problem. I guess from a pragmatic viewpoint, a leftist who wants to make a difference would welcome a strong keynesian investment plan to at least help some people who are in the shitter (in countries like Greece and Spain). We don't want the capitalist problem to start with though.

[aty]

Not really. Capitalism has used two main mechanisms for 'managing' the crisis, state capitalism and debt; it hasn't doe away with the contradictions, it's just moved them around. So in one sense, it isn't different from capitalism today. The only way it can survive is by using bigger and bigger financial drugs (primarily debt) to keep the system afloat (at the risk of meltdown if ever anyone tries to call in the debt - once upon a time, firms went bankrupt; then banks that guaranteed firms went bankrupt; now countries that guarantee banks that guarantee firms go bankrupt - what's next?).

The alternative is massive war to destroy excess capital. And excess people.

Or, of course, revolution.
But these policies is nothing fundamentally new as the move from keynesian policies to neoliberal ones in the 70s. It is either keynesian policies(more state debt) or neoliberal(cuts in state spending), nothing new about that. In the crisis of the 30s there was an alternative presented by Keynes, in the 70s crisis there was an alternative presented by the Chicago-school, today there is no such alternative for capitalism.

The only way for capitalism to survive is to increase the amount of total labor in the material commodity production. Fordism was a result of new technology such as the car and the following mass production, this production increased the total amount of labor, and thus the creation of value.

But todays new technology decreases the total amount of labor in the production process, and thus no new real value is created.
I cant see how capitalism can be restructured in such a way that it fundamentally changes in which direction technology is heading. I think the world soon must realise basic facts in what direction we are heading, capitalism can not adapt to the new technological advancements. What will happen when 3D-printers become the norm, for an example.

Capitalism has reached its highest stage already and it is a clinically dead system. We communists also have to adopt this perspective and put all keynesian fantasies on the dustbin of history, even famous "marxists" such as David Harvey and the whole spectrum of "marxist intellectuals" are still basically keynesian in their theories. Believing that capitalism can constantly "re-invent" itself in some way or another, they are not looking at in which direction the material reality is heading.

Marx was so much more radical than the current conversation about the crisis among "the left", and even on this forum.

[Blake's Baby]

But these policies is nothing fundamentally new as the move from keynesian policies to neoliberal ones in the 70s. It is either keynesian policies(more state debt) or neoliberal(cuts in state spending), nothing new about that. In the crisis of the 30s there was an alternative presented by Keynes, in the 70s crisis there was an alternative presented by the Chicago-school, today there is no such alternative for capitalism...

No, that's not the case - have you ever read economics textbooks from the 1960s? I did, because for a very long time I was very poor (damn capitalism) so all my books came from second hand shops. For most of the 90s I wasn't reading anything published after 1973. Even then, they knew that the Chicago School's return to a tight money supply was a failed and discredited policy. It was the policy that keynesianism replaced... to be repleaced by neo-monetarism to be replaced by neo-keynesianism to be replced by neo-neo-monetarism to be replaced by neo-neo-keynesianism... there have only two policies for the last 100 years, they just alternate. Neither solves the problem for capitalism, it just shifts it around.


...The only way for capitalism to survive is to increase the amount of total labor in the material commodity production. Fordism was a result of new technology such as the car and the following mass production, this production increased the total amount of labor, and thus the creation of value.

But todays new technology decreases the total amount of labor in the production process, and thus no new real value is created.
I cant see how capitalism can be restructured in such a way that it fundamentally changes in which direction technology is heading. I think the world soon must realise basic facts in what direction we are heading, capitalism can not adapt to the new technological advancements. What will happen when 3D-printers become the norm, for an example.

Capitalism has reached its highest stage already and it is a clinically dead system. We communists also have to adopt this perspective and put all keynesian fantasies on the dustbin of history, even famous "marxists" such as David Harvey and the whole spectrum of "marxist intellectuals" are still basically keynesian in their theories. Believing that capitalism can constantly "re-invent" itself in some way or another, they are not looking at in which direction the material reality is heading.

Marx was so much more radical than the current conversation about the crisis among "the left", and even on this forum.

I don't disagree that capitalism has already reached its 'highest stage', nor that it is 'clinically dead'. I'd say capitalism has been an obsolete system for a century, and any policy the bourgeoisie puts into practice exists for no other reason than to defer the crisis.

But by 're-inventing' itself I don't mean that it can suddenly start a new cycle of rapid growth. It can find ways to keep the system going (debt and state capitalism being the two that saw it through much of the 20th century, when the assumption of Engels in the late 19th, and Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky in the early 20th, was that it was on its last legs. That obviously isn't true; it has managed to sustain itself (at horrific social and environmental cost) and I'm not certain it can't continue to do so, becoming more and more horrific all the time. But that won't bring about socialism; we must destroy capitalism, not just watch it crumble then go 'right, now it's our turn'.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ Rhetorical question: But does that not pose strategic and immediate political imperatives?

[Blake's Baby]

To me? Of course it does.

[aty]

No, that's not the case - have you ever read economics textbooks from the 1960s? I did, because for a very long time I was very poor (damn capitalism) so all my books came from second hand shops. For most of the 90s I wasn't reading anything published after 1973. Even then, they knew that the Chicago School's return to a tight money supply was a failed and discredited policy. It was the policy that keynesianism replaced... to be repleaced by neo-monetarism to be replaced by neo-keynesianism to be replced by neo-neo-monetarism to be replaced by neo-neo-keynesianism... there have only two policies for the last 100 years, they just alternate. Neither solves the problem for capitalism, it just shifts it around.

I don't disagree that capitalism has already reached its 'highest stage', nor that it is 'clinically dead'. I'd say capitalism has been an obsolete system for a century, and any policy the bourgeoisie puts into practice exists for no other reason than to defer the crisis.
But by 're-inventing' itself I don't mean that it can suddenly start a new cycle of rapid growth. It can find ways to keep the system going (debt and state capitalism being the two that saw it through much of the 20th century, when the assumption of Engels in the late 19th, and Lenin, Luxemburg and Trotsky in the early 20th, was that it was on its last legs. That obviously isn't true; it has managed to sustain itself (at horrific social and environmental cost) and I'm not certain it can't continue to do so, becoming more and more horrific all the time. But that won't bring about socialism; we must destroy capitalism, not just watch it crumble then go 'right, now it's our turn'.
The problem of capitalism can never be solved, but what I am saying is that neither of these economic theories to manage capitalism is no longer possible to implement and then suddenly have real growth again. This is because of the new microelectronic revolution, the material reality have made the management of capitalism impossible. It was not impossible to manage capitalism during fordism/keynesianism which also was a result of new technology such as the car and the following mass production. This technology actually put people to work creating new commodities and created new value.

The new technology of today dont put people to work in commodity production and thus not enough new value is created. Neither way of managing capitalism can no longer work, the material reality is different than before. They cant no longer just manage capitalism by the state, they can not longer uphold the whole system by accumulating more debt.

The new productive forces coming to the front dont mix with the capitalist property relations. In many different ways. Just look at open source code, torrents and the whole spectrum of the internet. Or the new 3D-printers. The new productive forces is best developed as commons, not as commodities. How will you manage capitalism in a world where you can just print the product you want from a 3D-printer with the blueprint uploaded on the internet for free?
We are slowly moving to the death of the commodity system, there is no way you can manage such a shift in the productive forces with the old capitalist property relations still intact. And I have just described the tehcnical aspect of why capitalism will become or already is impossible.

Today we can already print our own guns, with blueprints available from the internet. This is communism in real movement; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-21639015

This material development is a huge difference from anything we have seen before in a capitalist economic system. The new productive forces is forcing communism and this progress will certainly make a big clash with the existing property relations. How do you stop people from printing all products and making all commodities into commons? It is basically the same question as, how do you stop people from downloading immaterial property, as internet has showed us, you cant. There is no comparison from before in history.

[Delenda Carthago]

tatarara....


http://sphotos-a.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/226553_10200209307648729_1778033984_n.jpg

http://www.citibank.com/ipb/europe/pdfs/annual_2013.pdf?source=FB-2012

[ckaihatsu]

technology such as the car and the following mass production




the new microelectronic revolution




print the product you want from a 3D-printer with the blueprint uploaded on the internet for free


I'll agree that current conditions of mass technology and the latest capitalist economic crisis are giving us a unique vantage point on what it means to survive and live in a contemporary social context -- I think we're seeing that there are more material options than ever before for the average working class person to satisfy their biological and social needs *outside* of dependence on the pimp of capital.

We can see now, due to these current conditions, that capital *must* have a 'killer app' -- like automobiles, in the past -- in order to have something to lord over us at a premium. Once their system runs to overproduction and makes such a thing commonplace and cheap, their edge is gone, and it allows people to become empowered, networked, and inter-sufficient on their own.

The enduring question is whether or not we've truly "escaped the estate", now in the context of (mega-)cities -- is there enough at our disposal to go fully d.i.y. in a common way, or will the system find a way to re-innovate social reality to re-attach us once again into dependent work relationships for life -- ?

In strict material terms there may be new, "revolutionary" options for us to decisively turn away and separate from the capitalist cause, but until we've found that paradigm exactly, we shouldn't hold our breath just yet.


[1] History, Macro-Micro -- Precision

http://s6.postimage.org/zbpxjshkd/1_History_Macro_Micro_Precision.jpg (http://postimage.org/image/zbpxjshkd/)

[Paul Pott]

In the US, at least, our economy is based on subsidy. More and more people are going on welfare, while others rack up all sorts of debts. Manufacturing is not declining in the US - only jobs in manufacturing. Even though some capital is being shipped to other countries, the main reason factory jobs are declining is that human labor is simply obsolete on many parts of the assembly line today.

http://www.counterpunch.org/wp-content/dropzone/2012/10/Chart2.jpg

Welfare and credit are all that allow the economy to function at this point, such as the Fed's program of pumping a larger and larger torrent of free money into the markets. The next wave of automation hasn't even hit yet. When it does many of the "service sector" jobs that were touted as the solution back in the 90s will be obsolete as well. Within the decade, "White collar" jobs like IT and the technicians needed to maintain factories will be thoroughly proletarianized before they too dwindle. Even now the reserve army of labor is growing faster than at any time. At the beginning of the 20th century, capitalism was no longer a historically progressive force, and we'll see it lose its viability as a system within our lifetimes.

History will catch up with the liberal world.

A market crash in the near future is inevitable.

[ckaihatsu]

My pet theory right now is that current conditions are similar to those of the 'Dark Ages', in that both are about endless stagnation with nothing but uncertainty on the horizon of civilization. The *upside*, though, as the text notes, is that better techniques, introduced from the outside -- computers, especially, for today -- became commonly available and increased the amount of utility for the average person.





The 5th century was a period of break up and confusion for the three empires which had dominated southern Eurasia. There was a similar sense of crisis in each, a similar bewilderment as thousand year old civilisations seemed to crumble, as barbarians swept across borders and warlords carved out new kingdoms, as famine and plagues spread, trade declined and cities became depopulated. There were also attempts in all three empires to fix on ideological certainties to counter the new insecurity. In Roman north Africa, Augustine wrote one of the most influential works of Christian doctrine, City of God, in an attempt to come to terms with the sacking of the earthly city of Rome. In China, the Buddhist doctrines elaborated almost a millennium before in India began to gain a mass of adherents, especially among the embattled trading classes. In India new cults flourished as Hinduism consolidated itself.

The similarity between the crises of the civilisations has led some historians to suggest they flowed from a global change in climate. But to blame the weather alone is to ignore the great problem that had beset each of the civilisations for centuries. It lay in the most basic ways in which those who worked the land made a livelihood for themselves and everyone else. Advances in agricultural productivity were nowhere near comparable to those associated with the spread of ironworking a millennium before. Yet the consumption of the rich was more lavish and the superstructure of the state vaster than ever. A point was bound to be reached at which things simply could not go on as before, just as it had with the first Bronze Age civilisations. The crisis was gravest for the Roman world. The flourishing of its civilisation had depended on an apparently endless supply of slaves.




The period which followed in Europe is rightly known as the ‘Dark Ages’. It saw the progressive collapse of civilisation—in the sense of town life, literacy, literature and the arts. But that was not all. The ordinary people who had paid such a price for the glories of Rome paid an even greater price with its demise. Famine and plague racked the lands of the former empire and it is estimated that the population halved in the late 6th and 7th centuries.1 The first wave of Germanic warriors to sweep across the former borders—the Goths and Franks, the Visigoths and Ostrogoths, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes—began to settle in the Roman lands and soon adopted many Roman customs, embracing the Christian religion and often speaking in Latin dialects. But behind them came successive waves of conquerors who had not been touched by Roman influence in the past and came simply to loot and burn rather than settle and cultivate. Huns and Norsemen tore into the kingdoms established by the Franks, the Goths and the Anglo-Saxons, making insecurity and fear as widespread in the 9th and 10th centuries as it had been in the 5th and 6th.




Some [conquerors] also attempted to re-establish the centralised structures of the old empire. At the end of the 5th century the Ostrogoth Theodoric proclaimed himself emperor of the west. At the end of the 8th, Charlemagne established a new empire across most of what is now France, Catalonia, Italy and Germany. But their empires fell apart at their deaths for the same reason that the original Roman Empire fell apart. There was not the material base in production to sustain such vast undertakings.




Yet out of the chaos a new sort of order eventually emerged. Across Europe agriculture began to be organised in ways which owed something both to the self contained estates of the late Roman Empire and the village communities of the conquering peoples. Over time, people began to adopt ways of growing food which were more productive than those of the old empire. The success of invaders such as the Vikings was testimony to the advance of their agricultural (and maritime) techniques, despite their lack of civilisation and urban crafts. Associated with the changing agricultural methods were new forms of social organisation. Everywhere armed lords, resident in crude fortified castles, began simultaneously to exploit and protect villages of dependent peasants, taking tribute from them in the form of unpaid labour or payments in kind. But it was a long time before this laid the basis for a new civilisation.




Harman, _People's History of the World_, pp. 103-105

[Delenda Carthago]

1. The causes of crises are rooted deeply in the very nature of capitalism, in its basic contradiction - between the strengthening social character of production and the private-property form of appropriation that, in pursue for profit, - leading to anarchy in production. It means, that the substantial cause of the crisis is hidden in the contradiction between the labour and the capital. When we tell about the contradiction between the labour and the capital, we first of all imply the contradiction between the end of capitalist production, i.e. the production of surplace value and the application of the socialised labour of immediate workmen, the employed workers, for production and reproduction. The purpose of the capitalist production is the extraction of the surplace value. The capitalist production is dominated by anarchy and antagonisms, that bring us to an unlimited expansion of the capitalist production. The very capitalist relations and the purpose of the capitalist production become an obstacle to the umlimited expansion of production. (http://www.iccr.gr/site/en/issue1/what-the-general-theory-of-crises-suggests.html)
(http://www.iccr.gr/site/en/issue1/what-the-general-theory-of-crises-suggests.html)2. With the anarchy of the production under capitalism from time to time a part of the accumulated capital (in goods, im means of production and in money) cannot be used as a means of exploitation, giving additional profit. Then there happens a termination and then a dicrease of the production, i.e. there develops a crisis of reproduction. (http://www.iccr.gr/site/en/issue1/what-the-general-theory-of-crises-suggests.html)




(...)
(http://www.iccr.gr/site/en/issue1/what-the-general-theory-of-crises-suggests.html)