What is the revolutionary leftists' stance on Depressions/Recessions?

[Yazman]

I have been discussing this with some comrades in my areas as of late, and I have come to a conclusion: depressions & recessions are entirely artificial phenomenons as they exist in capitalist societies.

In a Depression typically there is high inflation, fewer jobs, less supplies, and outbreaks of poverty, sometimes starvation etc. However it seems to me that these are all symptoms of an economy that relies on currency and capitalist economics.

The way I see it - when the stock market crashes, it simply causes a financial crisis. If we look at the economy as it exists beyond currency, the actual ability of people to consume goods and to produce goods, to be employed and to in turn employ, the existence of supplies and their ability to be dispersed to the public - none of these things are in reality diminished. It is their inability to be purchased or traded in financial terms that causes these "shortages" and "supply crises."

Am I totally full of shit or am I onto something here?

[Guest1]

Absolutely. Marx recognized this, and the idiocy of "crises of overproduction", where people are unemployed and starving, because there's too much product and not enough people to buy them, because people are unemployed and starving...

It's important also to recognize that the boom/slump cycle is a defining feature of capitalism, something which did not exist at all in the Soviet Union, even with its bureaucratic degeneration!

[OkaCrisis]

All true.

Some other thoughts I had on the subject:

Financial crises keep the price of labour low by increasing the reserve labour pool, keeping demand for jobs high (among workers), and an endless supply of excess labour at the employer's disposal.

Oppression of workers occurs when they are denied access to the means of production in order to sustain a living. During an economic crash, workers are denied the freedom to work at productive labour or to earn a wage (to exchange for products).

Even at the best of times, skilled workers are often denied access to work or employment as a means to sustain a decent living. Instead, they are forced to scramble at low-wage, insecure jobs (Jit production anyone? Not to mention the ever increasing number of jobs in the service sector, with its great hours, reasonable expectations, and especially the incessant ass-kissing associated with getting your (rich) clients/bosses to treat you with some kind of human dignity).

The icing on the cake? Unless you own property, and/or some of the m.o.p., there isn't anything you can do outside of wage-slavery that isn't illegal.

You can't fish in Crown rivers, or squat on Crown land.


This neo-feudal bullshit has always driven me crazy.

[jake williams]

No worries comrade, it's the capitalist economists and commentators who're full of shit (well, okay, it's cause to worry, but at least you're not insane).

On a related topic of conventional-economic-discourse bullshit... this whole treatment of "jobs" as a commodity, as if it's something that can be created or destroyed and we need more of it because if we have lots of jobs it'll be good... no one ever talks about "capital" or "means of production"... gah.

[BobKKKindle$]

Capitalism is a system which always creates prices of overproduction. Capitalists generate profit by paying workers less than the value of their labour power, such that the collective purchasing power of the working class (especially when saving is taken into account, which is a leakage from the circular flow of income) will never be sufficient to buy all the products available on the market. As such, over time, a surplus will begin to accumulate, forcing capitalists to either destroy the goods or reduce production, in order to avert a fall in market price, which would result in a lower rate of profit.

Overproduction can be averted for a limited period of time, by allowing workers to borrow money to finance consumer goods purchases, but this results in an accumulation of debt, such that if interests rates rise, workers may reduce their consumption in order to finance their debts.

[Yazman]

Thanks guys, helps me out a lot :D

[elijahcraignumbatwo]

Am I totally full of shit or am I onto something here?

Not at all; the system's set up to produce these characteristics, thereby increasing profits of a few at the expense of many. This isn't even difficult, really. It's basic Marxism. (Which the above posts summarize correctly; just thought I'd chime in in support of your original programme/idea.)