The Guardian quotes Lenin

[OI OI OI]

“‘Capitalists can buy themselves out of any crisis, so long as they make the workers pay,’ said Lenin. It is rarely regarded as common sense to quote him in polite company. Yet as a description of what is taking place right now, it is the most sense I've heard in a long time.” :laugh:




interesting article on the IMT website by the way


http://www.marxist.com/markets-routed-in-global-sell-off.htm

[Chapaev]

Where did Lenin write that? I have been unable to find it in his Collected Works.

[OI OI OI]

marxists.org does not have all the volumes of lenin's collected works, nor all things said by Lenin are on his collected works

[Led Zeppelin]

Another very apt quote by Lenin:


The capitalists can do nothing about the gap between prices and wages, and the workers cannot live on their previous wages. The old methods are useless against this calamity. Nothing can be achieved by isolated strikes, the parliamentary struggle, or the vote, because “private property is sacred”, and the capitalists have accumulated such debts that the whole world is in bondage to a handful of men.
Meanwhile the workers’ living conditions are becoming more and more unbearable. There is no other way out but to abolish the exploiters’ “private property”.
Link (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1920/jul/x03.htm)

[cyu]

Thanks for the heads-up. Here's the link to the original article if anyone's interested: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/29/uselections2008.useconomy1

[BraneMatter]

interesting article on the IMT website by the way


http://www.marxist.com/markets-route...l-sell-off.htm (http://www.anonym.to/?http://www.marxist.com/markets-routed-in-global-sell-off.htm)



Thanks, damned good article.




“The developed world took on too much debt and that is now being brutally unwound,” explains the FT. “The banks have been the first to suffer, but they are also the means of transmitting that pressure to everyone else.”

Credit, as Marx explained, allows the system to go beyond its limits. It artificially expands the market, which allows capitalism a further lease of life. However, credit has its limits too. It has to be repaid. We are now witnessing a massive contraction. All the factors that developed the boom over the past 20 years are now turning into their opposites. The profits bonanza has crashed. The market is contracting rapidly. Consumer spending is falling. The capitalists cannot sell their goods. The economies of Europe, USA and Asia are rapidly entering a slump. There is a classical crisis of overproduction. Only though these crises can the system survive by squeezing out this fictitious capital, and reducing the living standards of the workers.


Yep, the "squeeze" is on bigtime!

[JimmyJazz]

Thanks for the heads-up. Here's the link to the original article if anyone's interested: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/sep/29/uselections2008.useconomy1

Very cool article. It quotes Gramsci as well.

Hell, if I was involved with a party yet, I would suggest that we hand copies of this thing out to people.

I emailed the author thanking him for writing it.