Why Capitalsim Is Crumbling
Kathleen Dwyer
Asian crisis: why capitalism is crumbling
By John Percy
The Communist Manifesto ushered in a new epoch in human history. It
described and projected the process of change from capitalism to socialism,
the coming to power of the working class. That's a process still taking
place.
Capitalism has truly provided an appropriate present for Marx and Engels on
the occasion of the 150th anniversary of their Manifesto -- the Asian
economic crisis, on the brink of becoming an international crisis that is
really shaking out the arrogant confidence of capitalist ideologues.
All the irrationality, contradictions and instability of the capitalist
system are being richly demonstrated as the crisis unfolds.
The crisis kicked off in Thailand in May-June-July, described as a “currency
crisis”. The Thai currency ended up being slashed in half; 56 of the 58
suspended Thai finance companies were shut completely; many firms have
already gone bankrupt, and more will follow. The fastest growing economy in
Asia ground to a halt.
The crisis then spread to Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.
Currencies and stock markets fell. On October 28 the Hong Kong stock index
plummeted, and markets around the world followed wildly. Some rebounded, but
one estimate has US$400 billion lost by the end of the year.
The world was assured that South Korea was OK, but of course it spread to
South Korea, the world's 11th largest economy, with a vengeance.
Towards the end of December, with scores of conglomerates teetering on the
edge of bankruptcy, several banks on the verge of default and overseas
vendors demanding cash up front for any new shipments of oil, World Bank
chief economist Joseph Stiglitz declared South Korea's economy basically
healthy.
“Is he talking about the same country?” asked the South China Morning Post
reporter.
When negotiations with the IMF began, Korea's short-term foreign private
debt was “reckoned” at US$66 billion dollars; on December 8 the government
admitted it was more than US$116 billion; on December 30 it “recalculated”
it at US$157 billion.
The sovereign debt of Indonesia, Thailand, and South Korea has been
downgraded to junk bond status by the two prime rating agencies.
But it's not just the “tigers” that have been brought down to earth. Japan,
the second most powerful imperialist economy, is teetering on the edge of a
more serious crisis.
Japan's economy has been in the doldrums throughout the '90s. It has not
recovered from the collapse of the inflated financial assets bubble economy.
A major Japanese bank, Hokkaido Takushoku, and Sanyo Securities, Japan's
seventh biggest brokerage firm, went broke in early November. On November
21, Yamaichi Securities, Japan's fourth largest brokerage firm, collapsed
owing US$24 billion. More bankruptcies are ahead; more banks will go broke.
Then comes the big question of whether Japanese institutions will be forced
to cash in their US bonds. Washington is the world's largest debtor, owing
the rest of the world more than US$1 trillion, much of it to Japan.
Historical materialism
The Communist Manifesto is not a rigid document irrespective of time and
circumstances. Social, economic and political life has changed tremendously
over 150 years. But it's remarkable how accurate the analysis is, even how
much of the detail is still relevant.
The materialist conception of history, the underlying basis of the document,
is still thoroughly correct, and borne out by the intervening 150 years. Its
first postulate, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the
history of class struggle”, is just as valid today.
No other way of analysing the world makes sense. Historical materialism is
the only analysis able to explain social change in the past, and able to
understand and anticipate the future.
Many have questioned whether the working class is still the revolutionary,
progressive class described by Marx and Engels. The reformist and coopted
sections bought off by imperialist super-profits have delayed the socialist
struggle in advanced capitalist countries, but on the other hand there have
been no recent big defeats. The working class is not smashed, and it's
larger than ever before, with more potential power. And, given the length of
the long downturn since the '70s, the room for manoeuvre by the bourgeoisie
has significantly lessened.
Capitalism evolves -- that's the nature of the beast. But the fundamental
mechanisms of its operation remain the same, first properly analysed in the
Manifesto.
Polarisation
The Manifesto describes the polarisation of capitalist society between
bourgeoisie and proletariat. The impoverishment of the working class has
been a concept much ridiculed over the years by capitalist apologists, and
academic professional refuters of Marx.
But look at the reality on a world scale: the immense differences of wealth,
both within countries and between them.
Even within the USA, the richest imperialist power, we see extremes of
incredible poverty and misery, alongside staggering and disgusting opulence.
Among industrialised nations, the USA stands number one per capita:
in billionaires and in children living in poverty;
in wealth and income inequality;
in population without health care;
in infant mortality, malnourished children and deaths of children under five
years old;
in homelessness;
in executive salaries and in pay inequality between executives and average
workers.
(From We're Number One: Where America stands -- and falls -- in the New
World Order, by Andrew L. Shapiro, Vintage, 1992.)
The gap between rich and poor has widened in nearly every US state since the
1970s, according to a report by the liberal Center for Budget and Policy
Priorities.
A study in July reported that 447 billionaires have wealth equal to the
total assets of the poorest 50% of the world's population. The polarisation
has increased since Marx's time.
And rather than economic convergence occurring between the advanced
capitalist countries and the rest of the world, as some ideologues claim,
the reality is the opposite. A recent article by Lant Pritchett, a senior
economist with the World Bank, titled: “Divergence, Big Time”, states:
“From 1870 to 1990 the ratio of per capita incomes between the richest and
the poorest countries increased by roughly a factor of five and the
difference in income between the richest country and all others has
increased by an order of magnitude.”
The state
The Manifesto points out that the bourgeoisie has “conquered for itself, in
the modern representative state, exclusive political sway. The executive of
the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the
whole bourgeoisie.”
We saw this demonstrated yet again with 13 years of ALP government, today
with the Howard government, around the world with example after example. The
Asian economic crisis is but the latest development.
Despite the hype about globalisation, states still have this key role. Yes,
the Asian regimes are helping their cronies and mates. That's not some wild
aberration from capitalism; that's the norm; the range of cronies is a lot
larger in the advanced capitalist countries.
The US$100 billion plus in IMF funds are being used to bail out banks and
finance companies. They talk about rescuing Thailand, or South Korea, but
the money's going to the big local capitalists, and especially the big
international investors.
These capitalist high rollers gambled and lost, but the money to rescue
them, to pay them back what they lost at the capitalist casino, comes from
the public purse: from taxes, from cuts to workers' wages, from slashing
education and health care for ordinary people.
The December 20 Economist editorial gave its prescription for Japan: “A big
tax cut was required to stimulate the economy; and a huge, preferably
open-ended, amount of public money had to be made available to keep banks
afloat while they are merged, sold, closed or otherwise revamped”.
But you also see the other aspect of the policy of the United States ruling
class, which says perhaps not all should be rescued: we can't let them all
get away with it; they gambled too recklessly and should be taught a lesson.
Behind the piousness is the US ruling class, waving its big stick. They'd
let them all go down if it was best for their overall profitability, if they
could get away with it and not provoke social unrest. But they are using it
to take what they can, against their imperialist competitors, to tighten US
imperialism's stranglehold.
The US ruling class, through its dominating influence on the IMF, has
imposed terms on the recipients of IMF loans that entail the opening up of
their markets, the lifting of restrictions on foreign ownership and
penetration of the financial institutions in those countries. US firms are
gobbling up choice assets.
A deal was struck on December 13 under the auspices of the World Trade
Organisation forcing the 100 governments that signed to agree to dismantle
barriers to foreign ownership of banks and securities firms.
Inter-imperialist competition is not a thing of the past. The World Bank
structural adjustment programs are often attempts to strengthen US
imperialism against its imperialist competitors.
Japan's proposal for a US$100 billion “Asian Monetary Fund” was stomped on
by the US and the IMF. The efforts by South American countries to set up
Mercosur, their own free trade fortress, get attacked by the US. Market
deregulation profits the most powerful imperialist ruling classes.
Overproduction
The capitalist media and bourgeois experts have put forward all manner of
explanations for the crisis, and few of them are anywhere near the mark.
It's not caused by currency speculators. It's not a result of cronyism or
corruption of the Asian regimes (although there's plenty of that). It's not
because these Asian economies were too closed, not unregulated enough.
The root cause has been a phenomenon not unknown to readers of the Communist
Manifesto and Marxist economic analysis, the same mechanism always driving
the boom and bust cycle of capitalism: a crisis of overproduction, a result
of capitalism's thirst for profits and super-profits.
In the midst of worldwide shortages of food, clothing, housing, clean water,
power, health care, education -- the basic necessities of life -- we have a
glut of commodities of all kinds, a glut of capital which can't find
profitable enough areas to invest in.
We have a crisis of capitalist overproduction, because they can't sell their
products at a profit. We have mountains of food that are unprofitable to
sell, while each day, 110,000 people around the world die from hunger.
The car industry, apart from being an environmentally disastrous mode of
transport, suffers chronic overcapacity around the world. In South Korea,
even as the economy tumbled toward the abyss, new chaebols were still
scrambling to get into the vehicle business, to contribute their own bit
towards production overcapacity.
China, even with the majority of its population mired in poverty, faces
looming overcapacity in industry after industry. Every major brewing company
around the world wants to get a foot in the door, so massive brewery
overcapacity has been built at the prospect of 1.2 billion huddled masses
yearning to guzzle Fosters.
“Shipping analysts have forecast an upturn in the dry bulk market for the
first time in several years as more ships are being scrapped than are being
delivered from shipyards”, wrote the London Financial Times on November
29-30. That is, profits are projected to rise from a destruction of
capacity.
While half the world starves or lives in poverty, billionaire capitalists
are flush with cash without profitable areas for investment.
Some bourgeois commentators came clean on the real dynamic of the crisis.
“Analysts say the root cause of the crisis is pretty simple”, according to a
November 17 International Herald Tribune article. “Too much money flowed
into Asian economies in recent years, and too much of it was wasted on bad
investments and needless imports. Asian markets became little more than
financial bubbles waiting to be popped.”
Dead end
Since the end of the long boom in the early '70s, capitalism has passed
through a long period of stagnation and downturn, with chronic problems of
overcapacity and declining profitability.
The Asian economic crisis has put paid to delusions either that the Asian
tigers were models for the rest of the world to escape from poverty and
backwardness, or that Asia was an area for the excess capital of the west to
find profitable investment.
In spite of the IT hype, the reality of the last 30-40 years has been one of
scientific and technological stagnation. Scientist Eric J. Lerner writes,
for example: “Since 1960 there has not been a single major qualitative
breakthrough in physical technology”. Only in biology in the recent period
has genetic engineering brought about a qualitative advance.
Overcapacity means capitalists' billions go to speculation, to takeovers,
not to new productive facilities which could drive new scientific and
technological advances.
Solar energy, for example, is technically very feasible, economically very
efficient, ecologically very necessary, but for capitalists it's not
profitable. Any treatment of the greenhouse effect mustn't threaten profits.
The big corporations are staking claims to more and more of the natural
wealth of humanity, appropriating it for private profit -- the land, the
forests, the minerals of the earth, the very life on earth: patenting the
flora, the fauna, even the gene pools of whole peoples.
The environmental crisis gives a whole new dimension to the irrationality of
capitalism, the very real and present danger to life on earth.
Capitalism means planned obsolescence. The best minds go to making crap, and
discovering ways to make crap break quicker, to stimulate demand for ever
more crap. The second best minds go to inventing ways to sell and package
crap, to convince “consumers” to buy ever more crap, the latest model crap.
Capitalism is at a cultural and intellectual dead end. About which TV shows
or movies or music or art can you honestly say: “That was an uplifting and
exhilarating experience”?
Most intellectuals under capitalism act as hired hacks -- producers of
mystifications to order, regurgitators of old themes, or blind pompous
followers of intellectual fads. Independent honest academia is in decline.
There's an upsurge of spiritualism and irrationality -- tarot cards,
astrology, Druids, witchcraft, Christian fundamentalism, Islamic
fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism, Scientology.
There's an accelerating social decline. Human values, solidarity, are
replaced with the glorification of greed.
Violence, aggression, crime are positively portrayed by the bourgeois media.
Alienation, unsatisfying work or unemployment, a consumerist culture are
often the only prospect facing young people, whose resort is an escape to
drugs and cynicism. Sport glorifies competitiveness, aggression, passivity,
commercialism.
Everything is commodified under capitalism. Education becomes a knowledge
factory.
Health care for profit becomes the norm, available for those with the money.
Care of the aged, the sick, the disabled gets thrust back on to the
individual, or onto the family.
Capitalism is at an impasse, in spite of the hype. The jitters at times of
crisis betray the reality.
Blow to the system
In 1998 we can expect the capitalist crisis to deepen and extend.
We can't make any absolute predictions about how the workers' struggle will
be affected. Certainly in places like Indonesia and South Korea, where there
is already organisation and consciousness, there will be fights back against
the austerity measures, the job cuts, the repression dictated by the IMF and
Washington.
The most significant and long-lasting impact already, in all countries, is
in the blow that this crisis has dealt to bourgeois confidence and arrogance
about the stability and permanence of its system.
It raises the possibility of breaking the psychological barriers to struggle
that have been erected by resignation, apathy and the bourgeois ideological
offensive against the very idea of change or challenge to their system. It
starts to engender a crisis of capitalist legitimacy.
But it's not automatic. It's up to us and other socialist forces around the
world to understand, to explain, to lead.
Capitalism still has immense resources at its disposal, and can take out its
problems on the backs of the working class and the poor, to make us pay for
the irrationalities of the system and the greed and foolishness of
capitalists. That's what they intend doing, to make the public -- workers,
poor, the oppressed -- pay for their problems, through the IMF-imposed cuts
to public works and welfare, rising taxes, huge job losses.
Workers around the world can be radicalised by these developments, shedding
illusions about capitalism's strength and confidence, and being sparked to
action by attacks on previously won gains and conditions.
[This article is excerpted from a talk to the “150 years of the Communist
Manifesto” conference held in Sydney in early January. John Percy is the
national secretary of the Democratic Socialist Party.]
Taken from GreenLeft Weekly
www.peg.apc.org/~GreenLeft
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jim colbert
<kath...@ozemail.com.au> wrote:
>Asian crisis: why capitalism is crumbling
>By John Percy
>The Communist Manifesto ushered in a new epoch in human history. It
>described and projected the process of change from capitalism to socialism,
>the coming to power of the working class. That's a process still taking
>place.
Problem with that statement is that, although in most of their
writings Marx & Engels plotted and very validly justified the
necessary phases of society up to the capitalist there is an enormous
quantum leap of faith in their concept that a socialist/communist
society would follow the capitalist phase.
What they called capitalist has been and gone - we've had a semi
socialist (mixed) economy in most developed countries and in many it's
still going.
But why will a true socialist state follow - maybe there'll be other
unconsidered societies after the current capitalist state crumbles -
and how long will it take for the current model to use up all the
"potentialities" of the society?
<snip>
>Even within the USA, the richest imperialist power, we see extremes of
>incredible poverty and misery, alongside staggering and disgusting opulence.
>Among industrialised nations, the USA stands number one per capita:
>in billionaires and in children living in poverty;
>in wealth and income inequality;
>in population without health care;
>in infant mortality, malnourished children and deaths of children under five
>years old;
>in homelessness;
>in executive salaries and in pay inequality between executives and average
>workers.
Yep- but how long before there's a "revolution" (remember Marx spoke
of revolution in an evolutionary sense - not necessarilly guns &
barricades)? and why will socialism follow?
(don't get me wrong - it'd be nice if it did - but .... ?)
,-._ ? cut the xy&z from address to reply
/ Oz \ Jim Colbert
\_,--.x/ col...@melbpc.org.au
v If all the economists in the world
were laid end to end they'd all point
in different directions. - JM Keynes
Ronson Dalby
I think you are living in the past. The same tired words, phrases, isms, ists
etc.
We do need a strong opposition to capitalism but worn-out, renamed parties and
ideals, is not the way to go. This opposition has to comprise people from all
levels and paths in society not just 'workers'. Words such as proletariat and
bourgeois and phrases such as 'capitalist imperialism' just turn people off.
The Russian Revolution may have succeeded if the professional and intellectual
classes had not been destroyed.
Any party such as the DSP, and its refugees from the CPA and SPA, which draw
on Lenin and his ilk, have no place in the modern world.
--
Regards,
Ronson Dalby.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
"The writer's greed is appalling. He wants, or
seems to want, everything and practically
everyone; in another sense, and at the same
time, he needs no one at all."
James Baldwin
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Guy Curtis
it deserves to have much of the information presented "examined"
>The Communist Manifesto ushered in a new epoch in human history. It
>described and projected the process of change from capitalism to socialism,
>the coming to power of the working class. That's a process still taking
>place.
>
Interesting assertion that the process is still taking place. And, an
assurtion that cannot be refuted because it is like a clairvoyant's or
astrologer's prediction, vague and with no clear time frame for it to come
true. Thus, it could ALWAYS be taking place without being able to be
refuted. Good knowlegde comes from good theories and good theories are those
that are able to be proved wrong, the evolution from socialism to capitalism
is phrased in such a way that it cannot be proved wrong. Nostrodamus made
predictions with hundreds of years for them to come true, given the number
of news-worth events in hundreds of years it is likely that hundreds of
Nostrodam's 9000 predictions would come true. The kind of predictions Marx
made are not even on par with level of accuracy, which is simply chance.
>
>Capitalism has truly provided an appropriate present for Marx and Engels on
>the occasion of the 150th anniversary of their Manifesto -- the Asian
>economic crisis, on the brink of becoming an international crisis that is
>really shaking out the arrogant confidence of capitalist ideologues.
>
Interestingly most of the Asian crisis stemed from the non-capitalist
practices in many Asian countries, namely corruption (somthing there was a
hell of a lot of in the Soviet Union), and over-regulated financial markets.
Happy Birthday Marx and Engles, anti-market practices that your followers
advocate blew up in the face of people who tried them.
>All the irrationality, contradictions and instability of the capitalist
>system are being richly demonstrated as the crisis unfolds.
>
The contradictions that I have seen are that people were trying to run
anti-capitalist practices and trying to increase their countries' wealth,
something had to give. Define instability, socialist systems like Cuba and
North Korea provide stability, and stapility too. Their citizens have a
staple diet of grass, tree bark and stones boiled to make soup!
>The crisis kicked off in Thailand in May-June-July, described as a
“currency
>crisis”. The Thai currency ended up being slashed in half; 56 of the 58
>suspended Thai finance companies were shut completely; many firms have
>already gone bankrupt, and more will follow. The fastest growing economy in
>Asia ground to a halt.
>
The USSR and China grew pretty fast (for a while) when their governments
pump-primed the economy. Socialism ground the fastest growing economy in
Europe (Sweden) to a halt from the 1960's. Thailand, like the other Tiger
economies had over-regualtion and a fixed currency, something marxists love,
and it was the unsustainability of that that facilitated the crises.
>The crisis then spread to Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.
>Currencies and stock markets fell. On October 28 the Hong Kong stock index
>plummeted, and markets around the world followed wildly. Some rebounded,
but
>one estimate has US$400 billion lost by the end of the year.
>
The HK stock market is an exceptional case because much of its high was
based on sentiment not economic facts. Why do the facts presented only go to
the end of the year? It is interesting that this post was written so close
to the US stock market reaching an all time high? The blind refusal to look
facts in the face is a trait most Maxists seem to have. And was that money
lost? That is an economically debateable point based on your definition of
really money and where it goes.
>The world was assured that South Korea was OK, but of course it spread to
>South Korea, the world's 11th largest economy, with a vengeance.
>
And they still have more food on their tables than in the North (where they
speak the same language, have the same climate and terain, and have the same
historical culture). Surprise, surprise the North of Korea is communist
(wouldn't you just know it?). And, once again, as with the other examples
over-regualtion of the economy seems to be the core source of most of South
Korea's economic problems, whcih I might add pale into insignificance when
compared to their Marxist neighbors' economic woes.
>Towards the end of December, with scores of conglomerates teetering on the
>edge of bankruptcy, several banks on the verge of default and overseas
>vendors demanding cash up front for any new shipments of oil, World Bank
>chief economist Joseph Stiglitz declared South Korea's economy basically
>healthy.
>
And in comparison to North Korea and Cuba he has a very good point.
>“Is he talking about the same country?” asked the South China Morning Post
>reporter.
>
>When negotiations with the IMF began, Korea's short-term foreign private
>debt was “reckoned” at US$66 billion dollars; on December 8 the government
>admitted it was more than US$116 billion; on December 30 it “recalculated”
>it at US$157 billion.
>
Close to Australia's debt really and we seem to be doing okay in comparison
to many places. Foreign debt is best assessed in relation to GDP, simply
stating a raw figure is deceptive. Also, the dramatic upshot in Korea's
foreign debt is explainable becasue their currency fell, basically the
"recalculated" foreign debt is the same as it was it now reflects the
current exchange rate of the won.
>The sovereign debt of Indonesia, Thailand, and South Korea has been
>downgraded to junk bond status by the two prime rating agencies.
>
Which means that the bonds are a bit risky to own and in a free market
people can choose whether or not to buy them given that information. There
is nothing sinister about this. But is does reflect some of the mistake made
by the governments of those countries, especially as it is government debt
that those bonds are based on. So, this comes down to what governments did
wrong and if Marxists had their way governments would have more oppotunities
to do stuff and therefore more chances to make mistakes (AND the SCALE of
mistakes made by governments are bigger than those made by the private
sector).
>But it's not just the “tigers” that have been brought down to earth. Japan,
>the second most powerful imperialist economy, is teetering on the edge of a
>more serious crisis.
>
Imperialist? I'm sure their emperor is just a figurehead.
>Japan's economy has been in the doldrums throughout the '90s. It has not
>recovered from the collapse of the inflated financial assets bubble
economy.
>
Once again it is the over-regulated parts of the Japanese economy that is
leading the downhill charge.
>A major Japanese bank, Hokkaido Takushoku, and Sanyo Securities, Japan's
>seventh biggest brokerage firm, went broke in early November. On November
>21, Yamaichi Securities, Japan's fourth largest brokerage firm, collapsed
>owing US$24 billion. More bankruptcies are ahead; more banks will go broke.
>
Banks do go broke, it has happened more in unsuccessful economies to be
sure. It is a everyday event in eastern europe and africa so we don't
notice, it happens in Japan and all of a sudden the sky is falling and a new
dawn of Marxism is on the horizon, what rubbish. The major problem I can see
with all the criticisms of capitalism made so far is that they say "look at
what is wrong, and look what things were like not long ago". In psychology
we call this is a within-groups design (roughly) and you can't workout much
from these. What you need is comparisons (which is what I have been trying
to provide) such as countries that have been worse or done the same things
at other points in history.
>Then comes the big question of whether Japanese institutions will be forced
>to cash in their US bonds. Washington is the world's largest debtor, owing
>the rest of the world more than US$1 trillion, much of it to Japan.
>
So?
>
>Historical materialism
>The Communist Manifesto is not a rigid document irrespective of time and
>circumstances.
Wrong.
> Social, economic and political life has changed tremendously
>over 150 years. But it's remarkable how accurate the analysis is, even how
>much of the detail is still relevant.
>
Once again that is becasue it is like the predictions of an Astrologer, true
believers can see how it is true in any circumstances and conveniently
neglect mistakes and inaccuracies. As was said "...how much of the detail is
still relevant" meaning that some is wrong or irrelevant, but like all true
believers this is discounted and the "accurate" parts provide proof for what
they eant to believe.
>The materialist conception of history, the underlying basis of the
document,
>is still thoroughly correct, and borne out by the intervening 150 years.
Its
>first postulate, “The history of all hitherto existing society is the
>history of class struggle”, is just as valid today.
>
What utter C$%p! Over ten years ago the people Marx describe as the working
class made up 10-15% of the US workforce. "Workers of the world untie
[sic]".
>No other way of analysing the world makes sense.
If you have a jealous and lazy personality
> Historical materialism is
>the only analysis able to explain social change in the past, and able to
>understand and anticipate the future.
>
Again, this is utter nonsense. The same has been said of everything from
Marx to Monetarism to Malthus, and there is less reason to believe Marx than
the other two based on all the available evidence.
>Many have questioned whether the working class is still the revolutionary,
>progressive class described by Marx and Engels. The reformist and coopted
>sections bought off by imperialist super-profits have delayed the socialist
>struggle in advanced capitalist countries
In other words capitlaism creates wealth, as a result even the poor in
capitlaist countries get wealthier, and low-and-behold, don't seem to have
the gall to complain about having a better standard of living. Well, that's
a doozie of an arguement. I mean you should get nobel prizes for
"contradicting yourself with a straight face" and economics if you think
that people should recognise that their standard of living is getting BETTER
as some kind of sneaky capitalist ploy to make their lives worse.
>but on the other hand there have
>been no recent big defeats.
Beacuse it is difficult to defeat an army that didn't go to war.
> The working class is not smashed, and it's
>larger than ever before, with more potential power. And, given the length
of
>the long downturn since the '70s,
In the word of that cretin Pauline Hanson "Please Explain". I might be
mistake here, but "downturn"? As far as I can see my new commodore is
faster, safer, more comfortable, and more fuel efficient than my old P76.
Gee, capitalism really makes life worse for the ordinary bloke doesn't it?
Since the 70s there has been increasing choice, quality , and abundance of
goods and services. In 3o years since 1970, time that the world's population
has gone from 4 to 6 billion fewer people are starving and infant mortality
rates have improved.
> the room for manoeuvre by the bourgeoisie
>has significantly lessened.
Hee, Hee, hee. What rubbish.
>Capitalism evolves -- that's the nature of the beast. But the fundamental
>mechanisms of its operation remain the same, first properly analysed in the
>Manifesto.
>
BS
>Polarisation
>The Manifesto describes the polarisation of capitalist society between
>bourgeoisie and proletariat. The impoverishment of the working class has
>been a concept much ridiculed over the years by capitalist apologists, and
>academic professional refuters of Marx.
>
>But look at the reality on a world scale: the immense differences of
wealth,
>both within countries and between them.
>
Maybe differences in wealth increase with time. But people's living
standards are measured on absolute amounts of wealth not difference. Just
say, in the last X number of years Americans have gone from 9 hands full of
beans a day to 90, while at the same time Africans' have gone from 3 hand
full of beans to 9. The wealth of Americans had increased ten times as
compared to only 3 time in Africa. BUT all are better off than what they
were. Now for a reality check the infant mortality rates and GDP per person
in Africa are almost identical to those of America in the 1920, and better
than the African figures were in the 1920. And the fact is that the gap is
closing in non-monitary standard of living measures such as infant mortality
and life expectancy between the US and africa.
>Even within the USA, the richest imperialist power, we see extremes of
>incredible poverty and misery, alongside staggering and disgusting
opulence.
>Among industrialised nations, the USA stands number one per capita:
>
Let's take the points one by one
>in billionaires and in children living in poverty;
In a free, non-commie, society thing like this occur. It is the price of
freedom that there is inequality but inequality has more benefits than
costs. AND poverty is a relative measure, would you rather be poor in the
USA or poor in Ethiopia?
>in wealth and income inequality;
Income inequality as I have said is a bad measure. Imagine a communist TPLAC
(Jim Hacker term) with a dictator who has $300million and the poorest people
have $10 p.a. income. The gap between rich and poor is near enough to
$300million. Take Australia the richest (Kerry) has near to $3billion the
poorest have an income of $6000 (that's a below the dole figure and a bit of
a guess). The gap is near enough to $3billion (10 x more than the TPLAC).
But the poor are better off, where would you rather be poor?
>in population without health care;
Wrong, that figure is without health insurance, care and the standard of
care is very good.
>in infant mortality, malnourished children and deaths of children under
five
>years old;
That's compared to the developed world a true comparison should be to the
communist bloc (what there is of it) and the third world.
>in homelessness;
But the homeless in the USA live better than the homed in Cuba.
>in executive salaries and in pay inequality between executives and average
>workers.
As I have explained income inequality is a poor, if not meaningless measure.
>The gap between rich and poor has widened in nearly every US state since
the
>1970s, according to a report by the liberal Center for Budget and Policy
>Priorities.
>
Poor measure, again!
>A study in July reported that 447 billionaires have wealth equal to the
>total assets of the poorest 50% of the world's population. The polarisation
>has increased since Marx's time.
>
Poor measure.
>And rather than economic convergence occurring between the advanced
>capitalist countries and the rest of the world, as some ideologues claim,
>the reality is the opposite. A recent article by Lant Pritchett, a senior
>economist with the World Bank, titled: “Divergence, Big Time”, states:
>“From 1870 to 1990 the ratio of per capita incomes between the richest and
>the poorest countries increased by roughly a factor of five and the
>difference in income between the richest country and all others has
>increased by an order of magnitude.”
>
Yes, but lets look at measures of standard of living such as life expectancy
and infant mortality, there are increasing in developed countries but
increasing by more in the third world.
This is getting tiresome, i shall be more selective from here
>Overproduction
Like that's a problem!
>The car industry, apart from being an environmentally disastrous mode of
>transport, suffers chronic overcapacity around the world. In South Korea,
>even as the economy tumbled toward the abyss, new chaebols were still
>scrambling to get into the vehicle business, to contribute their own bit
>towards production overcapacity.
>
You want environmental disarster I give you Easter Europe. They build
machines to dig coal and steel to smelt to build machines to dig coal and
steel. At least capitalist prodcution has a point, satisfiying people's
want. Marxist "production" is an anathema
>China, even with the majority of its population mired in poverty,
You said it!
>There's an upsurge of spiritualism and irrationality -- tarot cards,
>astrology, Druids, witchcraft, Christian fundamentalism, Islamic
>fundamentalism, Jewish fundamentalism, Scientology.
>
And more scientists alive than in human history. Isn't it amazing what an
increase in the world population will do for purely numeric statistics.
In conclusion Green-Left (watermelons: green on the outside red at heart)
are obviously still full of silly idealistic teenagers who are as ignorant
as ever. My advice to you is get a job, save and invest your money. If you
love trees buy some to plant, if you like the poor donate to charity. That
is what I would do if I were a rich man, but only capitalism would give me
the chance to become one.
wal...@my-dejanews.com
hearing from dreary revolutionary campus bores 35 years ago. Always some new
crisis advanced as the potential trigger for the ultimate revolutionary event
in the history of capitalism and human existence. Every marxist is always
living in their own mind on some incredible cusp of history - there's the
turning point just ahead. Oops, wrong again, time to crank up the old
analysis engine and explain away another postponement until the certain
victory around the next corner. Nothing can ever compensate for the evenings
wasted wading through Capital in its eternity when I could have been out
drinking at the campus pub. However, the Marx Engels correspondence at least
provided the amusement of discovering how preposterously wrong their private
predictions were about contemporary events. As an added bonus, the texts
were dated enough so the introductory essays by the leading Soviet
theoreticians *updating* the letters had also been utterly overtaken by
events.
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