As I have argued on marxism-and-sciences and marxism-psych, the marxist theory of consciousness is one of semi-consciousness. Of course in this case no one is arguing full blown conspiracy theory.
This case looks like a dramatic illustration whereby use-value and (exchange) Value get redistributed unevenly from the global periphery to the centre.
While in Indonsesia aspiring families are thrown into poverty and losing the chance of a middle class education, the recession in Asia, up to a point, reduces world interest rates and gives mortgage holders in the USA the equivalent of a tax cut. All functioning capitalist business of course benefits by lower interest rates so long as they can sell their products. Similarly there is a fall in global commodities, which benefits economies that keep going.
So there is little domestic pressure in the USA for a change in course, even to change the President! and people in the rest of the world can riot of they wish while emissaries from the IMF visit to uphold human rights and sound financial housekeeping.
In terms of capital it appears to be a further story of the uneven accumulation of capital. I am not quite sure whether in strict marxist terms this should be called centralisation or concentration, but this tendency is more powerful on a global basis than the countertendency for capital to look for the cheapest labour.
The riddle that the USA is a debtor nation perhaps is not important if we are talking about the concentration of capital in one area - who owns it is a technical matter.
The possibility of a multipolar world in terms of capital accumulation has been decisively broken by the crumbling of the Asian attack. Who 15 years ago would have predicted that the two superpowers then, would look so uneven now, even after the fall of capitalism in the USSR? It is argued that the capital value of the entire Russian stock exchange is less than that of one large US or British company.
What remains unanswered is whether Europe with the Euro will seriously be able to challenge the USA as a centre for the concentration of capital. China is consciously backing the Euro.
So is this all planned? No one seriously would argue this. But it is semi-conscious. A bit of recession in Asia is to the benefit of both the capitalists and the population of the USA and its close associates so they won't fight too hard against it. The fear is that products cannot be sold. Although some bankruptcies are spreading to parts of the UK economy for example it is not yet widespread, and the resources can perhaps still be reabsorbed.
The net result is the global economy settling at a level of functioning even lower than now relative to its total capacity, with greater global, and probably class differences in the distribution of global Value, exchange value, and consequently use-values, or real wealth.
There will gradually be a conscious movement for structural political reforms on a global level, because the aspiring bourgeoisie of contending nations have objective interests in common with the mass of the population in the capital intensive countries.
Chris Burford
London