gold and currencies

[Sam Pawlett]

Charles Brown wrote:
> Charles: Wasn't there a recession in 1981-2 in the U.S. ? And in 1990 ? And how is it that the Asian crisis was not a crisis ?  What about Russia ? Russia is part of the capitalist system and is in extreme economic crisis. What about Mexico a few years ago ? What about Japan for about 10 years ? When Japan was growing like crazy , it was confirmation of capitalism's strength. When it stagnates, it is somehow not a evidence of business cycle crisis.  Korea has had crisis recently. What about most African countries ?
> 
> When you look at capitalism as a global system, Marx seems to be quite well confirmed by the last 25 years. One report on the lists estimated that the Asian crisis will throw 200 million people into poverty worldwide. That is a crisis for the working class in the classical sense of an economic crisis. With the reconfirguration of capitalism as global capitalism, the form of crisis is different. Marxist understanding of  "crisis" does not mean only crises in the U.S. It includes the crises that the imperialist center is able to shift onto its neo-colonies and semi-colonies. However, Japan is an imperialist center.  Crisis seems rampant in the last 25 years in the global picture of capitalism.
> 
> As to "flying off of the rails", the business CYCLICAL crisis is not "the" revolution in Marx's theory. The revolution does not occur automatically, based on objective periodic crisis. Marx did not have the idea that the capitalists would in some cyclical crisis just start jumping out of windows as in 1929 and give up the system to the workers. The objective factors, the capitalists, do not self-extinguish. The aggravation of economic problems for the working class caused by periodic crises is only one of the reasons that must enter into the working class consciously changing the system, requiring a conscious organization by a party.
> 

  It might be useful in discussing crisis to try and nail down a precise
meaning or even necessary and sufficient conditions for the application
of the concept or else people end up talking past one another. As I
understand it, crisis in Marxism means system imminent['capitalism
creates the conditions for its own destruction] and irreversible in the
sense that no amount of tinkering with the system can prevent a crisis.
Lexigraphical definitions usually say that a crisis means on the
threshold of changing into something else. A crisis in capitalism would
mean the system is on the threshold of changing into something else e.g
socialism or fascism. 

  Using macroneconomic stats to determine what is a crisis and what
isn't is a bit one-sided. From the point of view of macroeconomic stats
and the investor class it looks like the worst of the Asian crisis  is
over. But from the point of view of the  millions who lost jobs the
crisis is really only beginning. Crisis is where there is enough
disruption in the process of capital accumulation to destabilize the
system such that it is possible for a class to change the system.
Because of the strength of the capitalist class and the weakness of the
working class, the former has been able to use crisis to restructure the
system to its own advantage at the expense of the latter. In traditional
Marxist theory, crisis is supposed to motivate the victims of the crisis
to change it to their own advantage.

Sam Pawlett