[lbo-talk] Crunch time for US capitalism?

Marvin Gandall marvgandall at rogers.com
Sun Dec 5 11:18:56 PST 2004


Doug Henwood wrote:


> Marvin Gandall wrote:
>
> >There's no assurance all these broken eggs would result in a
> >satisfying omelette, either; there is no longer even a coherent left or
> >self-conscious working class as there was in the 30s.
>
> But the hope of many crisis fans is that the collapse will finally
> bring about that class-conscious left. That's delusional, I think,
> but it's a common belief.
>
> There are also some weird affinities between crisis Marxists and
> libertarians/Austrians. Both camps think that state bailouts just
> can't work, and the crunch has to come - someday. That position makes
> sense for the right, which sees the state as some external imposition
> on the beauties of the market. For Marxists, who presumably
> understand the role of the state as enforcing a ruling class agenda,
> it's mysterious.
>
> Doug
---------------------------- Exactly. I think Marxists and Austrians also equally fail to take into adequate account the effect the advent of the universal franchise has had since Marx and the classicial economists produced their great works. Both camps see capitalist crises resulting in an inevitable wave of personal and corporate bankruptcies and mass unemployment - a necessary cleansing and revitalization of the system for the right, the necessary precondition to its overthrow for the left - but in the 20th century and beyond this economic option is now limited by the actual (and potential) political power of the masses. The ruling class since WWI have been impressed by the relationship between catastrophic breakdown and revolution, and politicians since Hoover by that between unemployment and holding onto political office. That's why they respond with bank bailouts and Keynesian fiscal solutions to prop up zombie firms and jobs, hoping that the restoration of credit and purchasing power will eventually put the system back on its feet, and preferring economic stagnation as an alternative to mass social unrest until that happens. It may not bbe enough if the crisis is deep enough, but that hasn't happened yet. Isn't that the story of Japan most recently?

MG



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