[lbo-talk] The Conjuncture

[David Martin]

Here's a Marxist hypothesis of the current conjuncture we are in. Short
version: The post-war system created by US capitalist collapsed when the
return of Germany/Japan to world markets created a realization problem for
them while Third World liberation struggles/social movements in the center
increased (social) wage demands/reduced labor supply. Capital organized an
exit route: neoliberalism, particularly financialization/globalization of
production - financialization increased realization, globalization
increased exploitation -- a series of financial crises (Third World
debt/tequila/Asian/Brazil/Russia, etc.) and integration of China (labor
supply)/Russia(rent supply). The shock therapy of the crises advanced this
project only in the short term as increased class struggle/resistance -
pink tide/Chinese/Russian state capitalism, etc. When the largest ever of
series of financial crises, the 2008 WS crisis, hit the center, the exit
route of neoliberalism hit a dead end of global stagnation and divisions
within the capitalist class arose over how to exit the crisis. One faction
preferred the exit of increased financialization/rent extraction (WS/Big
Oil) while the other preferred higher investment in
innovation/highly-skilled global labor (to increase labor productivity).
This intra-class struggle over exit routes came to a head in the election
of 2016 - one side (Trump) was willing to sacrifice labor supply (public
investment/immigration) while the other (Clinton) would sacrifice rent (WS
speculation/natural resource extraction). The rent accumulators made an
alliance with Russian/Arab state capitalists to engineer the election of
Trump and then buy his allegiance/compromise him with $2 billion pay off
through the Rosneft fake privatization. The (labor
supply/innovation/immigration) faction behind Clinton is now in open
resistance to (financial speculator/rent extractors), particularly since
the latter faction seized state power through violating the rules of the
bourgeois electoral game by outsourcing the election engineering to Russian
state capitalists (fellow rent extractors). There is absolutely no way in
hell that the "Russians" could have engineered the election of Trump and
the seizure of state power without an alliance/support of a fraction of US
capital (speculators/rent extractors). That intra-capitalist conflict would
never have occurred without the increasing global working class resistance
to neoliberalism, forcing the capital to organize alternative exits from
the collapse of neoliberal hegemony. The only way each faction could
organize their preferred exit was through controlling the state. And one
side was blindsided by the willingness of the other to change the rules of
the competition for control over the state, therefore the losing side
screams Russia! in an attempt to reestablish the rules of the liberal
democratic state while the other seeks to create a fascist state by
eschewing the institutions of liberal democracy. That is the conjuncture we
are at,

I have a 50 page document to prove this hypothesis with evidence. If anyone
is willing to take up the intellectual challenge, please send me your email
at davidtmartin at gmail.com. Thx! David