Rome, Italy 17/02/2014
The Great Recession
(Capitalism's Chaotic Nature)
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| Karl Marx (downloaded image from internet) |
The inherently chaotic, crisis-prone nature of capitalism
was a key part of Marx's writings. He argued that the relentless drive for
profits would lead companies to mechanize their workplaces, producing more and
more goods while squeezing workers' wages until they could no longer purchase
the products they created. Sure enough, modern historical events from the Great
Depression to the dot-com bubble can be traced back to what Marx termed
"fictitious capital" – financial instruments like stocks and
credit-default swaps. We produce and produce until there is simply no one left
to purchase our goods, no new markets, no new debts. The cycle is still playing
out before our eyes: Broadly speaking, it's what made the housing market crash
in 2008. Decades of deepening inequality reduced incomes, which led more and
more people to take on debt and poverty. When there were no subprime borrows left to
scheme, the whole façade fell apart, just as Marx knew it would.
It is bound
to happen, and is happening.
No less an
authority than the Wall Street
Journal warns, "Lately, the U.S. recovery has been displaying some
Marxian traits. Corporate profits are on a tear, and rising productivity has
allowed companies to grow without doing much to reduce the vast ranks of the
unemployed."
Today, in a world of both unheard-of wealth and
abject poverty, where the richest 85 people have more wealth than the poorest 3 billion put together,
the famous cry, "Workers of the world unite; you have nothing to lose
but your chains," has yet to lose its potency.
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