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Post by dodger on Nov 14, 2014 15:33:01 GMT
The Decline of Capitalism* 2
Posted on October 29, 2014 by imarxman The development of capitalism in Britain found political expression through the gradual emergence of representative democracy. The emphasis should be on the “representative” as care has been taken to ensure popular involvement is little more than an X on a ballot paper.
As the franchise was extended to incrementally to the working class socialist aspirations became centred on the Labour Party. However, for all its rhetoric the Labour Party was dedicated, at best, to wringing a few concessions from the owners of capital.
Essentially, though, its function was to reinforce working class passivity, restrain trade unions lest Labour suffer through the ballot box. The polling booth ensures the isolation of the individual in the political process, militating against any sense of the collective.
Following the Second World War the political establishment, whatever its party labels, recognised the need for concessions to be made if the working class, many with military training, wasn’t to become a threat to capitalism.
Post war redevelopment led to economic progress and the linking of democratic freedom with the freedom of markets and profit making. Nationalisation, often portrayed as a socialist trait, was actually the capitalist state securing sectors that weren’t profitable, but vital to capitalism at the time.
During this period the working class through its trade unions began to recognise and exercise its collective power. This posed a threat to the established order of passive representative democracy: Ted Heath, then prime minister, even called a general election on the question, “Who rules Britain?”
The 1970s end to the post war boom resulted in the possibility of the organised working class moving towards workers’ democracy, taking power into their own hands.
Continued economic decline illustrated the impotence of the Labour Party, unable to act for the working class or serve the interests of the capitalist class. Unfortunately, too many trade unions, too many trade unionists, retained vestigial hope that Labour would somehow save them.
Others came to see their own organisations as culpable in their economic and social insecurity. 1979 became the pivotal moment when there were sufficient votes to return the Thatcher government. This signalled the assault on organised labour, by the conscious destruction of those industries in which the working class had its power bases.
It was largely those very same industries in which the decline of capitalism was most apparent. Finance capitalism demonstrated its dominance and continues to do so, but 2008 and after has shown it cannot buck the trend of irreversible decline.
To give one example: it has become commonplace to blame the greed of baby boomers for financial woes of young people today. This masks the fact that failing capitalism cannot provide the social dividends it once did, so pension ages rise while pension entitlements fall.
All the while wage rates are static or slowly declining with even low inflation. Credit has been the remedy for over 30 years, further increasing economic instability in people’s lives. Debt leaves them even more unwilling to act on their own behalf.
This has engendered an attitude of distrust if not outright hostility to politicians for their incompetence if not downright corruption. Party labels are seen to be irrelevant as the name of the party in power does not signal any significant change.
When a party such as UKIP emerges there is an upsurge of support because they address a common concern relating to the EU. That UKIP’s programme generally is indistinguishable from the free market politics that have been dominant since 1979 is disregarded.
People are more than capable of making use of a political vehicle for their own collective ends: there can be little doubt the increasing anti-EU rhetoric from the established parties is a reaction such populist politics. Voter volatility and declining electoral turnout are now endemic symptoms of a failing political system.
The recent Scottish referendum may seem to have bucked this trend with its high turnout, but there the influence of rampant populism was writ large and had the YES vote succeeded there can be little doubting the subsequent disillusionment once the SNP proved itself no more capable of dealing with the effects of capitalism’s decline than those in Westminster.
And all the while post-war Keynesianism gives way to Hayekian neo-liberalism: redistribution to the bottom from the top has been stood on its head, now from the bottom to the top. The market must be actively protected from political interference, redistribution of wealth must be away from, not towards, the working class.
The public fiscal crisis, the increasing national debt, is portrayed as being the result of self-serving electoral groups being appeased by short-term politicians “buying” their votes.
However, such redistributive democracy is actually an unlikely cause as government debt increased during a period when electoral participation declined, especially amongst the poorest.
Nor can trade union pressure be blamed as they also have declined in membership and influence as can be seen from the virtual disappearance of strikes. At the same time the welfare state has been, and is being, cut back.
Such official explanations of public debt serve only to mystify and divide society into groups convinced of their own probity while suspecting the spendthrift nature of others. It is part of the sustained assault on the notion of collectivity.
Declining levels of taxation in a declining economy reflected in static or even falling income levels, combined with regressive taxation favouring income levels of the top 1% and corporate taxation, are major sources of government debt.
This debt is serviced by governments selling bonds, investments for those with wealth now safe from confiscation. These are guaranteed investments with interest paid from the regressive taxation and remain the property of the investors who can bequeath or trade them. Effectively, taxation is being replaced by debt.
As government debt stubbornly fails to fall or even continues to rise the state uses it as a pretext for “austerity”, a programme of cutbacks and the sale of public assets to the private sector. Public services must then be bought from the market supplying them for the purpose of making profit, again paid from declining tax revenues.
The state, whether willingly or unwillingly is irrelevant, serves the interests of finance capitalism. It matters not a jot which party forms the administration of the state and the passivity of the ballot box is the continuing guarantee this state of affairs will continue.
The working class, as the ultimate source of wealth, must engender its own democracy and take control of wealth production and the political means to make best use of it for itself.
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Source: “How capitalism Will End” by Wolfgang Steeck
@ www.philosophersforchange.org
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Post by dodger on Nov 14, 2014 15:43:24 GMT
The Decline of Capitalism* 3
Posted on November 5, 2014 by imarxman Over recent decades trade unions have declined in membership and influence. Central banks, free of democratic accountability, have taken over control of economic policy. The European Central Bank, along with the equally unaccountable European Commission, determines national economic policies.
It is no longer possible for national governments within the EU to determine their own economic strategy if it contravenes strict central bank rulings: for example nationalisation or subsidising national industries is not allowed. Free market competition is the overriding principle however deleterious this may prove.
Democracy, even emasculated, remains a problem for capitalism. Opportunist politicians are considered to be a liability in their tendency to appease for votes the broader electorate. Far better if markets were insulated from interference by further diminishing, if not actually eradicating, democratic politics; capitalism could then become more efficient, virtuous and responsible.
Otherwise democracy must be made market compliant, redistributing wealth from bottom to top. To ensure there’s no back-sliding, democracy continues to be neutralised through supranational institutions such as central banks and international summits of government leaders and leading representatives of capital.
The 1980s witnessed the final disavowing of the “mixed economy”. From then on, whatever the party label supported, governments have managed the triumph of the free reign of market forces.
After the 2008 crash the notion of self regulating markets securing economic equilibrium has been brought starkly into question. This was a timely reminder that capitalism had a beginning and will have an end. It is a question of how that end will come, or be brought, about.
That the death of capitalism has been erroneously predicted on many previous occasions does not mean it will not occur. Present indicators include the inability of capitalism’s institutions and directors to restore it to robust health.
Also, because capitalism has effectively eliminated those agencies that might impose limitations and restrictions, thereby stabilising it, there are no countervailing forces to institute checks and balances. Capital accumulation has trumped collective interests.
There are three mutually reinforcing downward trends in financial stability, economic growth and social equality. Regimes nominally Left or Right have no effective power to bring this increasing rabid capitalist Cerberus to heel.
A steady accumulation of economic, and consequent social, dysfunctions will move ever further away from control. The ability of governments to govern will continue to decline. Crisis management will become unmanageable.
This is not to suggest the end of capitalism is imminent or there is some impending final defenestration by financiers collectively hurling themselves from their own smoke-glazed mirror-windowed towers. This is a process in which there will be rallies as well as crises, but those rallies will fail to return to previous levels.
The vast majority, the working class, can either remain passive and suffer capitalism’s travails as it declines, or become active and put the miserable old dog down out of everyone’s misery.
None of this can be resolved in polling booths, by handing responsibility over to politicians. A political system developed to serve the needs of capitalism cannot become its eradicator. Governments will always act on behalf of capitalism even while it’s in terminal decline.
The only way the working class can transcend the miseries and trials of that decline is by accepting responsibility for clearing the broken remains of capitalism and rebuilding society for itself.
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Source: “How capitalism Will End” by Wolfgang Steeck
@ www.philosophersforchange.org
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Post by dodger on Nov 17, 2014 13:33:29 GMT
imarxman.wordpress.com/2014/11/17/the-decline-of-capitalism-4/
The Decline of Capitalism* 4
Posted on November 17, 2014 by imarxman Capitalism has but one motivation, profit. Without any substantial opposition to keep it in check, capitalism will voraciously devour society, recognising only the significance of individual consumers.
The British prime minister, having attended a summit of self-styled world leaders, has warned that global recession is once again a real possibility, already being realised in Japan. Even the German economy, the economic powerhouse of Europe, is refusing to grow.
The failure to promote sustained recovery reflects a fundamental difficulty for capitalism. The tremendous growth resulting from the industrial revolution has, literally and metaphorically, run out of steam. Those productive innovations could only be utilised once.
Comparatively, information technology has had nothing like the same impact in terms of productivity and economic growth. Even the positive economic effect information technology has achieved has been counter balanced by government and consumer debt.
Close to zero interest rates were supposed to stimulate economic growth for the medium if not the long term. Investment would be encouraged and production increased.
However, this has not been the outcome. Despite there being an excess of capital in the world there is a continuing reluctance to invest it productively. Stagnation, or something close to it, lapsing into crisis, is becoming the norm.
Increasing inequality means the excess capital is being concentrated at the top. This means the rest, the vast majority, have less, reducing their capacity as consumers, reducing demand.
This leads those owning or controlling capital to seek opportunities for speculative profit making rather than developing the means for actual wealth generation. For three and a half decades this has been an increasing trend for finance capitalism.
Low or no economic growth is becoming the norm. Central banks supply the financial sector with cheap money which is largely used for speculation. Quantitative easing, printing money, traditionally led to serious inflation, but with unions so weakened as to be unable to make demands on any profits available, this has not occurred.
Indeed, low inflation and the fear of deflation are regarded as the main problem. For an economy to grow an inflation rate of around 2% or more is required, something only presently achieved through asset-price bubbles.
Low growth denies the possibility of additional resources becoming available with which to ameliorate social and economic hardship and discontent. Asset-price bubbles have a tendency to burst when least expected, with the state left to deal with the consequences despite its shrinking capacity.
As growth continues to stagnate or even decline, capitalism will seek to exploit both nature and labour in new ways. The state will be expected to facilitate this by removing remaining constraints and protections.
Government pronouncements on the end of recession are being tempered with warnings of the next one in the offing. This is marked difference from the previous cycle of “boom and bust” that was a feature of capitalism from its inception. Now there is bust – stagnation – bust.
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Source: “How capitalism Will End” by Wolfgang Steeck
@ www.philosophersforchange.org
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Post by dodger on Dec 9, 2014 23:05:10 GMT
imarxman.wordpress.com/2014/12/09/the-decline-of-capitalism-5/
The Decline of Capitalism* 5
Posted on December 9, 2014 by imarxman The supply of money provided by central banks is intended to stimulate economic growth. While finance capital benefits from this, the working class continues to experience real depression of their circumstances.
Finance capital uses this money supply for speculative rather than productive purposes. Essentially, wealth is being redistributed from the working class to capitalists, resources being taken from increasingly impoverished economies in decline.
Effectively, the previous relationship between profits and workers’ wages is being cut. The prosperity of the wealthy is no longer dependent on the spending power of wage earners.
Finance capitalists are no longer concerned with the growth of national economies while their transnational wealth continues to accumulate. They simply transfer that wealth around the global capital market as suits them, leaving behind devastated national economies.
The public sector becomes evermore under-funded and privatized; the welfare state becomes the austerity state. Scant regard is given to the positive role public investment might make towards social equity and cohesion, factors that influence productivity.
The tension within capitalism between the evermore socialised nature of production with private ownership of the means of production is increasing. Productivity growth benefits public provision, but this contradicts the drive to private accumulation of wealth, with the latter receiving priority.
Corruption and fraud have always been elements within capitalism, but with the dominance of finance capitalism they have become pervasive. Rule bending and even breaking are regarded as almost entrepreneurial skills within the finance industry where it seems talent cannot operate without huge bonus payments.
Attempts at regulation are spasmodic, while regulatory bodies are staffed by the relatively lower paid, so those with greatest expertise are recruited by the financiers. There are also too many opportunities for cosy relationships if not outright corruption.
Also, the finance houses are so huge, commanding great reservoirs of wealth, they cannot be allowed to go bankrupt, nor their leading figures go to jail. Confidence is vital for finance and financial failure equates with a failure of confidence.
Actions taken by governments, usually fines, seem draconian to a working class without direct experience of millions, let alone billions. In reality, they are little more than camouflage for the absence of effective control or punishment.
This apparent moral decline of capitalism is illusory; after all capitalists were prepared to exploit workers dreadfully until the working class became organised. Capitalism in decline is desperate to exploit whatever opportunities for profit and wealth accumulation it can seize. Asset stripping, of the public sector, failing industries or central banks, has become the norm rather, than significant development of production.
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Source: “How capitalism Will End” by Wolfgang Steeck
@ www.philosophersforchange.org
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