A Future That Works

A Future That Works
NO2aTory/Liberal coalition - Vote with your feet for an alternative to a neo-liberal economy and neo-conservative state Yes2aLeftFront and a Red/Green Left Alliance

Tuesday 27 September 2011

Do we now face the Barbarism of Capitalism or can we choose socialism?

The dialectic-material reality which we face requires a revolutionary new plan beyond neo-liberal/neo-conservatism, beyond neo-Keynesianism.

We need a plan for replacing capitalism which requires exponential growth so parasitic elite can live of the profits produced by the surplus value created from the resources of planet by the labour of workers.

What I required is a social and economic system based upon use-value as opposed to one based on surplus-value and profit, a system that puts people and the natural environment that supports life on planet Earth before profit.

11 comments:

  1. Christine Lagarde CEO of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warns that the political system is unravelling as weak growth and weak balance sheets feed negatively on each other, fuelling a crisis of confidence and holding back demand, investment and job creation as the cycle gains momentum. Yet at the same time the IMF and the European Central Bank (ECB) calls for further ‘‘structural adjustment’’ programmes to be imposed on the peoples of Greece.

    The bailout money comes from public funds, in other words from the peoples of Europe to support the banks via the Greek government, so that privatisation and structural reforms are imposed on the peoples of Greece to provide new markets for finance capital to invest and profit from paid for by ordinary people who are having their wages, health care, education, social security benefits and pensions cut so that billionaire capitalist can pay themselves inflation busting salaries and bonuses. Our money will bail out banks so that they can be privatised under the IMF/EU programme of privatization.

    Even the Economist Professor Jeffrey Sachs who implemented the economic ‘‘shock therapy’’ in Eastern Europe transition from communism to a market system has said ‘‘we must now understand Greece is at the precipice of social instability. Further cuts will push it over the edge’’ and possibly into ‘‘Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland and even France’’. A United Nations conference on trade and development reported last week that ‘‘Austerity measures, as the main means of tackling the euro crisis without regard for regional demand growth, may badly backfire’’ pointing out the absurdity of economic ‘‘solutions’’ to please the institutions that got the global economy into the financial crisis in the first place.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Exit Globalization, the Euro, or Exit Capitalism?

    At the end of the debate on the evening of Sept. 17, at the Fête de l’Humanité, which was dedicated to globalization, I had the feeling that, to find ways out of the crisis, there has to be more discussion of the nature of today’s capitalism. As Jean-Marie Harribey of Attac said, it is less than ever the sum of national capitalisms, but rather a financialized and globalized system. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t any regional or national roots, or that it isn’t supported by differentiated cultural areas. What follows from that is that our emancipatory struggles must themselves have a national, a regional, a European, and a world dimension.

    This can be seen with regard to a question as essential as that of currency. Can you imagine that we can free ourselves of the dominance of the dollar by abandoning the euro? The United States manages to finance its system of technological and military domination thanks to other people’s money. The only reason they can get their hands on wealth produced elsewhere is because the dollar is the keystone of the international monetary system.

    How is this stick-up done? American governmental power and private interests have merchandise and services delivered for which they pay on credit. They have thus accumulated an enormous private and governmental debt. These bonds are held in particular by China, Japan, and the oil-producing countries. The only thing that holds the system together is the fact that, for these countries, ceasing to finance that foreign debt would amount to seeing their enormous accumulated dollar reserves devalued considerably and to seeing the international monetary system collapse.

    In Europe, the big private interests dared to upset this hegemony by trying to set up their own as well. That’s the meaning of the “strong” euro policy. It is a matter of establishing an over-valued exchange rate for the euro in order to attract foreign investment, too. But the stronger the euro, the weaker the welfare state. This competition is ruinous for Europe and its peoples, who are losing jobs and resources.

    Could we get with a devalued franc what we have not been able, for the moment, to get with the euro – the end of this dollar domination? It would be better to form a coalition with the other peoples of Europe, to use that collective force to back up the demands of the emerging countries, notably of China, which are looking for a different common world currency and are trying to form alliances in order to make international monetary relations secure.

    http://www.humaniteinenglish.com/spip.php?article1898

    ReplyDelete
  3. (Gene Zbikowski Thursday 22nd September 2011)

    Original French Article

    (Pierre Ivorra Sortir de la mondialisation, de l’euro, ou sortir du capitalisme ? 20th September 2011)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Marxian Economic Theory for a falling rate of profit, profit-maximization urges capitalists to replace workers with machinery, which raises the organic composition of capital, which produces a tendency to lower the profit rate.

    ReplyDelete
  5. π= S/(C+V) =e V/(c+v) Where π is the price rate of profit c and v are the values of constant and variable capital, s is surplus value and e is the rate of surplus value and π= e/(k+1) where k= c/v is the social organic composition of capital. If technical change is substituted for labour because of class struggle, innovation and competition over time π decreases if e remains the same. If e increases due to cheaper labour-value workers subsistence bundle increases due to technological advances and the increase in k can be offset therefore the fall in rate of π remains a tendency. (Roemer 89)

    ReplyDelete
  6. The rate of profit will not fall as a consequence of rational, competitive technical change if the real wage is held constant, whereas if the real wage rises, the equilibrium rate of profit may fall.

    The theory of how the real wage changes as a consequence of technical change isn’t purely ‘‘economic’’ the wage the workers succeed in receiving depends on subjective elements that become realized in class struggle.

    ReplyDelete
  7. If there are N* number of workers in the economy and N is the number of workers employed N*- N represents the number unemployed which affects the bargaining strength of workers in the economy. The unemployed are provided with a minimal subsistence bundle by the state and the bargaining strength over the rate of exploitation is said to be an inverse relationship to the rate of employment. (Roemer p182, 183)

    Class struggle is expressed by the formula f(N/(N*) = e (Says Law) p'<0 and the rate of employment r = N/(N*) which determines the rate of exploitation e of the employed workers and their consumption level as b(r) where r ≥ ΛII[rb(r)+(1-r)b0] when b0 is the subsistence N ≥ ΛII[Nb(r)+(N*-N)b0] level given to the unemployed workers by the government.

    ReplyDelete
  8. When the employment rate is high the demands of workers b(r) becomes such that the economy doesn’t grow, if the rate of demand becomes too low the workers cannot produce enough surplus-value to pay for enough goods for themselves, the unemployed or for capitalist expansion shown as
    g = sπ Known as the Cambridge equation which gives the achievable growth rate g which assumes Says Law N = L[1/(1+g) I-M(r)]-1(F+(N*-N)b0) if a capitalists planned growth rate gD = p(π) then p'>0 if the rate of profit is zero the capitalist will not produce, this embodies the ‘‘animal spirit’’ from The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money by Maynard Keynes (Roemer p188, 189, 190)

    ReplyDelete
  9. When the level of employment N is higher the bargaining strength of labour increases therefore producing a falling rate of profit π expressed as
    f(N/(N*) = b;f' > 0 where b is a function of the employment rate r=N⁄(N*,b and the economic material balance rate is expressed as x = (1+g)(N*-N)b0/1-(1+g)m) a profit squeeze crisis occurs from the class struggle, and a realization crisis occurs from the cost of supporting the unemployed reserve of workers due to the discrepancy between planned growth and achievable growth. This then leads to a fiscal crisis where government expenditure needs to be reduced. (Roemer p195, 196)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Equilibrium can only be achieved if the labour force grows at the same rate as the material balance rate x which was behind the neo-liberal/neo-conservative globalization strategy of the 1980’s imperialist expansion of capitalism which solved the crisis of labour. But as we can see after thirty years of a globalization strategy the material balance has broken down and we have a realization and fiscal crisis where achievable growth isn’t enough to achieve an adequate surplus-value to support the social-wage bundle paid to those in work, the subsistence-wage bundle paid to the unemployed and surplus to pay the expected profit to the capitalists.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Roemer, John E. (1990) ‘Analytical foundations of Marxian economic theory’, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge ISBN-10: 0521347750

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.