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2. Contemporary World Capitalism
- LANGAA RPCIG
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33 Chapter 2 Contemporary World Capitalism Overview From the Financial Times to the far left, tons of ink has been spilt writing about some variant of the “Crises of Global Capitalism”. While writers differ in the causes, consequences and cures, according to their ideological lights, there is a common agreement that “the crises” threatens to end the capitalist system as we know it. There is no doubt that, between 2008-2009, the capitalist system in Europe and the United States suffered a severe shock that shook the foundations of its financial system and threatened to bankrupt its ‘leading sectors’. However, I will argue the ‘crises of capitalism’ was turned into a ‘crises of labour’. Finance capital, the principle detonator of the crash and crises, recovered, the capitalist class as a whole was strengthened, and most important of all, it utilized the political, social, ideological conditions created as a result of “the crises” to further consolidate their dominance and exploitation over the rest of society. In other words, the ‘crises of capital’ has been converted into a strategic advantage for furthering the most fundamental interests of capital: the enlargement of profits, the consolidation of capitalist rule, the greater concentration of ownership, the deepening of inequalities between capital and labour and the creation of huge reserves of labour to further augment their profits. Furthermore, the notion of a homogeneous global crisis of capitalism overlooks profound differences in performance and conditions, between countries, classes, and age cohorts. 34 Historical Overview Two hundred years ago the development of capitalism gained impetus from the industrial revolution. From Western Europe it spread irresistibly across the world. Now, the overwhelming majority of the world’s population has been absorbed within its social relationships and the market system. Capitalism has imposed itself on the many different traditions and ways of life throughout the world. In Western Europe and America, capitalism developed in its more individualistic form through private enterprise. With the state capitalist revolutions of the 20th century it adapted to the traditions of state control as in Russia and China. Capitalism is now the dominant world system, operating in every country either through its private or state forms or a mixture of the two. Capitalism is a system in which the means of production are owned or monopolized by a privileged minority. The great mass of producers live by selling their labour power for wages or salaries. The minority class of capitalists, including the ruling class of state capitalist countries, lives on the surplus wealth produced by the workers. Goods take the form of commodities which are produced for sale on the market with a view to profit. Capital accumulates through the exploitation of workers: no employer hires workers without the prospect that new wealth will be produced to a value greater than that paid out in wages. The development of capitalism out of feudalism brought with it an entirely new system of production and distribution. One result of this has been that society has lost control of what is produced. Capitalism developed with the use of labour in a new form: the serf labour of feudalism was replaced by the wage labour of capitalism. What was different about this development was that goods were no longer produced for direct consumption; as commodities, goods came to be produced for sale on the market. In this way, production came to be regulated by the capacity of the market for sales, and therefore society lost direct control over the productive process. This is the position of world capitalism now. [54.147.0.155] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 05:55 GMT) 35 Every brand of government has to accept this basic feature of capitalism—namely production for profit — and no theory of socalled “economic management” has ever succeeded in bringing about policies which have been able to overcome it. Throughout the world we find that human needs are denied while millions are unemployed and production cannot go ahead. The use of labour, on which the life of society depends, is dominated by class interests, the profit motive and all the constraints on social action which inevitably arise from this. Moreover, capitalism is inherently a system of ruthless competition. Worker competes with worker for jobs; business competes with business for sales and profit; nation competes with nation over commodity sales, spheres of economic and political interest, the control of trade routes and sources of raw materials. Every sphere of life is governed by economic constraints and the destructive forces of...