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Crises

Cooking the Books: Overproduction

According to Stuart Jeffries in the Guardian (5 July), “Marxism is on the rise again”. One of the reasons he gives for this is “its analysis of economic crises”. But what is this analysis?

The problem with trying to describe Marx’s own theory is that he never published a final, worked-out version. In Volume 1 of Capital there are some passing references to capitalist production going in cycles “of average activity, production at high pressure, crisis and stagnation”. Apart from that, all we have are drafts and notes on the subject which Engels, Kautsky and Moscow later published as Volumes 2 and 3 of Capital, Theories of Surplus Value and the Grundrisse, but these drafts are not always entirely consistent with each other.

50 Years Ago: Wall Street slump

Wall Street got the twitch last month and so did London and the Bourses on the Continent. The newspapers rushed out pictures of the panic in 1929 and then had to set their City Editors to work to explain why 1929 cannot after all happen again.

Everybody seemed to have forgotten that just before 1929 the financial experts were assuring us that the crash which was in fact just around the corner could never happen anyway. If this does not make the experts of 1929 look very impressive in retrospect, it must also teach us that the forecasts of all capitalism's economic experts are not worth very much.

Nowadays the experts are fond of pointing out the precautions which (they are confident) would prevent a runaway boom like the one which preceded the 1929 crash and therefore (they reason) would also prevent the crash itself.

Crises and Depressions

From the series on Marxian Economics.

Venue: The Latin American Bookshop,
29 Islington Park Street, London

The original tape source is of poor quality, especially for the questions and discussion in part three. The worst bits have been deleted, and this is indicated by the addition of two seconds of silence.

Recorded: 
Sunday, 8 June 1980

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audio/mpeg iconCrises and Depressions pt.1.mp3

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Cripps on Crises

Business men and Labour politicians are worried. Exports fell heavily in April and the President of the Board of Trade, Mr. Harold Wilson, says that we are beginning to face "some of the difficulties which every exporter in this country knows we have got to face before long." Sir Frederick Bain, retiring President of the Federation of British Industries, says the time is near "when we must once again fight for our lives in a competitive world." (Daily Telegraph, 12/5/49). The Daily Express, backing it both ways, tells us that depression is now upon us, and it will creep over the world," but that "of course, the future does not hold any terrors. Wise counsels will prevail in many of the western countries and there will not be a serious dislocation of commerce and industry such as occurred in 1929." (Daily Express, 11/5/49)

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