robbo203
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I don’t know if the source is reliable or not. Still, it looks like Mark Rutte the NATO secretary General is intent on ensuring that the US remains firmly wedded to this organisation. There would seem to be growing divisions within NATO over what to do about the Ukraine situation and it seems possible that a resolution to this stupid pointless war might be in sight …
https://newsukraine.rbc.ua/news/trump-is-right-nato-chief-reacts-to-us-claims-1738504201.html
Karl Marx over estimated the taking of class consciousness by the world working class, in our time millions of workers are supporting their own exploiters, in my entire life I had never seen anything like this before.
Absolutely spot on! I have never seen circumstances quite so dire as the present tbh. It’s almost like a kind of delirious masochism that workers have succumbed to. The capitalist left wing are partly responsible for this state of this but I think primarily what we are seeing is a kind of Stockholm Syndrome being manifested on an huge scale. Its sickening seeing workers identifying with the likes of Trump and Musk who clearly couldn’t give a flying f··k about them and you just have to pay a visit to Twitter/X to see this happening all the time. So depressing it makes me want to cancel my account there.
This relentless focus on the individual – the Great Man theory – is deeply disturbing and regressive. It’s like in olden times when the wellbeing of society was ideologically bound up with the wellbeing of the monarch. When you beheaded the head of state society was supposedly reduced to running around like a headless chicken LOL
The Right is rampant in many parts of the world now, and growing stronger, but at some point, the see-saw of capitalist politics is going to kick in and we will probably see a movement in the opposite direction – towards Leftist populism again (of which Bernie Sanders and Jeremey Corbyn were perhaps, abortive examples).
Historically, I guess revolutionary socialism has tended to fare better in a social climate where Leftist thinking was more dominant even though we are fundamentally opposed to left-wing capitalism as such. Of course, Starmer´s Anti-Labour Party are not in any way Left-wing and you might still see a further shift to the Right in the form of the Reform Party. But elsewhere maybe not. Maybe the workers will eventually see through the fraud of right-wing politics with its familiar themes such as anti-immigration and so on but let’s hope they also learn from the lessons of the Left´s past failures as well should it regain some influence.
In that case, I wonder how the cause of revolutionary socialism will fare? Grim though the present may be, maybe there is hope for the future, after all ….
Trump – the consummate con artist
I see Baron von Mises makes the same mistake as the Trots make about the Soviet Union:
“The German pattern of socialism (Zwangswirtschaft) [“compulsory economy”] is characterized by the fact that it maintains, although only nominally, some institutions of capitalism. Labor is, of course, no longer a “commodity”; the labor market has been solemnly abolished; the government fixes wage rates and assigns every worker the place where he must work. Private ownership has been nominally untouched. In fact, however, the former entrepreneurs have been reduced to the status of shop managers (Betriebsfuehrer). The government tells them what and how to produce, at what prices and from whom to buy, at what prices and from whom to sell. Business may remonstrate against inconvenient injunctions, but the final decision rests with the authorities.”
Just because the market is regulated and is no longer a “free” market doesn’t mean that it is not still a market or that labour (power) is not still a commodity
It looks like Trump wants to add to the job description of workers in employment LOL.
Then there´s this
Trump is already beginning to trip over his own ideological shoelaces a few days into his “administration”
Also this
So he is deporting all those cheap illegal workers, thus driving up labour costs, and then expecting businesses to invest in the US. From a capitalist point of view, how does this make sense? It’s like his sidekick; Elon Musk, fretting about population collapse due to declining birth rates and then supporting Trump´s anti-immigrant rhetoric. Surely, if he was worried about population decline, he would welcome more immigrants with open arms to …er… “Make Murica Great Again!
I’m sure that is a big part of it but I would also say that the scale of the unproductive sector has swollen to the extent it has precisely because of decadence. The productive forces have so long ago outgrown the social relations that capitalism needs to invent this globalised unproductiveness to keep the whole mad cycle going.
isiahahblake
Yeah I would basically along with that. The only slight quibble would be that productive/unprpductive distinction, while it might be relevant to the question of the rate of profit in capitalism (as Moseley argues) might not be entirely relevant to the question of to what extent the productive forces have outgrown the social relations of capitalism.
There are, for example, certain categories of unproductive labour in capitalism that we will continue to need in a post capitalist society. An immediate example that springs to mind is an NHS nurse. There are also examples of productive labour in capitalism that we will definitely not want to continue with such as armaments producers.
A more useful distinction would be between socially useless and socially useless work. However, this is only apparent from a standpoint external to capitalism itself so data relating to this is not that easy to come by. Most estimates seem to settle around the 50-60% mark (that is, the percentage of jobs currently in the formal sector of the economy that would not be needed in a post capitalist society) Some estimates are excessive in my opinion – up to 90% in Ken Smith´s book, “Free is Cheaper” (a figure similar to that cited by Buckminster Fuller).
Are you aware of any detailed studies recently that might throw more light on this? Has the ICC published anything on it?
A bit OTT and vague as to what exactly is to be done. But it makes some interesting points
The question of whether debt ever has to be paid is interesting but ultimately I think its a false question. The fact is capitalism is running into basic realities of nature, in the form of the climate crisis and the raw questions of power and war
This is plausible – though it is difficult to say whether capitalism would collapse (implode) or merely shrink as a result of factors such as climate change or war coming to manifest themselves. These are exogenous factors, however, and the argument that the SPGB makes is that there are no endogenous factors – internal to the economic system itself – that would cause capitalism to collapse (such as the falling rate of profit). Obviously in the event of a nuclear war, say, there will be not much left of human society let alone capitalism.
The more important question with regard to debt is, I think, the reason for its explosion since the 70s/80s onwards. There is clearly something different about the current crisis to previous ones in this regard. The degree to which companies more and more don’t ‘make profit’, whole economies like Japan’s are basically giving up on basic aspects of ‘growth’ etc…it is clearly not just business as usual
The dichotomy of the productive versus unproductive sector of the capitalist economy might be relevant here. People like Fred Moseley have charted the relative growth of the unproductive sector – the non-profit-producing or non-commodity-producing sector of the American economy (in his case). Unproductive labour might not generate profits but is still functional – even vital – to the needs of capitalism. It is financed out of surplus value generated by the productive sector but that, in itself, imposes limits on the extent of this sector vis-a-vis the productive sector. It is significant that we have seen cutbacks in jobs in the unproductive sector in recent years which might be interpreted as an attempt to get the balance right and ensure a healthy flow of profits on which the system depends
LOL Not content to annex Greenland, Panama and maybe Canada, the Orange One (and his sidekick) seems to want to claim Mars. Time to get the popcorn out, methinks
As I said I think it’s clear that the recourse to debt as a solution to the debt crisis would suggest there must be a cumulative aspect to the crisis. Whether this means it will be “deeper” than the 30s is very difficult to judge but it does seem likely to be more universal/international than 2008 or the 30s.
________________________IsiahahBlake
I am curious about this argument about the role of debt. Public (government) debt for the US is about $33 trillion (there is also of course, household debt which is different), as I understand it. Actually, it is somewhat less since part of this is debt is money the government owes itself and the real figure is about $26 trillion . This supposedly represents a ratio of debt to GDP of about 98%.
It is a huge sum of money and apparently even just the interest repayments now exceeds what the American regime spends on its military.
I read somewhere that the debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to grow to about 160 per cent in the next decade and that there is an absolute upper limit of 200% beyond which it cannot grow without the system imploding. There are already countries that have a ratio in excess of 200% like Japan for example but there are offsetting factors in this case like a much higher rate of household savings
My question is – can it really be that there is some such upper limit as far as debt is concerned or is it a case of just endlessly kicking the can down the road?
My understanding is that Marx saw financial crises involving fictitious capital could have a disruptive or triggering effect as real crises are concerned but the latter are ultimately rooted in the real economy, for all the talk of “Minsky moments” and financially crashing the economy. Capitalism could survive a cataclysmic financial crash in other words. What do you think?
Rosa Luxembourg was mistaken and trying to question Marx she created more problems for herself, and it has been proven that the collapse theory is completely wrong and the main cause of the capitalist crisis is not the fall of the rate of profits, it is overproduction
==========================As I understand it, Luxemburg did not think capitalism would collapse as a result of the falling rate of profit. That would have been Henryk Grossman, I think, whose views she opposed. Nevertheless, she did believe capitalism would collapse but from a quite different standpoint of underconsumptionist theory or a particular version of it based on the idea of the non-capitalist world being incorporated capitalism via imperialism and so providing the system no more room for expansion
This is simply unbelievable. That pathetic excuse for a human being, Michael Gove, suggesting that a state terrorist entity like the IDF should be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize….
One does not have to have the slightest sympathy whatsoever for a reactionary nationalist outfit like Hamas to appreciate this has got to be some kind of sick joke
https://www.thejc.com/lets-talk/the-idf-should-be-nominated-for-the-nobel-peace-prize-xmppkld8
´A “peace prize” for killing 17,400 little kids. Yeah right. You couldnt make this up if you tried
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/longform/2024/11/20/an-a-z-of-the-children-israel-killed-in-gaza
And apparently, the numbers murdered by the IDF have been underestimated….
It seems that the Venezuelan regime might be running into what is called a “legitimation crisis”. It is very curious that Machado was briefly arrested and then released after addressing a huge protest rally on the eve of Maduro’s inauguration. Caracas has been militarised apparently with the aid of some amongst the “collectivos” (others have come out against Maduro) but just lately the approach of the regime to protest seems to have softened slightly. I wonder why?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cyv3vlz01g3o
The top brass in the military have sworn allegiance to Maduro but there is apparent discontent among those lower down the hierarchy. Is there the possibility of a “junior offices revolt” – a coup – and the regime is aware of this? Or is Maduro looking for some face-saving formula whereby he and his gangster capìtalist cronies could keep their millions and maybe relocate to some safe haven in exchange for relinquishing power and handing it over to the opposition who clearly won the election by a huge majority?
It will be interesting to see what happens in the next few days….
Now Russia is taking an interest in Trump´s imperialist ambitions re Greenland. Maybe Denmark can call on the services of a few Russian brigades when the US marines move in LOL LOL
“French Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot said “there is obviously no question that the European Union would let other nations of the world attack its sovereign borders”.
LOL. Its war brewing up – against the Yankee imperialists!
