economics
Greek crisis reveals ‘progressive’ Europe’s reactionary stew
May 3, 2010 – The bailout of the debt-ridden Greek government seems finally to be complete.
Europe: Solidarity with the resistance of the Greek workers (updated May 9)
April 30, 2010
By Ingo Schmidt
Why global capitalism is tipping towards collapse, and how we can act for a decent future
"Random events, those happenings that nobody could foresee, always have a huge impact on historical outcomes."
March 15, 2010 -- This is an excerpt from an essay that forms the entire contents of the March 2010 edition of UNITY, Socialist Worker New Zealand's quarterly Marxist journal for grassroots activists. Following editions of the journal will expand on the crises which are converging to tip global capitalism towards collapse. To subscribe to UNITY journal, email Len Parker at office@sworker.pl.net. UNITY is posted to your letterbox four times a year. Price: $25 for NZ subscribers, NZ$40 offshore fastpost. This excerpt has been posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with permission.
* * *
By Grant Morgan
Part 1: History lessons
The fable behind the stereotype
China, capitalist accumulation and the world crisis
By Martin Hart-Landsberg
[A version of this article appeared in the South Korean journal, Marxism 21. It has been posted at Links International Journal of Socialist Renewal with Martin Hart-Landsberg’s permission.]
February 2010 -- The consensus among economists is that China’s post-1978 market reform policies have produced one of the world’s greatest economic success stories. Some believe that China is now capable of serving as an anchor for a new (non-US dominated) global economy. A few claim that the reform experience demonstrates the workability (and desirability) of market socialism. This paper is critical of these views.
United States: The rise of bagel capitalism
By Harry Targ
Beyond the World Social Forum ... the Fifth International
Eric Toussaint interviewed by Igor Ojeda for the Brazilian weekly paper Brasil de Fato. Translated from French by Judith Harris and Chris
New Zealand: What has happened to real wages since1982?
By Mike Treen
Official data on wage movements in New Zealand point to a real wage decline of around 25% between 1982 and the mid-1990s that has never been recovered.
There have been two series measuring wages in the period – the Prevailing Weekly Wage Index (discontinued in June 1993) and its replacement the Labour Cost Index. I have created a continuous series based on the LCI series back to 1982 (by adjusting the PWWI numbers before December 1992 when PWWI at 1000 was equivalent to the LCI at 868). These numbers are in turn deflated by the CPI index covering the whole period.
What is revealed is that by the mid-1990s real wages had declined at least 25%. There has been no recovery since then and real wages remain 25% below their 1982 peak. This result can be directly attributed to the combination of the massive deunionisation as a result of the anti-union employment laws and the recession that accompanied it in the early 1990s.
System's defenders warn of 'collapse' of global capitalism
By Grant Morgan
October 22, 2009 -- Something molecular is changing in the DNA of capitalism. Look at these three recent quotes:
- "The future will be a total disaster, with a collapse of our capitalistic system as we know it today."
- "Capitalism is near the tipping point, unprepared for a catastrophe, set up for collapse and rapid decline."
- "There is a high probability of a crisis and collapse by 2012. The 'Great Depression 2' is dead ahead. Unfortunately, there's absolutely nothing you can do to hide from this unfolding reality or prevent the rush of the historical imperative."
What's particularly important about these quotes is who made them. Not socialists. No, they were made by ardent, intelligent and reputable defenders of capitalism. For more information, read the MarketWatch essay "America's soul is lost and collapse is inevitable".
Claudio Katz.
Claudio Katz interviewed by Fernando Arellano Ortiz. Translated by John Mage for IIRE.
July 10, 2009 -- The exit from the systemic crisis of capitalism needs to be political and "a socialist project can mature in this turbulence". So says the Argentine economist, philosopher and sociologist Claudio Katz, who also warns that the "global economic situation is very serious and is going to have to hit bottom, and now we are but in the first moment of crisis".
On September 17, 2009, John Bellamy Foster appeared on Democracy Now! to discuss the financial
Ecosocialism 2025
