Capitalism in Crisis

With the banks refusing to lend to each other the flow and circulation of global capital is being disrupted on scale not seen since the depression of the 1930’s. Share values have declined and major financial concerns are under pressure from the credit crunch. There have been massive bail-outs and buy-outs or state intervention and nationalisation in an effort to save the situation for capitalism. But whatever happens the short-term prospects for capitalism globally look bleak now that the consumer bubble fed by easy credit has finally burst.

The only course of action now open to the powers that be is to get us to tighten our belts till the economy starts picking up. How long this will take is anybody's guess for in the cutthroat world of competition the market determines who survives and who goes under. What is clear is that millions of workers will be unemployed. And consequently poverty will increase, health will deteriorate, homelessness will grow, deprivation and destitution will accelerate, crime will multiply and, in the so-called Third World, food riots become a regular occurrence.

This is nothing new because throughout the history of capitalism there is only one course of action available. In short - no profit no production. However, despite what the supporters of capitalism would have you believe there is one course of action available to the workers. The capitalist class won’t even contemplate it because it means a future without profits, private and state ownership, borders, money and inequality.

BJ