Talk on the Euro & Capitalist Crisis with Hillel Ticktin
frey | 07.12.2011 17:20 | Analysis
The Euro Crisis and the Capitalist Crisis - a Marxist approach
A Critique Journal talk and discussion with Hillel Ticktin
Saturday 10 December, 3pm, rm 3A, University of London Union (ULU), Malet St.
A Critique Journal talk and discussion with Hillel Ticktin
Saturday 10 December, 3pm, rm 3A, University of London Union (ULU), Malet St.
capitalism game over
The present Euro crisis is insoluble because it is a microcosm of the general crisis, which itself has no solution...
The ruling class has used finance capital/imperialism, world wars, Cold War-welfare state and finance capital again as modes of survival. Finance capital has now imploded, while the colonies are now politically if not economically independent, the Cold War is over and world war is no longer possible. The return to the welfare state without the Cold War and Stalinism would only be the first step to loss of control, as became evident in the 1970s...
There is no strategy available to the capitalist class which has any kind of realistic chance of success, other than going for the growth of productive industry, but the bourgeoisie is afraid that this will produce a return to the 1970s, with a powerful working class demanding concessions, and ultimately the supersession of the system...
Perhaps the greatest triumph of the Keynesians since the adoption of Bretton-Woods has been the recognition that their policies would work, but are so dangerous to capitalism itself that they have to be avoided at all costs...
It is almost as if the ruling class has decided to commit suicide. It is going for an economic policy which is at best utopian and at worst catastrophic. Austerity for the vast majority and increasing riches for the ruling class is only a viable policy under conditions where there is absolutely no challenge to the system...
No level of state repression, under the British prime minister's name of ‘tough love', against a recalcitrant population will alter the growing, though inchoate, demand for ‘regime change' under conditions of growing inequality. The question is not whether there will be a powerful movement for the replacement of the market by a society rationally planned in the interests of the ordinary population, but how much longer it will take to develop. Marx's spectre of communism is very much the ghostly presence feared by the wealthy and powerful, even if they do not understand what shape it will take.
(Extracts from Critique's December editorial. Other articles are available via Hillel Ticktin's Wikipedia page).
The ruling class has used finance capital/imperialism, world wars, Cold War-welfare state and finance capital again as modes of survival. Finance capital has now imploded, while the colonies are now politically if not economically independent, the Cold War is over and world war is no longer possible. The return to the welfare state without the Cold War and Stalinism would only be the first step to loss of control, as became evident in the 1970s...
There is no strategy available to the capitalist class which has any kind of realistic chance of success, other than going for the growth of productive industry, but the bourgeoisie is afraid that this will produce a return to the 1970s, with a powerful working class demanding concessions, and ultimately the supersession of the system...
Perhaps the greatest triumph of the Keynesians since the adoption of Bretton-Woods has been the recognition that their policies would work, but are so dangerous to capitalism itself that they have to be avoided at all costs...
It is almost as if the ruling class has decided to commit suicide. It is going for an economic policy which is at best utopian and at worst catastrophic. Austerity for the vast majority and increasing riches for the ruling class is only a viable policy under conditions where there is absolutely no challenge to the system...
No level of state repression, under the British prime minister's name of ‘tough love', against a recalcitrant population will alter the growing, though inchoate, demand for ‘regime change' under conditions of growing inequality. The question is not whether there will be a powerful movement for the replacement of the market by a society rationally planned in the interests of the ordinary population, but how much longer it will take to develop. Marx's spectre of communism is very much the ghostly presence feared by the wealthy and powerful, even if they do not understand what shape it will take.
(Extracts from Critique's December editorial. Other articles are available via Hillel Ticktin's Wikipedia page).
frey