Economics

4 - The theory of decadence at the heart of historical materialism

In the first article in this series, published in International Review n118, we saw how the theory of decadence is at the very heart of historical materialism, of Marx and Engels’ analysis of the evolution of modes of production. Equally, we find the same notion at the centre of the programmatic texts of the organisations of the working class. Furthermore, not resting at merely adopting this foundation-stone of marxism, some of these organisations have developed the analysis and/or its political implications. It’s from this dual point of view that we aim here to briefly review the main political expressions of the workers’ movement. In this first part we will begin with the movement in the days of Marx, the Second International, the marxist lefts which came out of it, and the Communist International at the time it was formed. In the second part, which will appear in a future issue, we will examine more closely the analytical framework for the political positions developed by the Third International and then by the left fractions which emerged from it as it began to degenerate, and from which we draw our political and organisational origins.

Economic crisis: the descent into the abyss

The last recession (2000-2001) dealt a serious blow to all the theoretical flights of fancy that had developed around the supposed "third industrial revolution" based on the micro-processor and new information technologies, just as the collapse on the stock exchange demolished all the blather about a new "ownership capitalism" where wage labourers were to become participating shareholders – the umpteenth version of the worn-out myth of "popular capitalism", whereby each worker is supposed to become a "proprietor" through the ownership of a few shares in "his" company.

Britain can’t escape the world economic crisis (part 2)

In the last issue of World Revolution we published the first part of the report on the National Situation presented to the 16th Congress of WR in November last year. This examined the reasons for the increase in the rate of growth of GDP in recent years, concluding that it came from an increase in the absolute rate of exploitation of the working class and, in particular, from an extension of the working day through an increase in the rate of overtime, especially unpaid overtime. In the second part, published below, we go on to consider how the ruling class completes the task - once again at the expense of the working class.

The "economic boom" is a bluff:The Condition of the Working Class Continues to Worsen

The U.S. government continues to boast about its "unprecedented, longest running economic expansion in history." And it is true that the anticipated bursting of the "bubble economy," which we had anticipated was just around the corner has not occurred, and this despite the fact that the elements for open rececession seemed to be in place in 1998 following the collapse of the Asian tigers. State capitalism has demonstrated the resiliency to postpone its economic day of reckoning. On the one hand, much of this economic wonder is based on deception – the manipulation of economic data to paint an artificially rosey picture – and on policies designed to foist off the worst aspects of the global economic crisis on the peripheral countries of world capitalism. On the other hand, the degree to which there is economic growth in the U.S., or, more accurately, the absence of open recession, it hardly makes a difference from an historic perspective. The global economic crisis of world capitalism, a crisis of chronic overproduction, continues to deepen inexorably, regardless of the vicissitudes of the trade vicissitudes of the traditional business cycle that the bourgeoisie focuses on in its propaganda.

The 'new economy' is no solution to the capitalist crisis

It seems that the crisis is over. At least that’s what the bourgeoisie and its media are telling us. Economic growth is charting an unlimited upward course and unemployment is about to be completely done away with. The ruling class, in short, has overcome the contradictions of its system and put an end to 30 years of crisis.

Economic crisis: the crisis reveals the historic bankruptcy of capitalist productive relations

For more than 2.5 years the bourgeoisie has been announcing a recovery which it has been forced to put off at every quarter. For more than 2.5 years economic performance has fallen systematically below forecasts, forcing the ruling class to revise these downwards. The present recession, beginning in the second half of the year 2000, is already one of the longest since the end of the 1960s. And, although there are some signs of recovery in the United States, this is still far from being the case in Europe or Japan. Moreover, any improvement in United States is essentially the product of some of the most vigorous state intervention in 40 years, and an unprecedented increase in debt, leading to fears that the new speculative bubble in the housing market is about to burst.

The crisis: into the abyss

The plunge into an open recession which will be still deeper than its predecessors - some are even talking of "depression" - is silencing the "experts’" talk about lasting economic growth. If the latter are to be believed, the domino collapse of the South-East Asian economies since summer 1997 should have been no more than a blip, without any great effect on the economies of the developed countries. Since then, a tidal wave has passed over countries from Russia to Brazil, from Venezuela to Japan, to strike the heart of the great capitalist powers: "the time has come for an agonising reappraisal". has come for an agonising reappraisal".

New economy, internet, crisis

During the 1970s, we were asked to believe that the economic crisis was due to a shortage of oil; then in the early 80s we were promised that "Reaganomics" would get us out of the crisis. But never since capitalism was once again confronted with its open crisis 30 years ago have we witnessed such a massive ideological campaign aimed at convincing us that the crisis is over, and that a new era of prosperity is opening up. The propaganda of the last few years would even have us believe in a 3rd Industrial Revolution. According to one particularly puffed protagonist of this campaign, "This is a historic event at least as vital as the industrial revolution of the 18th century (...) The industrial era was founded on the introduction and the use of new sources of energy; the "informational" era is based on the technology of knowledge production, information treatment, and the communication of symbols". On the basis of US growth figures in recent years, the media tell us endlessly that unemployment is about to disappear, that what they call the "economic cycle", characterised since the beginning of the 70s by low growth and periodic, ever-deeper, recessions, has given way to a period of uninterrupted growth, for which only the most superlative adjectives are adequate, and all that because we have entered a "new economy" born by a major technical innovation: the Internet.

End of the crisis? A bluff of the bourgeoisie

The abyss behind "uninterrupted growth"

At the end of 1999, a sort of euphoria reigns over "economic growth". In 1998, the collapse of the "tigers" and "dragons" ose of the "tigers" and "dragons" of South East Asia, and of Brazil, Venezuela, and Russia had provoked the fear of a recession, and even a "depression", a fear which today seems "unjustified" if we are to believe the great bourgeois media. The millennium seems to be ending on an optimistic note, which feeds the propaganda aimed at the working masses: the eulogy of capitalism, that "only viable economic system", ever ready to confront its crises. In short, the message boils down to: "capitalism is doing fine and that’s how things will continue".

The reality of "economic prosperity" laid bare by the crisis

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the multiplication of wars and genocide quickly cancelled all the speeches about the so-called the new world order that was supposed to result from it. On the other hand, we have to recognise that all the ideological campaigns on democracy and capitalist prosperity met a certain echo and still weigh heavily on the class consciousness of the exploited.

Correspondence on Crisis Theories and Decadence, Part 2: Our reply

Bukharin, Raya Dunayeskavya and other critics of Rosa Luxemburg cited by the comrade, say that she was wrong to look for external reasons for the crisis of capitalism.  However, the world market and the pre-capitalist economies are not external to the system: they are the environment for its development and confrontations...

Correspondence on Crisis Theories and Decadence, Part 1: Our reply

The economic convulsions and avalanche of job losses that are sweeping over workers throughout the world and principally in the most industrialised countries are casting a clear shadow of doubt over the endless propaganda about the “good health” and “bright future” of this social system and generating a justified concern about the future.

The "Asian Dragons" run out of steam

The recent strikes and economic difficulties in South Korea have overturned one of the bourgeoisie's arguments in its ideological campaign to refute marxism. Disappointed by the end of the Japanese “miracle”, the bourgeoisie seized on the considerable growth rates of the “Asian dragons” (South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore) and the rise of new “tigers” (Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia). Wasnt their prosperity the “proof” that underdeveloped countries can quickly emerge out of poverty, and that the credit for these successes lies with capitalism and its market laws? And how many times have we been shown striking workers who carry on with their work while wearing an armband to mark their discontent? The “devotion to the interests of the company”, the “legendary discipline” of the south east Asian workers has been presented to us by the bourgeoisie and its media as one of the secrets of the economic success of these countries and as the living proof of the emptiness of the marxist theory that class conflict is inevitable.

Reply to the IBRP, Part 2: Theories of Capitalism's Historic Crisis

The International Bureau for the Revolutionary Party (IBRP) has replied in International Communist Review no.13 to our polemical article “The IBRP’s Conception of decadence in capitalism” which appeared in our International Review no.79. In International Review no.82 we published the first part of this article, which demonstrated the negative implications of the IBRP’s conception of imperialist war as a means for the devaluation of capital and the renewal of the cycles of accumulation. In this second part we are going to analyse the economic theory that sustains this conception: the theory of the tendential fall in the rate of profit.

The study of Capital and the foundations of Communism

In the previous article in this series (IR73) we saw that Marx and his tendency, having come to terms with the defeat of the 1848 revolutions and the onset of a new period of capitalist growth, embarked upon a project of deep theoretical research aimed at uncovering the real dynamic of the capitalist mode of production, and thus the real basis for its eventual replacement by a communist social order.

Marx proved right

As capitalism undergoes the most serious crisis in its history, all the defenders of the established order proclaim incessantly the death of Marxism: the only theory which is able to understand this crisis' reality, and which foresaw it. They are wringing the last drop out of that old and vile lie which equates Marxism and Stalinism, revolution and counter-revolution. The ruling class aims to dress up the bankruptcy of Stalinist state capitalism as the bankruptcy of communism, and of its theory: Marxism. This is one of the most violent ideological attacks that the working has been subjected to for decades. But no amount of hysterical exorcism by the bourgeoisie's hired hacks can change the bare truth: their theories have shown themselves completely incapable of explaining the present economic disaster, while the Marxist analysis of capitalist crises finds itself strikingly verified.

Part 8: The 'real domination' of capitalism and the real confusions of the proletarian milieu

There’s a brand new fashion in the proletarian milieu, a smart little theory which its trend setting designers present as a long-lost secret of marxism, permitting them to explain the historical evolution of capitalist society without - and here’s the beauty of it – having to drag in that commonplace, old-hat theory of decadence which the ICC in particular has been going on about for so long.

Part 6: Understanding the Decadence of Capitalism

In two previous articles, we demonstrated that all modes of production are regulated by an ascendant and a decadent cycle (International Review no. 55), and that today we are living in the heart of capitalism’s decadence (International Review no. 54). The present article aims to give a better description of the elements that have made it possible for capitalism to survive throughout its decadence, and in particular to provide a basis for understanding the rates of growth in the period following 1945 (the highest in capitalism’s history). Above all, we will demonstrate that this momentary upsurge is the product of a doped growth, which is nothing other than the desperate struggle of a system in its death-throes. The means that have been used to achieve it (massive debts, state intervention, growing military production, unproductive expenditure, etc) are wearing out, opening the way to an unprecedented crisis.

Part 5: Understanding the Decadence of Capitalism

In the fifth article in this series (see International Review Nos. 48, 49, 50 and 54), we are returning to the critique or rejection of the notion of decadence by a series of groups in the proletarian political milieu (the Internationalist Communist Party (Programma, Bordigist) or ICP, the Groupe Communiste Internationaliste (GCI), A Contre Courant (a recent split from the GCI), Communisme ou Civilisation (CoC), and in part the External Fraction of the ICC (EFICC) . We will demonstrate that these critiques in reality hide a rejection of the marxist conception of historical evolution which is the foundation of the necessity of communism, and so weaken the necessary historical dimension in the proletariat’s coming to consciousness, or else in cases like the GCI end up presenting the revolution as the old utopia of the anarchists.

Part 4: Understanding the Decadence of Capitalism

We are continuing here the series of articles begun in International Review Nos. 48, 49, 50, which aimed to defend the analysis of the decadence of capitalism against the criticisms levelled at it by groups of the revolutionary milieu, and by the GCI in particular. In this article, we aim to develop different aspects of the decadence of the capitalist mode of production, and to answer the arguments that reject it.

Crisis theories in the Dutch Left

In this third part of the series, we are going to deal with one of the most important theoretical foundations of the Dutch Left. From its origin at the begin­ning of this century, the Dutch Left gave an interpretation of historical materialism which be­came a characteristic mark of the ‘Dutch Marxist school' (Anton Pannekoek, Hermann Gorter, H. Roland-H­olst). This interpretation of Marxist method is often called ‘spontaneism'. We will show in this article why the term is inappropriate. Gorter and Pannekoeks' position on the role of spontaneity allowed the Dutch Left to understand the changes imposed on the class struggle with the onset of capitalist decadence. At the same time, we can see certain weaknesses in Pannekoek which today's ‘councilists' have pushed to their most absurd conclusions.

The acceleration of the crisis

The so-called ‘economic explanations’ that the ruling class soaks into the public mind through the press, radio and TV, almost always have one clear and avowed purpose: to justify in the name of ‘economic science’ the sacrifices which capital demands from those it exploits.

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