A Marxist Understanding Of The 2008 Economic Crisis

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[Sismiques]

13:30 those "libertarians" are not real libertarians.

Anarcho-communist Joseph Dejacque was the first person to employ the term libertarian for himself.

[steveharvey]

Wealthy people are freaking out and sounding the alarm because they know they are about to be eaten and destroyed by the monsters they created.

[peartree]

I think the working class are better off under socialism - you are looking at it from the pov of the Western number crunchers who only judge economic development in bourgeois terms. In every communist country - the working class are worse off since the fall of the Berlin Wall. And in western countries the working-class are worse off since the free-market reforms of the 80s. I don't expect you to care about that - but to us communists its sort of important.

[peartree]

In the developing world, the bourgeoisie and gangsters leave communist countries. In capitalist developing countries - the proletariat leaves on mass. What else would you expect? Why would the bourgeoisie stick around in Cuba? Even in Western countries when left-wing governments are elected the rich flock to tax havens. You see this is basically a vast class struggle as Marx predicted - both in the West and the developing world.

[peartree]

At last you're getting somewhere. Comparing developed countries like the GDR with the West is a fairer comparison - rather than banging on about China.

Now you will say 'living conditions in West Germany were far better than GDR'. However, much of Germany's wealth was built on the Marshal Plan, and favorable trading terms with the US. The German economic miracle was manufactured so you could draw your simple conclusions. But that miracle was unsustainable in the long term.

[peartree]

Profits come from exploitation, but as workers demand higher wages, profits fall. As profits fall capitalists make riskier investments that they wouldn't normally make or they start cooking the books to keep the show on the road. Capitalism collapses.

Alternatively, Capitalists are victims of their own success. They manage to keep wages at a subsistence level, but as wages stagnate, poorer workers buy less and less products. Demand drops - capitalism collapses.

[peartree]

Profits are made off ripping off workers. If everybody got fair wage world-wide - there wouldn't be any profits. The restaurant owner is not actually making his profit from buying and selling. Why - because has a consumer you generally won't pay over the odds for what you think something is worth. Hence the restaurant owner is actually making his profits from kitchen staff, waiters etc. He's taking their surplus labour and turning it into surplus value - i, e. profit.

[peartree]

Middleclass people wanted to leave. Because they no longer enjoyed the trappings of bourgeois life - foreign holidays, several cars on the drive, home ownership, private schools etc. Whereas the working class preferred the job security, free sport, low crime rates, shorter hours etc. Of course the West eventually swayed the workers - but that was through Keynesianism - which you say is unsustainable. The working class are starting to support communist parties again in Eastern Europe.

[peartree]

Whether its cheap labor or a conspiracy it amounts to the same thing. But back in the seventies the people behind Thatcher and Reagan claimed the West didn't need manufacturing industry - only service industry - as mines, factories, plants etc empowered the unions. Economic aid is actually given to Countries like India and China. They also have tariffs on Western goods like tires . And the West allows them to artificially manipulate their currency in order to make their exports even cheaper.

[peartree]

So when exactly is China going to become a free-market capitalist country? Going by other Asian countries like Malaysia, Singapore, Burma, Thailand, Indonesia I wouldn't hold your breath. And Chinese capitalism hasn't worked, Western capitalism just got outsourced to China. What products, brands, services are the Chinese developing exactly?

[peartree]

I'd have let all the Germans leave if they wanted - then gave East Germany to the European Jews - that way we wouldn't have had to piss off the Arabs.

[peartree]

What capitalism are we talking about - surely not the US with its public education, subsidized food, food stamps, medicaid, medicare, state pensions, state owned banks and GM. You will now say that's the problem too much socialism that's unsustainable. Well in that case we'll soon see Keynesianism collapse and go back to capitalism in the raw. Then we'll see how long capitalism lasts.

[peartree]

What gets me about these bosses who say surplus value doesn't exist, when some other firm has the whip hand over them they immediately start squealing. Like farmers moaning about the supermarkets, or hauliers complaining about the price of petrol, or Record companies bitching about Google. When the boots on the other foot they soon start blubbering to government.

[peartree]

So your analogy between globalization and plantations is a good one. The working class are now essentially bonded labor. And the plantation owners - multi-national corporations - have the whip-hand.

[steveharvey]

Did the below person actually refer to the condition of poverty as a behaviour? I would demand a refund from your education "EdgemaLL2." Poverty is a creation and a result, a man made one at that, which can be attributed to policy. People do not choose to be poor, nor do people want to be poor, and frankly I think they would prefer living wages over subsidy.

It is a lie that poor people are lazy worthless people who don't want to work. You confuse a criminal class with the working poor. The fact is the economic policy creates poverty just as it creates wealth. It is an illusion to think capitalism is not a system of classes. An illusion that demonizes the poor, glorifies the wealthy, and terrifies the middle class with the threats of poverty if they do not obey. The problem is the middle class did obey and they were thrown out into poverty anyway. Now all you have is rich, poor, and criminal. After people played by the rules and did as told.

This system is an illusion. Not a dream, but a nightmare. From caste to class we simply cannot seem to get over the imperialism. The uploader is right. No deals, no legislation, nothing will fix capitalism. It is unstable and unsustainable. We're screwed. What we need most is smaller business democratically run at a time when the whole world is dominated by huge mega top-down multinational corporations. All of which are like dictatorships with no loyalty to any country. Just what we don't need. Powerful stateless terrorists that only accept mindless obedient slaves to do its bidding all over the world.

[peartree]

The Great Society had to happen - otherwise I think black America would have been in full revolt. And try telling the millions receiving medicaid, medicare, foodstamps, public education that they'd be better off without them. Politicians, economists, academics never seem to ask the poor what they think.

[brucewallace]

2006 in the US, a quarter of the world economy, there had been a slump in profits. In the 3rd quarter of 2006 the mass of pre-tax profits was $1.865 billion but in the 4th quarter this had collapsed to $861 billion, a fall of more than half. On its own such a catastrophic fall in the mass of profits would have caused a severe recession but the slump in profitability and economic contraction detonated an implosion in the bloated edifice of international finance capital.

[peartree]

A great example of the success of democracy is Lebanon. Its hardly been mentioned in the Western media, but its UN brokered power-sharing agreement has held together against all the odds. Which is a miracle considering the bloody civil war that took place only a few years ago. What's more amazing is its still holding up in spite of another Civil War raging next door in Syria. And, needless to say, its economy is one of the best in the region.

[peartree]

"Gold, Yellow glittering, precious gold".
"will make black white, foul fair
Wrong right, base noble, old young..."

Timons of Athens - William Shakespeare.

[EdgemanLL]

Wromg, in EVERY case.

The single employee business doesnt get rich, because you can only do 1 job at a time. There is no way to duplicate the time.

But as you grow your business, and you have to add value to the business through hiring, accounting, payrolling, onboarding in addition to creating demand and securing work for the employees. this is the work the owner performs that creates wealth above the incremental costs providing from the front-line labor.