THE SOURCES OF THE DISTORTIONS: 5 THESES ON THE GLOBAL ECONOMY

To frame a more comprehensive analysis of the global economy and understand the plot of these sudden episodes, we part from five central definitions that are developed in the document we mentioned:

• First, the global capitalist economy has not taken off in 15 years, basically because the rate of profit is at its lowest levels since the end of the post-WWII “boom”.

• Second, for us, when that essential factor (the “rate” of profit, that is, the return on capital over the total invested) falls progressively, this generates consequences that feed a “structural vicious cycle.”

• Third, this “vicious cycle” implies that low profitability discourages, in terms of the rules of capital, productive investment and especially low investment in technology, and thus capital moves into speculation and, on that path, accumulates tensions that manifest as recurring crises, like bubbles: the main capitalist crises in the last 25 years have had to do with this mechanism.

• Fourth, the leap in speculation also has another face: there is an endemic, structural element that is the drop in productivity in the economy. This makes capitalists reinforce or deepen the offensive against the labor force: to compensate for the low productivity, due to lack of investment, they do the impossible to increase the levels of labor exploitation.

• Fifth, for this reason, the most widespread capitalist pattern of accumulation is not the virtuous incorporation of robotics or artificial intelligence. Taking the world-economy as a whole, the elements that grow are the “maquila,” precariousness in all its forms and, strategically, the suppression of labor rights as the class war agenda of the global bourgeoisie against the working class and the poor.

These keys make up the central knot of all the distortions of the capitalist economy in the stage we are going through.

SHORT-SIGHTED BOURGEOISIE, DEBTS AND CHINA: SOME COORDINATES

Since the Fall of the Berlin Wall, a dominant profile of the hegemonic bourgeois type has consolidated: more short-sighted, more circumstantial, more speculative, more decadent as a ruling class. There is no medium term for them, there is no strategic investment: they are a roulette player, a casino player, they operate under the logic of “every man for himself.” What is the ultimate cause of this global phenomenon? The class struggle , which, albeit with uneven rhythms, has continued generating regional waves and powerful rises since the 2000s, and has imposed strong limits to the class war agenda of the world bourgeoisie. That is why the capitalists improvise.

There is another element that is key to the global economic situation and a very weak link on a planetary scale: private, corporate debt is public. The ratio of debt to world GDP is almost 2:1. The short-term policy of raising interest rates to “cool down” the economy aggravates this structural tension: it makes credit more expensive, and thus domestic economies go bankrupt, companies stagnate and entire countries are on the verge of default. This also has a derivation in the “recipes” or “advice” of the IMF, with its usurious imperialist meddling, “auditing” countries, imposing budget cuts, adjustments, austerity and, therefore, causing phenomena of polarization, protests, uprisings, rebellions and crises. For this reason, we affirm that debts are one of the weak links in the world economy.

China, in its economic aspect, is another topic that we addressed: in the document, we attempt to provide data, information, and we risk some hypotheses; we describe and make a historical analogy to explain the point at which the inter-imperialist tension/dispute with the US is today “economically”. For us, it is possibly the most important geopolitical phenomenon in the world situation and, at the same time, it is still in the process of maturing. Because China continues to accumulate economically before taking the step toward an open confrontation for hegemony. It is in an uncertain and open transition, although a potentially decisive clash is incubating. capital. Therefore, there is a way out, but it is part of the construction of a different economic phase. For the immediate program, the keys are: a program against debts; a way out of speculation and the banking crisis; a platform against shortages and unemployment; and in the end, a reorganization from the roots up, against the anarchy of this economy of uncertainty, of short-term counterpunches.

If we talk about debts, the path is categorical: suspend all payments, audit and produce social propaganda to mobilize socially and support sovereign measures. In parallel, promote an international front of debtor countries.

The fictitious capital casino also requires a strong hand: nationalize all private banks, centralize them and accompany this measure with the public appropriation of foreign trade. The levers of credit for an independent and class based economic policy, and the control of international relations, have to pass from the hands of the current privileged minority to the working majority. Without a doubt.

Against unemployment and poverty: massive public works plan and reduction of working hours with equal pay. Work less, for all to work.

ESCAPING THE (CAPITALIST) MAZE FROM ABOVE

All forecasts confirm a horizon of chronic stagflation, as an expression in the economy of a kind of unstable stalemate in the class struggle. Unable to impose its war plan of defeating the working class and the mass movement across the line (as proven by France, the strikes in England or the revolts in Latin America), capital intervenes from “above,” adjusting profitability with price inflation or cooling the economy with the manipulation of interest rates against the panic of losing control. In the medium term, the hypothesis is capitalist fragility, uncertainty and chaos; and a wide open stage to pose a different exit with a different class content.

In historical terms, of the current political phase, we can say that capitalism blocks the process of civilizational development. Unlocking it implies questioning the limits of

And in the end, reconvert the general matrix of production: as the economic history of the 20th century and the 21st thus far have shown, the demand for goods does not balance itself with the supply. This is a mistaken premise of vulgar capitalist economic science. There is disorder, anarchy and waste because capital produces and then the crystallization of socially necessary work may or may not be justified a posteriori if someone buys the goods in the market. The socialist vision is the opposite: we start from the social calculation of real needs, and from there we democratically plan production and organize consumption based on that parameter, also adding, in the face of the ecocidal heritage of capitalism, an awareness of the limits of depredated nature. We think in these terms. We work with this orientation.

Read the Economy document voted at the ISL Congress here