Ending the Crisis of Capitalism or Ending Capitalism?

Ending the Crisis of Capitalism or Ending Capitalism?

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Through the voices o f the people s of Africa and the globa l South , Pa mbazuka Pre ss and Pamba zuka News disseminate analysis and debate on the struggle for freedom and justice. Pam baz uka Press - www.pam baz ukapress .org A Pan-African pu bl is he r of progres..,ive books and DVDs on A frica and the globa l South that rum to s timu late d iscussion, analysis and cngagemcnt. Our p ubli cations add ress issues o f human rig hls, social justice, ad vocacy, the po liti cs of aid, d evelo pme nt an d inte rnational fina nce, women's rights, e merging powe rs and ac ti vis m. They are primarily writtcn by wcll-known Afr ican acade mics and activists. A ll books arc a vaila ble as c books.

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Pam baz uka News - www.pam baz uka.org The award-w inn ing and in flue ntial elect ro nic wee kly news lette r providi ng a pla tform fo r progres..,ive PanA frican pe rs pecti ves o n poli tics, development and g lobal affair s. Wi th more than 2,500 co nt ributo rs across the continen t and a reade rshi p of m o re than 660,000, Pamhazu ka NcIVs has beco me thc indispcns for CJ1ed to distance themselves from the 'socialist' socie ties in Eas te rn Euro pe, set up und er the dorninati on of the Sovie t Union. In the minds of people like Ernes t Mandel and RudoU Bahro these socie ties were in many ways a tra vesty of soc ialism. Samir A min oft en uses the Frel1 ch wo rd ',t hivi" , referring to the way in w hich princi ples or po li cies gradually lose their impe tus and end up in positio ns quite contrary to their o riginal purpose. So me times this is a delibe rate de cision on the pa ri of a group or pa rty bu t in any case the process is usually s low (and ofte n unrecogni sed ), hence the word 'derive', w hich seems to me to be best trans lated as' drift ' . The a utho r uses the word ' n'111"I'S l'I1 tatioll ' not to refe r to a theatrical pe rforman ce or in the se nse o f an agent, bu t as Marx used it to describe the way in w hich a sy ste m presents itself to the me mbers of its society in su ch a way that is con venie nt for those w ho dominate socie ty but s till co nvincing e no ug h to obtain the co nse nt of the dominated (if only tacit) if the syste m is to work. See parti cularly the sectio n hea ded 'The Libe ral Virus' in Chapter 7. The n there arc word s w hi ch have differe nt connotatio ns in vi ngntea IT

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TR ANSLATOR'S NOTE

Eng lis h an d French. O ne of th em is 'pnplllaif!", w hich cannot normally be transl,1 ted by ' pop ul en iso lated fo llow ing the d efeat o f the hopes o f revoluti on in cen tral Eu ro pe, the capitill of the finiln cia.lised monopo lies restored, ilgains t all the odds, the system o f the belle 6poque; a res toration, denounced by Keynes at the time, which was at the origin of the financial collapse o f 1929 and the G reilt Depression to w hich it led and which lilsted until the beginning of the Second World War. The lo ng 20th century - 1873-1990 - is therefore the century o f both the deployment o f the fir s t systemi c and profound crisis of ilgei ng ca pitilLis m (to the po int w here Lenin th oug ht tllilt thi s cap italism of monopolies constituted the supreme phase o f capitalis m) and that of the first triumphmll wave of anti-capit alist revol utions (Russia, China) and o f the anti-imper ialis t movements of Asia and Africa. The second sys temic crisis of capi taJism begiln in 1971, wi th the abandoning o f the go ld convertibility o f the dollar, almost exact ly a century after the co mmenceme nt of the first crisis. Profit rates, inves tment levels and growth Tilles all co llapsed (iUld never ilgilin reverted to the levels of the perio d 1945-75). Cap itill responded to the challenge, as in the previous crisis, with a do uble movement 4 ngntea IT

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INTRODUCTION

of concentration and g lobalisation. In tllis way, cap ital es tablished s tructures that d efin ed the second belle e po'!ue (1990-2008) of finan cialised g lobalisatio n, allowing oligopo listic groups to levy their monopoly rent. The same discourse accompanied this process: the market guarantees prosperity, democracy and peace; it is the end of his tory. The sa me rallying occurred, this time by Europcan socialists to thc ncw liberalis m. Howcvcr, this new bellc epo,!ue was from the outset accompanied by war, the waf o f the North versus the South, started i.n 1990. Ju st as the firs t financial ised globalisalion had led to 1929, so the second p rodu ced 2008. Today wc have rcnched this crucial mo ment whi ch announces the probability of a new wave o f Wilrs and revolutio ns. T he chances of this are even g reater since the ruling powers do not enviSenth Brumai re of Lo uis N apoleon (his clmp d'etat of 1851), the Paris Co nunune weTe no t selected by chan ce, as Raymo nd Aron would h,we it. They are no less fundamenta lthd. He gave their rightful place to the heirs of Jacobinis m and ' the Mou ntain ', to the BlIl/III"isll't', to the heralds o f t he business bourgeoisie (G ujzot and others), to the political adventurers (Louis Napo leon Bonaparte), to the spokesmen of the workers who were organising, to the peasa ntry who were apparently silent, and even to insignificant personalities (such as Lamartine). Later, with the creation of the International Working Men's Association, then tile Paris Commune, ' the ascent to attack the s ky', he crossed swords w ith the anarcho-commu nist representations of Bakunin, the hesitant ideas of Proudhon, the state theories of Lassale, the narrow-mindedness o f English trade unionism. The theo ry of the state outl i.ned by Marx and Engels and later by Lenin, and those of d emoc racy and mod ern pol iti cs, are the result of this cri tiq ue. O r, more exact ly, Marx, Engels and Lenin set down the bases of this theory Wll ic h, like that of capit"l, cannot be completed, either theoretically or in practice. For these analyses mus t "lways be up for question, retho ug ht and reformula ted. And the st"te and poH tics pursue their evolution and change wi th the permanent transformation of the ca pitalist reality. T he contras t between this analysis of the new reality made by Marx and the prodigiou s analysis made by Machiave ll i o f the ancient poli tical re"lity should imp ress the attenti ve re"der. M"chiavell i speaks abou t the re" lity of "nother lime, another kind o f power. The critique o f politics and o f the s tate proposed by Marx is both fu nd amental for the whole history of capital ism, including its l"test developmen ts, and lim ited by its pe riod . This cri tique s ho uld have been purs ued, as Lenin did, but he only started it. T his has no t been the case for histori cal Marxism which became bogged down, repeating w l1en Revolution .uH..lQ5 Guinc