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Monopolisation of big
business is endemic to the capitalist system. Big business has become
wealthier and more powerful today than ever before.The revolving doors between government and industry has ensured the
continued domination of big business over parliament and state. Capitalist economists constantly argue that
privately run industry driven by pursuit of profit is the best way for
an economy to function. But, even a cursory look at the world around us
tells a very different story. Far from being efficient, capitalism is
riddled with contradictions and crisis. You could write multiple
volumes, as Karl Marx did, on the inadequacies of capitalism, but here,
in this limited space, we shall deal with just a few.
When the economy was booming the euro was seen as a source of strength
for those countries that had adopted the new currency. Now it is
transforming into its opposite, as the crisis in Greece demonstrates.
The Marxists warned about this long ago.
Greece, like all the other capitalist
countries afflicted by the recession, is running a big deficit on its
government budget. Tax revenues have
collapsed and more benefits are having to be paid out to the unemployed.
Deficits for the European Union countries as a whole tripled from 2.3% to 6.9%
from 2008 to 2009 because of the slump.
The bankers are celebrating their orgies. Wall Street banks are set to
shell out $65bn in bonuses to the speculators who fouled up so
spectacularly and brought the credit crunch down on our heads. Some of
this largesse will drop into the laps of dealers in the City of London
and Canary Wharf. Goldman Sachs alone will lash out $20bn and JP
Morgan, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup and Bank of America will stump up
another $65bn
The deepest and longest economic recession in the advanced capitalist economies since the 1930s is more or less over. But it won’t be long before capitalism plunges into another. That won’t happen in 2010, but there will be another economic slump before the new decade is out.
The world of international finance has been shaken by the
default in Dubai.
Shares have taken a tumble all over the world. Commentators have suggested that
this could be the cause of the recession moving into a double dip, of a further
downturn in the world economy. Mick Brooks looks at the unfolding crisis in the, until last week, 'money no object' world of Dubai.
There has
been no levelling off of the global economy, as economists predicted. Although
industrialisation has expanded to lesser-developed countries, it has generally
been along lines determined by global corporations based in advanced capitalist
countries. From colonialism, we have moved into the age of multinational
corporate domination. Will Roche looks at the rise of monopoly capitalism.
Stock
exchanges and commodity prices are on their way up. The world economy is
showing faltering signs of recovery. There’s no doubt that it’ll be a long
haul. Millions of people all over the world have had their lives devastated by
the economic tsunami. It will take years to clean up all the mess. But one
major national economy after another has announced that the recession is
officially over – France, Germany, Japan
and even the USA.
All except Britain.
Why is British capitalism still stubbornly stuck in the mire?
Why is New Labour hurling yet more of our
money at the banks? The London ‘Metro’
screams that the latest deal is the “World’s biggest bank bailout.” It’s
costing every household in Britain £2,000, on top of all the money wasted last
time round
On
Thursday October 24th 1929 the great New
York stock exchange panic began. 12,894,650 shares
changed hands, many at fire sale prices. The following Black Tuesday October 29th
Wall Street began its long meltdown. The Wall Street crash divides two eras:
the jaunty ‘jazz age’ of the 1920s and the 1930s – the decade of depression
Lord Adair Turner is head of the UK’s Financial
Services Authority, the body in charge of regulating the banks and other
financial institutions. Some weeks ago, he was interviewed
by Prospect magazine, a small mouthpiece of the Blairite wing of New Labour. In that interview, Lord Turner blurted out a
telling truth about finance capital that its proponents did not want to
hear. The reaction from
financiers has been apoplectic.
Over the last few decades - first under the Tories then under New
Labour - we have seen the official unemployment figures massaged and
fiddled time and time again in order to make them seem more
'acceptable' in the official reports and, of course, the newspapers. Is
this unique to the UK? Well no, let's have a look at the
real rate of unemployment in the US.
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