Capitalism may not survive 2020 global crisis, which will cut deeper and last longer than many predict

The current global crisis triggered by Covid-19 is the third capitalist crash in this century. And governments’ incapacity to consider non-capitalist solutions threatens to keep deepening this crisis into capitalism’s worst.

by Richard D. Wolff

Part 4 - Huge mistake

The way ahead presents a stark social choice. Capitalism has shown itself poorly prepared for the pandemic’s arrival, poorly prepared to contain it, and clearly unable to prevent the massively destructive collision of business cycle downturn and viral pandemic.

It is now proving poorly adapted to managing the global capitalist downturn.

Too much of both the private and governmental responses to date have aimed at “returning to normal.” By that is meant roughly the conditions before February/March of 2020 when pandemic and capitalist crash arrived. Yet, there lies a huge mistake. That normal contained all the seeds and processes that then brought us to the present situation.

A different roadmap for the post-pandemic world has to face the need to NOT return to the pre-pandemic “normal.” Instead, major structural changes in national economies, world trade, and finance need to be decided and implemented. Chief among these is a much less unequal global distribution of wealth and income.

Moreover, this must include changes in enterprise organization so that modern capitalism’s tendency to deepening inequalities of wealth and income is not allowed to resume its socially divisive functions.

Likewise, there must be a much more coordinated global movement to achieve such changes. Otherwise national variants of the five converging crises in the US mentioned at the beginning of this essay will be our global future.

Too many governments that capitalists still control seem frozen in their incapacity to find non-capitalist solutions. They shy away from or cannot imagine policies that provide jobs and incomes and secure public health without prioritizing profits, without deferring to the existing ownership and operational structure of private enterprises.

That incapacity threatens to keep deepening this crisis into capitalism’s worst. It also raises the basic question of this moment: can capitalism survive?

***

Source:

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/495410-richard-wolff-capitalism-crisis/

[1][2][3]

Comments

Stephen Hawking confirms: The problem is Capitalism, not robots!

globinfo freexchange According to world famous physicist Stephen Hawking, the rising use of automated machines may mean the end of human rights – not just jobs. But he’s not talking about robots with artificial intelligence taking over the world, he’s talking about the current capitalist political system and its major players. On Reddit, Hawking said that the economic gap between the rich and the poor will continue to grow as more jobs are automated by machines, and the owners of said machines hoard them to create more wealth for themselves. The insatiable thirst for capitalist accumulation bestowed upon humans by years of lies and terrible economic policy has affected technology in such a way that one of its major goals has become to replace human jobs. If we do not take this warning seriously, we may face unfathomable corporate domination. If we let the same people who buy and sell our political system and resources maintain control of automated technology, the...

Προβλέψεις ...

GR elections Update (15/9): Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις (μετά το δεύτερο debate): ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 28-30% ΛΑΕ + ΣΧΕΔΙΟ Β' κ.λ.π. 20-23% ΝΔ 11-13% ΧΑ 6-8% ΚΚΕ 5-5,5% ΕΝΩΣΗ ΚΕΝΤΡΩΩΝ 2,5-3% ΠΟΤΑΜΙ 2,5-3,5% ΠΑΣΟΚ + ΔΗΜΑΡ 3-4% ΑΝΕΛ 2,5-3,5% Update (11/9): Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις (μετά το πρώτο debate): ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 25-28% ΛΑΕ + ΣΧΕΔΙΟ Β' κ.λ.π. 20-23% ΝΔ 11-13% ΧΑ 6-8% ΚΚΕ 5-5,5% ΕΝΩΣΗ ΚΕΝΤΡΩΩΝ 3,5-4% ΠΟΤΑΜΙ 2,5-3,5% ΠΑΣΟΚ + ΔΗΜΑΡ 3-4% ΑΝΕΛ 2,5-3,5% Update (04/9): Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις: ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 23-25% ΛΑΕ + ΣΧΕΔΙΟ Β' κ.λ.π. 20-23% ΝΔ 12-15% ΧΑ 6-8% ΚΚΕ 5-5,5% ΕΝΩΣΗ ΚΕΝΤΡΩΩΝ 3,5-4% ΠΟΤΑΜΙ 2,5-3,5% ΠΑΣΟΚ 3-4% ΑΝΕΛ 2,5-3,5% Update (29/8): Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις: ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 23-25% ΛΑΕ + ΣΧΕΔΙΟ Β' κ.λ.π. 20-23% ΝΔ 12-15% ΧΑ 6-8% ΚΚΕ 5-5,5% ΕΝΩΣΗ ΚΕΝΤΡΩΩΝ 4-4,5% ΠΟΤΑΜΙ 4-4,5% ΠΑΣΟΚ 3-4% ΑΝΕΛ 2,5-3,5% Update : Αναθεωρημένες προβλέψεις: ΣΥΡΙΖΑ 26-27% ...

Trump Talks COLLAPSE SPECTACULARLY As Iran REFUSES DEMANDS & HUMILIATES HIM Again & Again!!

Secular Talk

The dominant elite ready to break the "social contract"

Hyper-automation will allow the super-rich to “get rid” of the rest by system failure Since the French revolution and the new form of the urban states-democracies, the ruling class had to make the so-called "social contract" with the majority. From the moment that the dominant urban class took the power from feudalism and monarchy, should had to find a way to protect the means of production and the labor force. Therefore, the ethnic consciousness in each state served to bound the majority in order to shape national armies to protect the ruling class interests. In exchange, the ruling urban class had given the so-called social state, labor rights, etc., through the nation-state as a carrier and guarantor for all these benefits for the middle and lower classes. Since then, there have been a lot of battles and the majority managed to conquer some benefits. At the start of 20th century, the technology progress had brought the mass production. Western s...

Greeks BLOCK Israelis From Entering Their Country

Revolutionary Change In a continuing worldwide trend, Greeks are now attempting to block Israelis from entering their country amid them attempting to flee the consequences of their actions. Peter Hager delves into this recent trend.

A response to misinformation on Nicaragua: it was a coup, not a ‘massacre’

There is so much misinformation in mainstream corporate media about recent events in Nicaragua that it is a pity that Mary Ellsberg’s article for Pulse has added to it with a seemingly leftish critique. Ellsberg claims that recent articles, including from this website, often “ paint a picture of the crisis in Nicaragua that is dangerously misleading. ” Unfortunately, her own article does just that. It looks at the situation entirely from the perspective of those opposing Daniel Ortega’s government while whitewashing their malevolent behavior and downplaying the levels of US support they have relied on. Her piece is an incomplete depiction of what is happening on the ground, ignoring many salient facts that have come to light and which have been outdated by recent events. The following is a brief response to Ellsberg’s main points from someone who lives in Nicaragua and has observed the situation directly and intimately: https://grayzoneproject.com/2018/08/15/a-res...

Iran could be the US’s Boer war: a hollow victory that marks the beginning of the end of empire

US leaders anticipated a walkover. Now they’re embroiled in a conflict that could hasten the end of US economic dominance by Larry Elliott Nobody gave the Boers a prayer when the war in South Africa began in 1899. It was farmers ranged against the might of the British empire, and the expectation was that resistance would quickly crumble. Eventually, might did prevail. Britain won the Boer war, but it was a hollow victory that took the best part of three years to achieve and came at a high cost. The blow to British prestige – coming at a time when its global hegemony was under threat from fast-growing countries such as the US – was severe. Far from highlighting the extent of Britain’s power, it exposed its limitations. A century and a quarter later, the US risks being embroiled in its equivalent of the Boer war. What should have been a walkover threatens to become a prolonged conflict. The Iranians are using guerrilla tactics, just as the Boers did, with much success. There ...

Billionaires are social distancing in super yachts as tens of millions lose jobs

Everyday, it becomes clearer: the COVID-19 pandemic is hitting poor, working, and marginalized communities the hardest. Millions of workers – especially low-wage retail, food service, hospitality, and care workers – have faced the terrible choice daily between going to work and risking their health, or staying home and risking their paychecks. Many other workers don’t even have that choice, with around 30 million people in the US filing for unemployment in the past six weeks. But billionaires don’t face these same problems. As tens of millions have lost their jobs over the past two months, billionaire wealth soared by a whopping $282 billion between March 18 and April 10, according to a new study from the Institute for Policy Studies. And while finding enough space to wait out the pandemic is something many struggle with, billionaires have been escaping to their second (or third, or fourth) homes to ride it out in luxury – all while they position themselves to ...

Self-management societies vs anarcho-capitalism: The new global war of ideologies?

by system failure The last global economic crisis has brought the Left as well as the extreme nationalism in the front line. The rise of the Left in Greece and elsewhere came as an answer to the corrosion of the European Socialism and its absorption from neoliberalism. Current government coalition in Greece consisting from the two parties in power for the last 40 years, the right-wing, now neoliberal, party Nea Dimokratia and the "Socialist" party PASOK, is the best proof of this fact. Despite the fact that the rise of the Left and extreme nationalism creates a new front of intense ideological conflict, this is not something which prevents the dissolving of the old ideological lines. Therefore, we are now in a period where the old ideological lines are blurring, and various conflicts cannot prevent this fact. This is something which has to do mainly with the fail of the Left to construct a new autonomous language relieved from capitalistic terms, and the full capitu...

This Is Why Iran Will DEFEAT The United States & Israel!

The Jimmy Dore Show

the unbalanced evolution of homo sapiens

Search This Blog