Illustration af Kapitalismen i krise. Billedet er frigivet fri af ophavsrettigheder under Creative Commons CC0.
Illustration af Kapitalismen i krise. Billedet er frigivet fri af ophavsrettigheder under Creative Commons CC0.

Emneliste: Med afsæt i krisen i den amerikanske økonomi, har vi samlet en række artikler og sites med den internationale venstrefløjs aktuelle debat og mere grundlæggende analyser af kapitalismens nuværende tilstand.

Indhold

Se også på Socialistisk Bibliotek:

 

Forord

Med afsæt i krisen i den amerikanske økonomi, har vi samlet en række artikler og sites med den internationale venstrefløjs aktuelle debat og mere grundlæggende analyser af kapitalismens nuværende tilstand. Udviklingen i Kina behandles særskilt i appendixet.

For materiale om kapitalismens udvikling efter 2. verdenskrig, se emnelisten Robert Brenner og den kapitalistiske verdensøkonomi + Emneindex om Økonomi

Bjarne A. Frandsen
Juni – december 2008

Wikipedia.dk

På dansk

 

Danmarks Radio

  • Hvornår opstod krisen? (9. oktober 2008). “Se en komplet kronologi over udviklingen i finanskrisen fra det første fokus på de amerikanske subprimelån til G20-mødet i begyndelsen af april 2009.”

Information

  • Emne: Finanskrisen
  • Ti år i finanskrisens skygge (Information.dk, 9. august 2017). “I en ny serie ser Information på, hvad der skete i 2007, hvem der havde ansvaret, hvad krisen har kostet, hvad der er lært eller ikke lært – og om det virkelig er sandt, at det går mod lyse tider for økonomien.”
  • Einar Már Gudmundsson: Festen er forbi (18. oktober 2008). “Der var ingen love og regler til at lægge hindringer i vejen for finansfyrsternes dispositioner. Landets politikere snorksov, trak på skuldrene og skålede med dem, ja, blev tilmed fornærmede, hvis ikke de blev inviteret med til festerne, der havde Hollywoodskær over sig, med glans og glimmer.”
  • Martin Burcharth & Jørgen Steen Nielsen: Når kapitalismen vokser samfundet over hovedet (10. maj 2008). “Er verdensøkonomien pludselig kastet ud i flere parallelle, indbyrdes afhængige kriser, som truer civilisationen, som vi kender den? Magter politiske beslutningstagere på tværs af nationale grænser at forstå systemkrisen og levere et koordineret svar?”

Enhedslisten

Internasjonal Sosialisme

Klassekampen

  • Kapital på tomgang (18. oktober,2008). “Verdens ledende økonomer er ute av stand til å forklare finanskrisa, sier John Bellamy Foster, redaktør for Monthly Review.”
  • Vi er ikke klare (27. september, 2008). “På senga: Den økonomiske krisen gir venstresida en fantastisk sjanse, men vi er fullstendig uforberedt på å benytte den, sier den russiske samfunnsviteren Boris Kagarlitskij.”

Kritisk Debat

  • Jan Helbak: Den økonomiske krisebølge – en politisk analyse (november 2008; online på Internet Archive). “Måske bliver den nuværende krisebølge et opgør med den restruktueringsstrategi, der har sikret den vestlige kapitalismes dominans. Men en sådan magt- og styrketransformation vil hverken foregå automatisk eller smertefrit. Faktisk kan vi være på vej ind i en lang periode præget af uoverskuelighed, endeløse sociale og militære konflikter, protektionisme, social og økonomisk ustabilitet.” Også bragt i lettere forkortet udgave i tidsskriftet Solidaritet (nr.5, november 2008, s.5-12).
  • Jesper Jespersen: Hvad kan vi lære af den finansielle krise? (november 2008, online på Internet Archive). “Læren af den finansielle krise kunne være, at den neoliberale/neoklassiske økonomiske teori simpelthen var forkert, i hvert fald hvis ambitionen er at forstå den økonomiske virkelighed, der udspiller sig lige uden for vore vinduer i disse måneder …”
  • Anders Lundkvist: Farvel til markedsøkonomien, goddag til statskapitalismen (oktober 2008; online på Internet Archive). “Det ser ud til at vi skifter produktionsmåde i disse dage. Først var der slaveøkonomien, så feudalismen, så den markedsbaserede privatkapitalisme, men fra d. 19. sept. 2008 – husk datoen, så du kan fortælle den til dine børnebørn – statskapitalisme. I hvert fald i USA (Kina har allerede denne model).”
  • Anders Hadberg: Nyliberalismen i Danmark og regulering af finanssektoren (september 2008; online på Internet Archive). “Det danske velfærdssamfund [har] siden 1980erne været og er stadig domineret af nyliberalismen. Gennem en analyse af udviklingen i statens regulering af den danske banksektor argumenterer jeg for, at der har udviklet sig en nyliberal regulationsmåde i Danmark, som gennem først omfattende deregulering og siden re-regulering har transformeret måden som både banksektoren og statens institutioner fungerer på.”
  • Anders Lundkvist: Integrationen af dansk kapitalisme i den globale økonomi (juni 2008; online på DBC Webarkiv). “Tanken med denne artikel er at give en kort oversigt over den danske kapitalismes integration i den globale økonomi. Artiklen er en del af et bidrag til en bog om dansk kapitalisme, der udkommer på forlaget Frydenlund til august.”
  • Poul Thøis Madsen: Dansk økonomi – blød landing eller syv onde år? (maj 2008; online på Internet Archive). “Hvor er dansk økonomi på vej hen? Er det ved at være slut med ‘overophedningen’? Og i givet fald hvad er så det sandsynlige scenario? En blød landing, som det er blevet kaldt? Eller er det mere sandsynligt med en længerevarende recession? Det er den ene store økonomiske diskussion, vi har i øjeblikket.”
  • Anders Lundkvist: There will be blood – om den amerikanske og danske økonomiske krise (april 2008; online på Internet Archive) + opdatering: There will be more blood (september 2008). “Jeg tror at krisen bliver dyb og langvarig. Man skal her have in mente, at nyliberalismens deregulering er ensbetydende med at det offentlige har kastreret sig selv vis-a-vis kapitalen. Så selv om især den amerikanske stat helt er på kapitalens side, er det begrænset hvor effektivt den kan hjælpe. Den kan give penge, men den kan ikke tøjle kapitalen, selv om dette måtte være nødvendigt for at stabilisere kapitalismen.”

Lars Henrik Carlskovs blog

  • Rick Kuhn: Problemet er ikke bankerne, men kapitalismen (30. oktober 2008). “Den australske politolog og økonom Rick Kuhn forklarer her, hvordan det spekulative vanvid opstod og hvorfor en tilbagevenden til keynesianisme ikke vil løse de grundlæggende problemer.”

Modkraft.dk/Kontradoxa

  • André Gorz: Kapitalismen er trådt ind i sin sidste fase (28. november 2008). “Den aktuelle finanskrise [2005] er blot den seneste manifestation af den overakkumulationskrise, der har plaget kapitalismen siden 1970’erne, og som truer med at nedbryde de sidste rester af den menneskelige civilisation.”
  • Adam Ring og Frederik Ohsten: Kapitalismen bærer skylden for finanskrisen (31. oktober 2008). “Finanskrisen har fået flere til at spørge til krisens årsager. Mange politikere mener, at kapitalismen kan reguleres så vi undgår kriser. Marx mente, at kriser er en iboende del af en kapitalistisk økonomi, noget man ikke kan regulere sig ud af.” Artiklen er et svar til Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen og Peter Nielsens artikel nedenfor (8. oktober)
  • Anders Lundkvist: Finanskrisen og nyliberalismens fallit (20. oktober 2008). “Først var der slaveøkonomien, så feudalismen, så den markedsbaserede privatkapitalisme og fra oktober 2008 statskapitalismen. Markedsøkonomiens lange og seje dødskamp er afsluttet.”
  • Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen og Peter Nielsen: Ham der Marx … (8. oktober 2008). “Løsningen på krisen er den stik modsatte af liberalisternes. Markeder skal ikke dereguleres, men reguleres, begrænses og i nogle tilfælde helt afvikles. På den måde kan vi skabe fremgang, tryghed og velfærd.”
  • Henrik Herløv Lund: Finanskrisen: Er vi på vej mod den største krise siden 1930’erne? (30. september 2008). “Nyliberalismen er medskyldig i krisen. Der er behov for et opgør med den dogmatik, der har bredt sig i økonomisk teori og politik.” Se også forfatterens site.

Netavisen/Kommunistisk Politik

  • Tema: Verdenskrisen – nyliberalismens fallit. “Krisen i 2008 bliver ikke bare den første større krise i det nye årtusinde, den har alle muligheder for at blive en af de største økonomiske verdenskriser nogensinde.”

Revolution

  • Adam Ring og Frederik Ohsten: Kapitalismen bærer skylden for finanskrisen (21. oktober 2008). “Finanskrisen har fået flere til at spørge til krisens årsager. Mange politikere mener, at kapitalismen kan reguleres så vi undgår kriser. Marx mente, at kriser er en iboende del af en kapitalistisk økonomi, noget man ikke kan regulere sig ud af.” Artiklen er et svar til en artikel af Johanne Schmidt-Nielsen og Peter Nielsen fra Enhedslisten.

Rødt!/Gnist

  • Torstein Dahle: Det store sammenbruddet: Hva er årsakene? (nr.4, 2008). “Denne artikkelen retter seg mer mot det som blir en stadig tydeligere tendens både i Norge og internasjonalt: Makthaverne og andre som er i forsvarsposisjon for det kapitalistiske systemet, begynner å spre propaganda som skal hindre at folk tar lærdom av krisen …”

Socialistisk Arbejderavis

  • Chris Harman: To sider af John Maynard Keynes (nr.284, 5. december 2008). “Økonomer på både højre- og venstrefløjen fremhæver Keynes som svaret på krisen. Men når nu hans teorier kun gør meget lidt for at udfordre kapitalismens jerngreb, er det så ikke på tide, at venstrefløjen erkender hans svagheder?”
  • Går det amerikanske århundrede på hæld? (nr.283, 31. oktober 2008). “Kreditkrisen har svækket USA, men USA er stadig den globale supermagt, argumenterer Chris Bambery.”
  • Jørn Andersen: Systemfejl (nr.282, 2. oktober 2008). “Når etiketten ‘den værste krise siden 30’erne’ kommer fra så centrale spillere som Den Internationale Valutafond (IMF), USA’s tidligere nationalbank-direktør, Alan Greenspan, og redaktøren for Financial Times, så er der for alvor noget galt.”

Socialistisk Information

  • Tema: Finanskrise: en åbning for kapitalismekritik (16.10.08- ). “Med nyheder, analyser og teori stiller SI i de kommende måneder skarpt på kapitalismens krampetrækninger, og undersøger dels årsagerne til det økonomiske kaos og dels de perspektiver, systemkrisen åbner for venstrefløjen.”
  • Anders Hadberg: Finanskrisen i Danmark (31.10.08). “Mens det brænder i USA og store europæiske lande, ser vi nu også at finanskrisen for alvor rammer Danmark. I denne artikel gennemgås hvordan finanskrisen indtil videre har udviklet sig i Danmark og hvordan myndighederne har reageret på krisen.”
  • Michel Husson: Kapitalismen efter den amerikanske boligkrise (16.05.08). “SI bringer her er et interview med franske økonom Michel Husson om udsigterne for den globale økonomi, efter amerikansk økonomi er kommet i alvorlige vanskeligheder.”

Solidaritet

  • Jan Helbak: Den økonomiske krisebølge – en politisk analyse (nr.5, november 2008, s.5-12). P.t. ikke online her. Se den længere artikel oprindelig bragt på online-magasinet Kritisk Debat (november 2008)
  • Rick Kuhn: Problemet er kapitalismen, ikke bankerne (nr.5, november 2008, s.13-15; online på Internet Archive WayBackMachine). “Den australske politolog og økonom Rick Kuhn beskriver på pædagogisk vis de grundlæggende årsager til krisen og forklarer hvorfor keynesianistiske reguleringsmetoder ikke vil fungere.”
  • Robert Brenner: En ødelæggende krise udfolder sig (nr.1, februar 2008, s.18-21; online på Internet Archive WayBackMachine). “Den førende marxistiske økonom og historiker Robert Brenner analyserer her den økonomiske krise. Regeringerne står nu over for vanskeligheder af et uhørt omfang, skriver Brenner.”

Stop Terrorkrigen

  • 2008-recession på vej i USA. En mosaik ved Hans Pendrup (forår 2008). “Recessioners konsekvenser for finansielle markeder og arbejdsgivere – og for arbejderklassen.”
  • Joel Geir: Den kommende økonomiske nedsmeltning (januar 2008). “Den økonomiske nedtur i USA forstærkes og er ved at brede sig. En økonomisk verdenskrise er på vej.”

Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sites

Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR)
“CEPR was established in 1999 [by Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot] to promote democratic debate on the most important economic and social issues that affect people’s lives.”

Dollars & Sense

Foreign Policy in Focus

  • Section: Confronting the financial crisis (September 24, 2008- ; online at Internet Archive WayBackMachine)
    “The global financial crisis is emptying the pockets of people in rich, poor, and middle-income nations alike. In its wake, FPIF offers new solutions to the crisis and innovative alternatives to the now officially defunct ‘Washington Consensus’.”

International Viewpoint

In Defence of Marxism

Jay’s Leftist and ‘Progreswive’ Internet Resource Directory

Marx and the financial crisis of 2008
“This blog [edited by Andrew Chitty] aims to collect materials (especially online materials) on the contribution Marxian theory can make to understanding the causes of the financial crisis of 2008.”

Marxists Internet Archive

Marxsite

Monthly Review

Permanent Revolution

Radical Statistics (UK)
“We believe that statistics can be used to support radical campaigns for progressive social change.”

Socialist Worker (US)

  • Section: Economy
    “SW Online’s ongoing coverage and analysis.”

United for a Fair Economy (UFE)
“UFE raises awareness that concentrated wealth and power undermine the economy, corrupt democracy, deepen the racial divide, and tear communities apart.”

World-Crisis.net: Financial & Economic Crisis
With news articles from the mainstream press (online at Internet Archive WayBackMachine)

A World to Win

  • Resources: The Credit Crunch explainer
    “What is behind the credit crunch? How does the global financial crisis affect jobs, living standards and housing? Can capitalism get a grip and solve the crisis? What policies should we campaign for?”

Articles

Against the Current

  • The Editors: Whose wipeout? Whose bailout? (No.137, November/December 2008). “Elsewhere in this issue, Jack Rasmus looks at the realities of massive job losses and the unfolding recession; here we’ll focus on the politics of the bankers’ bailout.”
  • Jack Rasmus: The crisis beneath the bailout (No.137, November/December 2008). “It is all leading to what this writer elsewhere has termed an Epic Recession, a downturn unlike any since the 1930s … It is not a typical postwar traditional recession, nor yet a true global depression, but an unstable condition with a tendency to evolve from the former to the latter.”
  • Bob Brenner: Devastating crisis unfolds (No.132, January/February 2008). “The current crisis could well turn out to be the most devastating since the Great Depression. It manifests profound, unresolved problems in the real economy that have been – literally – papered over by debt for decades, as well as a shorter term financial crunch of a depth unseen since World War II.”
    See also Review by Bill Jefferies (Permanent Revolution, Jan 2008)

AlterNet

  • Mike Davis: How to stop the looming depression without lining fat-cat CEOs’ pockets (November 19, 2008). “We are now at a crash site, and our priority should be to save the victims. Here’s how we do that.”
  • Joshua Holland: Recession? Depression? How deep, how far and what can be done? (October 11, 2008). “A survey of what some of the best thinkers [Walden Bello, Robert Pollin, James Galbraith, Dean Baker and Robin Hahnel] believe we’re facing in the coming months and years – and the best ways to prevent complete disaster.”
  • Joshua Holland: 12 eye-opening thoughts about the bailout’s defeat (October 1, 2008). “To help readers cut through the media overload, we’ve gathered together a dozen views from smart, alternative thinkers on the bailout, the politics surrounding its defeat and predictions about where the economy, and the government’s actions, might go from here.”

Democracy Now!

Dollars & Sense

  • Fred Moseley: The bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac (Issue 278, Sept/Oct 2008; online at Internet Archive WayBackMachine). “A look at the Fannie/Freddie bailout exposes the critical fault line – between private profits and public aims – that ran right through the hybrid structure of the mortgage giants.”
  • Fred Moseley: How to stop the foreclosures: A review of the Policy Proposals (Issue 277, July/August 2008; online at Internet Archive WayBackMachine). “If current policies do not change, it is estimated that, taken as a whole, up to five million homeowners could lose their homes due to foreclosure over the next few years. Which policies would truly help homeowners at risk?”

Fifth International

  • Luke Cooper: The crisis of globalisation (Vol.2, No.7, Autumn 2008). “The meltdown of the financial system and the unprecedented scale of state intervention have shaken the very foundations of the post-1980s world order that came to be known as ‘globalisation’.”
  • The Credit Crunch: A Marxist Analysis (League for the Fifth International, 2008, 146 p.). “Charting how the events unfolded, and drawing on Karl Marx’s theory of crisis, Richard Brenner and Michael Pröbsting argue that the credit crunch foreshadows a crisis of globalisation.”

Fight Racism! Fight Imperialism!

  • Steve Palmer: Goodbye Wall Street (Issue 205, October/November 2008). “Through all this, everyone from ‘economic experts’ to the so-called left keeps assuring us that ‘the real economy’ – apparently something separate from the financial economy – is ‘sound’, ‘in good shape’, ‘doing OK’ etc … But what is this ‘real economy’? There is no capitalist ‘real economy’ without money and credit – without finance. Take away money and there is no capitalism.”
  • David Yaffe: Capitalism in crisis (Issue 205, October/November 2008). “An reports on the impact of the financial storm now hitting the British economy.”

Foreign Policy in Focus

  • Theme: Confronting the financial crisis. “FPIF offers new solutions to the crisis and innovative alternatives to the now officially defunct ‘Washington Consensus’.”
  • Walden Bello: Wall Street meltdown primer (September 26, 2008). “The Wall Street meltdown is not only due to greed and to the lack of government regulation of a hyperactive sector. This collapse stems ultimately from the crisis of overproduction that has plagued global capitalism since the mid-1970s.”

Green Left Review

  • John Bellamy Foster: Global economic crisis: ‘No-one knows where the toxic debt is buried’ (Issue 749, 7 May 2008). “Peter Boyle spoke to Bellamy Foster about the development of the current global economic crisis.”

The Guardian

  • Feature: Crunch time (September 17 2008). “We’ve heard the bankers’ stories. The economists have had their say. But what do the opponents of capitalism make of the global financial crisis? Is this the moment they have been waiting for? Stephen Moss and Jon Henley ask high-profile leftwingers for their views on the meltdown – and whether any good can come of it.”

Historical Materialism Conference

In Defence of Marxism

  • Alan Woods: Panic in world markets (10 October 2008). “Panic has gripped the stock markets of the world. Things are completely out of control, and there is nothing that governments can say or do that can stop it. As in 1929, every time people thought that the worst had come, further falls were just round the corner. Nobody knows how far share prices have still to go. The world economy now finds itself in unsheltered waters.”
  • Mick Brooks: Neoliberalism – dead or only sleeping? (9 October 2008). “‘Neoliberalism’, sometimes called ‘market fundamentalism’, i.e. the policy of non-intervention by the state in the economy, has been the dominant ideology of the bourgeoisie for close to three decades, involving widespread privatisation and all the other policies that go with it. The present economic meltdown, however, is forcing governments to intervene, regulate, and even nationalise firms because they have no choice. So is ‘neoliberalism’ dead?”
  • Booklet: World capitalism in crisis (September 26, 2008, 17 p.). Contents: Michael Roberts: Socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor; Rob Sewell: Capitalism has failed – period and Alan Woods: World capitalism in crisis.

The Indypendent

  • Arun Gupta: How to wreck the economy (October 3, 2008). “Everything you ever wanted to know about the biggest economic meltdown since the Great Depression but were afraid to ask.”

International Socialism

  • Andrew Kliman: A crisis for the centre of the system (Issue 120, Autumn 2008, p.61-76). “The United States is caught up in the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression. This crisis calls into question the stability and indeed the very survival of capitalism. Unlike the savings and loan crisis 20 years ago … the present crisis affects financial markets generally and emanates from the major centre of capitalism. It thus threatens to become a global crisis.”
  • Feedback (Issue 119, Summer 2008). “The dynamics of capitalism today are of fundamental concern to the left. Jim Kincaid challenges some of the arguments Chris Harman has put in recent issues of this journal. Harman replies, alongside a further short comment by Fred Moseley.”:
    Jim Kincaid: The world economy – a critical comment (p.145-158)
    Chris Harman: Misreadings and misconceptions (p.159-170)
    Fred Moseley: Some notes on the crunch and the crisis (p.171-172)
  • Chris Harman: From the credit crunch to the spectre of global crisis (Issue 118, Spring 2008, p.27-44). “Crunch has become crisis, and many pro-capitalist commentators are panicking. Chris Harman places their dilemmas in the context of serious underlying difficulties for the global system.”
  • Jim Wolfreys: Won’t get fooled again? (Issue 118, Spring 2008, p.217-221). Review of Luc Boltanski and Eve Chiapello, The New Spirit of Capitalism: “This is one of the most important books of the past decade, although its impact would have been greater had its 600 dense but sometimes repetitive pages been edited more rigorously.”
  • Costas Lapavitsas interview: the credit crunch (Issue 117, Winter 2008, p.13-24). “Is last summer’s upset in the money markets turning into a major crisis for the system as a whole? And how significant was the collapse of Northern Rock? Costas Lapavitsas, author of two Marxist accounts of finance, provides an explanation of what is happening.”
  • Chris Harman: Theorising neoliberalism (Issue 117, Winter 2008, p.87-121). “Neoliberalism is the term used to describe present day economic policies by both their supporters and their opponents. But, argues Chris Harman, many accounts of it are confusing and give the impression that fighting it is an easy alternative to fighting the capitalist system.”
  • Chris Harman: The rate of profit and the world today (Issue 115, Summer 2007, p.141-161). “Few of Marx’s idea have produced as much criticism from subsequent Marxists as his theory of the falling rate of profit. Chris Harman explains the theory and looks at its relevance to capitalism today.”
  • Chris Harman: Snapshots of capitalism today and tomorrow (Issue 113, Winter 2007, p.119-137). “Neoliberalism and the drive to war are not accidental features of the world today, insists Chris Harman. Using a series of graphs and tables he shows how they are linked to the present trajectory of capitalism.”
  • Alex Callinicos: Making sense of imperialism: a reply to Gindin and Panitch (Issue 110, Spring 2006, p.196-203). “I want to focus in what follows on the two key issues that separate me from Panitch and Gindin: (1) Is the period of economic crisis that developed in the late 1960s over? (2) What form do the relations among capitalist states take today?”
  • Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin: Feedback: ‘Imperialism and global political economy’ – a reply to Alex Callinicos (Issue 109, Winter 2006, p.194-199). “This proclivity all too often gives rise to a search for evidence of economic crises on the basis of an overestimation of the political fragmentation and instability that such crises must bring. This tends to be accompanied by a type of politics that is premised on the expectation that economic crises and war among capitalist states will provide the setting for revolutionary opportunities.”
  • Alex Callinicos: Imperialism and global political economy (Issue 108, Autumn 2005, p.109-127). “A carefully stated and empirically supported critique of the classical Marxist theory has been developed in recent years by Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin. … This article is devoted to assessing this critique and the alternative analysis it seeks to support.”
  • Chris Harman: Analysing Imperialism (Issue 99, Summer 2003, p.3-81). “Imperialism has been the word on the lips of millions in the last two war-filled years. But there is disagreement as to what it really means: is waging war only of benefit to the arms manufacturers and the multinationals gaining lucrative contracts? Or does it run deeper than that, to the heart of the logic of capitalism?”
  • Chris Harman: The crisis of bourgeois economics (Issue 71, Summer 1996, p.3-56). “Mainstream economics has suffered a double blow in the last 30 years. First the post-war concensus that government intervention could offset recessions, formed around the work of John Maynard Keynes, was blown apart by the resurgent economic crisis of the 1970s. But now the free market dogma which replaced Keynesian economics has proved equally incapable …”

International Socialist Review

  • Joel Geier: Capitalism’s worst crisis since the 1930s (Issue 62, November–December 2008). “This crisis will be deeper and more prolonged than previous cyclical crises of recent decades. Geier outlines the origins of the crisis, its ideological and political impact, and how it is changing the contours of the world system.”
  • Phil Gasper: Racial scapegoats for the crash (Issue 62, November–December 2008). “Conservatives blame affirmative action for the economic crisis.”
  • Lee Sustar: No end in sight (Issue 60, July-August 2008). “Whether or not financial markets recover their nerve, there’s a likelihood of both a downturn in the U.S. economy in the near term and prolonged economic weakness in the eventual recovery. Rather than winding down, the crisis is still in its early stages.”
  • Joel Geier: More than a recession: An economic model unravels (Issue 58, March-April 2008). “Joel Geier argues that this recession reflects a crisis of capitalism that goes deeper than the regular boom-bust cycle.”
  • Joel Geier: The coming economic meltdown (Issue 57, January-February 2008). “Joel Geier explains why the economic turmoil that has roiled the United States in the past several months is likely to get worse.”
  • Joel Geier: Warning signs of a coming recession (Issue 55, September-October 2007). “ISR’s talks to Joel Geier, associate editor of the ISR, about the economic shock waves that have recently rocked the U.S. and the world economy.”

International Viewpoint

  • Andy Kilmister: The economic crisis and its effects (Issue 407, December 2008). “The current economic crisis has broken the temporary solutions which have ruled the world economy since the mid-1980s. Profits had been created through production but, in contradiction, were realised through circulation and exchange. British is now exceptionally vulnerable to the crisis.”
  • Claudio Katz: A crash course in capitalism (Issue 406, November 2008). “The seism on Wall Street has surprised the world Establishment. At the summits of power, panic and alarmist declarations dominate. Everyone is absorbing an event which could be the beginning of a change of epoch. The comparison with the fall of the Berlin Wall gives some indication of this historical dimension.”
  • Francois Sabado: Taking the measure of the crisis (Issue 406, November 2008). “From the beginning of the ‘subprime’ crisis of September 2007, we noted that this banking and financial crisis was the forerunner to a total economic crisis, that marked a historical turning point in the world economy and situation. Today, for all commentators, the historical bench mark for estimating the extent of the crisis is ‘the crisis of 1929’, with differences”¦ but it is of this breadth.”
  • Michel Husson: Toxic capitalism (Issue 406, November 2008). “The crisis that we are witnessing today is shaking the very foundations of neo-liberal capitalism. It is unfolding at an accelerating speed, and nobody is capable of saying where it will lead.”
  • Francois Chesnais: ‘The climatic crisis will combine with the crisis of the capital”¦’ (Issue 406, November 2008). “The point of view that I will defend is that the crisis which started in August 2007 represented a real break which put an end to a long phase of expansion of the world economy.”
  • Charlie Post: Their crisis, our consequences: Is this what 1931 looks like? (Issue 405, October 2008). “Is the banking crisis the end of capitalism as we know it? Put simply, no. Capitalism cannot avoid periodic short-term and long-term crises of falling profits and economic stagnation. However, as Marx pointed out over 150 years ago, capitalism has internal mechanisms – driving down wages, reorganizing work, massive bankruptcies – that allow it to recover from these crises.”
  • Andy Kilmister: The world economy and the credit crisis (Issue 401, June 2008). “The current credit crisis is throwing into question the whole of the neoliberal, free market, order that when the post-war boom went into crisis in the mid-1970s, it was eventually resolved in the mid-1980s by a new economic order, neoliberalism.”

Left Busines Observer

  • Doug Henwood: Reflections on the current crisis (Issue 116, August 2007) + Part Two (Issue 118, April 2008). “Quite a few weeks the financial markets have had. What’s it all mean? The Internet left is getting all heated up – this is the Big One, the End of the World, the Death Agony of Capitalism. Maybe; that’s always possible. But it’s not likely.”

Marx and the financial crisis of 2008

  • David McNally: From financial crisis to world slump: Accumulation, financialization, and the global slowdown (December 15, 2008). “This is an expanded version of a paper presented to the Plenary Session on ‘The Global Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences’ at the 2008 Historical Materialism Conference, held at the University of London, November 8, 2008.”

Marxsite

  • Charlie Post: Crisis theory – root causes of the current crisis (Nov 8, 2008). “What follow is a very brief outline presentation of the four main radical and Marxist theories of crisis … After presenting each theory, I will attempt to evaluate them in terms of their political implications, logical structure, and factual/empirical validity.”

Monthly Review

  • John Bellamy Foster and Fred Magdoff: Financial implosion and stagnation: Back to the real economy (Vol.60, No.7, December 2008). “Our argument in a nutshell is that both the financial explosion in recent decades and the financial implosion now taking place are to be explained mainly in reference to stagnation tendencies within the underlying economy.”
  • William K. Tabb: Four crises of the contemporary world capitalist system (Vol.60, No.5, October 2008). “This essay examines aspects of the global political economy that I hope will inform progressive governments and movements for social change. It evaluates the constraints and opportunities presented in the current conjuncture of world capitalist development.”
  • Karl Beitel: The subprime debacle (Vol.60, No.1, May 2008). “How did this crisis come about, and what are its longer-term implications? Are limits being reached in the ability of speculative credit creation … Or is this a mere bump in the road prior to the resumption of a new wave of credit-fueled growth?”
  • John Bellamy Foster: The financialization of capital and the crisis (Vol.59, No.11, April 2008). “What we will argue here is that this is not just another massive credit crunch of the kind so familiar in the history of capitalism, but signals a new phase in the development of the contradictions of the system, which we have labeled ‘monopoly-finance capital’.” See also Postscript (MR Online, 25/10/08)
  • Minqi Li: An age of transition: The United States, China, Peak Oil, and the demise of Neoliberalism (Vol.59, No.11, April 2008). “As the U.S. housing bubble bursts and the dollar’s dominance over the global financial system becomes increasingly precarious, the U.S. economy is now going into recession and the global capitalist economy is entering into a new period of instability and stagnation. The coming years are likely to see a major realignment of the various global political and economic forces and will set the stage for a new upsurge of the global class struggle.” The article in Norwegian: Klimaendringar, grenser for vekst og den nødvendige sosialismen (Rødt! nr.2, 2009)

MR Online

  • Rick Kuhn: The problem is capitalism, not just the banks (17/10/08). “More ‘transparency’ and better regulation of banking won’t deal with the underlying issue which is low average rates of profit across the global economy.”
  • Immanuel Wallerstein: The Depression: A long-term view (16/10/08). “The depression has started. Journalists are still coyly enquiring of economists whether or not we may be entering a mere recession. Don’t believe it for a minute. We are already at the beginning of a full-blown worldwide depression with extensive unemployment almost everywhere.”
  • Michael Perelman: How to think about the crisis (13/10/08). “It’s about more than three decades of concerted efforts to restructure the economy to respond to the antiauthoritarian spirit of the 1960s. Most important of all, the counterrevolution to the 60s was concerned about a decline in the rate of profits. The objective was to remake the United States as a capitalist’s utopia …”
  • Can the financial crisis be reversed? An interview with John Bellamy Foster (10/10/08). “As for the politics of nationalization of banks in the U.S. and U.K., one should not confuse this, as is all too common, with socialism or even radicalism, unless one is talking about socialism for the rich. This is just another desperate stop-gap measure aimed at preventing a full-scale debt deflation. But as a sign of the total collapse of the ‘U.S. model’ of ‘free market’ finance capitalism, the moral and political consequences are vast.”
  • Video: When Neoliberalism implodes
    Left perspectives on the current political economy. A discussion with Robert Brenner and Sam Gindin, moderated by Vivek Chibber, 7 December 2007, Brecht Forum.

The Nation

  • Forum: Bailout Nation (October 13, 2008). “What kind of government intervention will we have? Whom will it benefit? Ten observers on the right way to settle Wall Street’s toxic debts.” With contributions from Doug Henwood, William Greider, Ralph Nader, Robert Pollin and James K. Galbraith.

New Left Review

  • Robert Wade: Financial regime change? (Issue 53, September-October 2008). “As stock markets plunge and governments scramble to bail out the finance sector, Robert Wade argues that we are exiting the neoliberal paradigm that has held sway since the 1980s. Causes and repercussions of the crisis, and errors of the model that brought it to fruition.”
  • Robin Blackburn: The suprime crisis (Issue 50, March-April 2008). “As reverberations from the stricken mortgage market reach the real economy, Robin Blackburn reveals the origins of the crunch in the shadowy realms of financialization. Precedents from the bubbles and crash of the 1920s, warnings from pioneers and venture capitalists, and proposals for how to turn the crisis to socially redistributive effect.”
  • Robert Pollin: Resurrection of the rentier (Issue 46, July-August 2007). Review of Andrew Glyn’s book, Capitalism Unleashed: “Pollin considers the book to be a powerful new history of the age of neoliberalism in the OECD economies, the rich Western countries plus Japan. Glyn characterizes this neoliberal era as one of ‘austerity, privatization, and deregulation’. Pollin challenges Glyn’s discussion on several points …” The article is online as a pdf-file at Political Economy Research Institute

Permanent Revolution

  • Fred Moseley: Is the US economy headed for a hard landing? (December 2007). “In sum, the US economy has been able to maintain a respectable rate of growth in the last three decades, in spite of lower rates of profit, because of the unprecedented explosion of debt for both capitalist firms and for households, much of which has been financed by an enormous, unprecedented inflow of foreign capital into the US. However, this increasing dependence of the US economy on foreign capital raises the very high risk that in the not-too-distant future …” See more articles and debates at the site’s section: Marxist economics and globalisation

Red Pepper

  • Doug Henwood: Crisis of a gilded age (Oct/Nov 2008). “Deregulated capitalism may have come to a crunch, says Doug Henwood, but there’s nothing new on the horizon.”

Review of Radical Political Economics

  • David M. Kotz: Contradictions of economic growth in the Neoliberal era: Accumulation and crisis in the contemporary U.S. Economy (Vol.40, No.2, Spring 2008, p.174-188). “In the neoliberal form of capitalism, economic expansion tends to be accompanied by rising profits and stagnant wages, creating a potential problem of overproduction. This obstacle to expansion has been overcome in the U.S. economy in the neoliberal era through rising household debt and the emergence of asset bubbles. However, certain trends in the U.S. economy suggest that the past methods of promoting expansion and averting severe crises in the neoliberal era may be becoming nonviable.” The article is online at the author’s site as a pdf-file.

Socialism Today

  • Lynn Walsh: The October crisis (Issue 123, Nov 2008). “The imminent October meltdown of the global banking system appears to have been averted, at least for the time being. But the credit crunch continues and capitalist leaders are forced to recognise the world is plunging into a deep recession. For many millions of workers this crisis in the profit system means unemployment, slashed incomes and untold suffering.”
  • Editorial: The great implosion (Issue 122, Oct 2008). “Some on the left succumbed to the idea that the world capitalist boom, based on accelerated globalisation and ultra-free-market policies, could continue indefinitely. The events of recent weeks, following the collapse of the US housing bubble and the severe repercussions of the subprime mortgage crisis, have completely changed the picture.” With links to other articles from the journal.

Socialist Project/The Bullet

  • Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin: The current crisis: A socialist perspective (E-Bulletin No.142, September 30, 2008). “The current dramatic conjuncture of financial crisis and state intervention … demonstrates why those, whether from the right or the left, who have only understood the era of neoliberalism ideologically – i.e. in terms of a hegemonic ideological determination to free markets from states – have had such a weak handle on discerning what really has been going on over the past quarter century.”
  • Ingo Schmidt: Comparing crises: The 1930s, the 1970s, and today (E-Bulletin No.141, September 28, 2008). “… it may be revealing to compare the current crisis not to its fairly mild predecessors in this period of neoliberalism, but to the rough rides of the 1930s and 1970s.”

Socialist Register

  • Leo Panitch & Sam Gindin: Finance and American Empire (2005). “This essay tries to come to a deeper understanding, first, of the actual historical process that led to the realization by the end of the 20th century of a global financial order with New York as its operational centre, and with the American imperial state as its political carapace; and, second, of the way in which finance and empire reinforce each other today.”
    See also Leo Panitch: Putting the U.S. economic crisis in perspective (MR Online, 30/01/08) + debate with Alex Callinicos in International Socialism above.

Socialist Review

  • Chris Harman: Two faces of John Maynard Keynes (Issue 330, November 2008). “Economists, both left and right, are championing Keynes as the answer to the crisis. Since his theories do little to challenge the fundamental grip of capitalism, isn’t it time for those on the left to recognise his flaws?”
  • The value of money (Issue 330, November 2008). “How do the billions wiped off the stock market relate to the rest of the capitalist system? Joseph Choonara goes back to Karl Marx to explain.”
  • Chris Harman: Market madness (Issue 329, October 2008). “The ruling classes of the US and Britain are reeling in the face of the economic meltdown of their system and the real character of capitalism is exposed.”
  • Alex Callinicos: System failure: Economic turmoil and endless war (Issue 329, October 2008). “As the worst economic crisis since the 1929 crash rips through the world’s markets, Alex Callinicos analyses the factors driving ever greater political instabilities across the globe.”
  • Economic crisis: the new 1929 or the new Japan? (Issue 324, April 2008). “Costas Lapavitsas has written extensively on Marxist theories of finance. He spoke to Socialist Review and answered questions on historical parallels with the current economic crisis and its impact.”
  • Chris Harman: Economic crisis: Capitalism exposed (Issue 322, February 2008). “Every time economic crises develop they are described as aberrations in an otherwise rational and balanced system. Chris Harman looks at the roots and implications of the recent credit crunch, and explains why crises are in fact an intrinsic feature of capitalism.”
  • Chris Harman: Rate of profit warning (Issue 319, November 2007). “No one can predict whether the recent financial crises will develop into a proper recession.”
  • Interview with Andrew Glyn (Issue 308, July 2006). “Andrew Glyn has been a prominent left wing economist for more than 35 years. He talks to Rob Hoveman about his latest book Capitalism Unleashed.” See other articles by Andrew Glyn (Socialist Library; Timeline).

Socialist Worker (UK)

  • Questions and answers on the developing crisis (Issue 2125, 1 November 2008). “As the economic crisis deepens, Socialist Worker answers a number of the key questions on the turmoil.”
  • Features: The Market vs Marx (Issue 2123, 18 October 2008). “Socialist Worker invited Eamonn Butler from the Adam Smith Institute to present the case for the free market. In response Chris Harman from the International Socialism journal sets out why the market creates regular crises.”
  • Features: Explaining the roots of the global economic crisis (Issue 2109, 12 July 2008). “Economist Graham Turner has written a new book about the credit crunch. Anindya Bhattacharyya spoke to Graham about his analysis.”

Socialist Worker (US)

  • How low will it go? (November 3, 2008). “Lee Sustar looks at how the financial crisis has hit the underlying economy – which makes further financial shocks more likely as a world recession takes hold.”
  • Lee Sustar: A new Great Depression? (October 17, 2008). “As the economy worsens and the government carries out an unprecedented intervention on Wall Street, working people are rightly worried about the future.”
  • A guide to the Wall Street meltdown (October 6, 2008). “Lee Sustar explains how the Wall Street financial crisis grows out of the chaotic nature of the capitalist system.”

Solidarity

Weekly Worker

  • Financial turmoil heralds return to Keynesianism (Issue 715, April 3, 2008). “What lies behind the current financial crisis? Hillel Ticktin, editor of Critique, spoke to Peter Manson.”
  • Financial crash or slowdown? (Issue 717, April 17, 2008). “Bill Jefferies of Permanent Revolution replies to Hillel Ticktin on the strength of the world economy.”
  • Profit rises and capital’s adjustments (Issue 721, May 15, 2008). “Bill Jefferies outlines why he thinks China and Russia were vital to what he sees as capitalism’s expansion.”
  • Hillel Ticktin: Categories and decline (Issue 721, May 15, 2008). “Replying to Bill Jefferies is a hard task, because I do not think I agreed with a single word that he said.”

Workers Liberty

  • Theme: Marxist economists analyse the crisis (March to June 2008 + December 2008 onwards). “Andrew Kliman and David Laibman are new contributors, and Michel Husson, Fred Moseley, Leo Panitch, and Costas Lapavitsas present second thoughts, in a symposium also including Simon Mohun, Trevor Evans, and Dick Bryan.”
  • Martin Thomas: Is capital in a big expansion or a long downturn? Will the current crisis snowball? (15 December, 2007). “I attended two sessions discussing the current credit crisis at the conference on 9-11 November sponsored by Historical Materialism magazine. The two sessions offered very different views on the crisis, with disappointingly little interaction.”

World Socialist Web Site

  • Timothy Geithner’s Stress Test: Confessions of a Wall Street bag-man. By Andre Damon (8 June 2014). “Stress Test, the memoir published last month by former US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, documents the conspiracy to prepare and execute the 2008 bank bailout, from the point of view of the operation’s leading architect.”
  • The world economic crisis: A Marxist analysis, Part 1-5. A lecture by Nick Beams (19-24 December 2008). “Why has this financial crisis led to a breakdown in the global capitalist order, giving rise to the very real threat of depression and war? How has all this happened and, on the basis of our analysis, what must now be done? These are the issues with which we will be grappling in this lecture.”

ZNet

  • Noam Chomsky: The financial crisis of 2008. Interview by Simone Bruno (October 13, 2008; online at Chomsky.info). “… we see that a state capitalist economy that has, particularly since the Second World War, relied very heavily on the state sector, is now returning to reliance on the state sector to manage the collapsing financial system, its collapse being the predictable result of financial liberalization. The underlying institutional structure itself is being modified, but not in fundamental ways.”

 

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