Financial
collapse, systemic crisis ?
Illusory answers and necessary answers
by
Samir Amin
Paper
introducing the World Forum of Alternatives, in Caracas, October
2008
The
financial crisis could not be avoided
The
violent explosion of this crisis did not surprise us; I mentionned
it a few months ago while the conventional economists were ignoring
its coming development and consequences, especially in Europe. In
order to understand it we must get rid of the conventional definition
of the system which qualifies it as “neo-liberal” and
“global”. This definition is superficial and masks the
essential. The current capitalist system is dominated by a handful
of oligopolies that control the basic decisions making of the world
economy. These oligopolies are not solely financial; such as the
banks or the insurance companies, but include enterprises involved
in industrial production, services, transports and the like. The
way they are financiarized is their chief characteristic. We must
understand here that the main source of economical decision has
been transferred from the production of surplus value in production
towards the redistribution of profits between the oligopolies. To
that effect the system needs the expansion of financial investments.
In that respect the major market, the one which dominates all other
markets, is precisely the monetary and financial market. This is
my definition of the "financiarization" of the global
system. Such a strategy is not the result of independent "decisions"
of banks, it is rather that the choice of the “financiarized”
groups. These oligopolies hence do not produce profits; they just
swipe the monopolies’rent through financial investments.
This
system is extremely profitable for dominating sectors of the capital.
Thus, the system should not be qualified "market economy"
(which is an empty ideological qualification) but as a capitalism
of financiarized oligopolies. However, financial investment could
not continue indefinitely, while the productive basis was growing
at a low rate. Consequently, we have the logic of a “financial
bubble”, the sheer translation of the financial investments
system. The gross amount of financial transactions reaches two thousands
trillions alone, while the world GDP is 44 thousands trillions only.
Quite a huge multiple! Thirty years ago, the relative volume of
such transactions did not have this extent. As a matter of fact,
those transactions were directed in general and expressly to cover
the operations linked to production, and internal and external trade.
The overall outlook of this financed oligopolies system was –
as I said previously- the Achilles’ heel of that capitalist
structure. The crisis was doomed to be initiated by a financial
collapse.
Behind
the financial crisis, the systemic crisis of the aging capitalism
To
attract the attention on the financial collapse is not enough. Behind
it, a crisis of real economy is standing out, since the financial
drift was continuously asphyxiating the growth of the production
basis. Solutions brought to the financial crisis can just lead to
a crisis of the real economy, i.e. a relative stagnation of the
production with its side effects: regression of wages, growth of
unemployment, growing precariousness and aggravation of poverty
in the Southern countries. We must speak now about depression and
no more about recession.
Behind
this crisis, the systemic crisis of capitalism is looming right
after. The pursuit of the model based on the growth of the real
economy –as we know it- and of the consumption attached to
it, has become, for the first time in history a real threat for
the future of humankind and the planet.
The
major character of this systemic crisis is related to the natural
resources of the planet, now less abundant than half a century ago.
The North-South conflict constitutes for that reason the central
axis of coming struggles and conflicts.
The
production and consumption-waste system at the moment forbids the
access to the world natural resources for the majority of the planet,
i.e. the peoples of the South. Previously, an emergent country could
take its share of these resources without questioning the privileges
of the affluent countries. But today, it is no more the case. The
population of opulent countries -15% of the planet’s population-
has to monopolize for its own consumption and waste 85% of the world
resources, and cannot tolerate that newcomers may reach these resources,
since they would provoke shortages for rich people’s standard
of living.
If
the USA has formulated an objective of military control of the planet,
it is because, without it, they cannot secure the exclusive access
to these resources. As we know: China, India and the South as a
whole need them as well for their development. For the USA, they
must limit the access and ultimately, there is only one mean: war.
On
the other hand, to preserve energy sources of fossil origin, USA,
Europe and others develop production of bio-fuel projects to a large
scale, to the detriment of food production, still accusing the rise
of prices.
Illusory
answers of the governing powers
Governing
powers, under the rule of financial oligopolies, do not have any
other project except to restore the same system. However, their
success is not impossible, if they can inject enough liquidities
to restore the credibility of the financial investments, and if
the reactions of the victims –working classes and nations
of the South- remain limited. But, in this case, the system steps
back to better jump and a new financial collapse, still deeper,
is unavoidable, since the “adjustments” for the management
of financial and monetary markets are not wide enough, because they
do not question the power of oligopolies.
Furthermore,
answering the financial crisis by injecting phenomenal public funds
to re-establish the security of the financial markets is amusing:
first, profits were privatized, if they are jeopardized, the losses
are socialised! Reverse, I win, head, you loose.
Conditions
for a genuine positive answer to the challenges
To
say that the State’s interventions may change the rules of
the game, lessen the drifts, is not enough. We must define the logics
of that intervention and its social purpose. Of course, we could
come back in theory to the formulas associating public and private
sectors, to a mix economy as it existed during the glorious thirties
in Europe and at the time of Bandoung in Asia and in Africa, when
State capitalism was largely dominant, accompanied by strong social
policies. But this kind of State intervention is not on the agenda.
Also, are the progressive social forces able to impose such a transformation?
Not yet to my viewpoint.
The
other choice is the toppling of the oligopolies’ exclusive
powers, unthinkable without, finally, their nationalisation leading
progressively to the socialisation of their management. End of capitalism?
I do not think so. Yet, I submit that changes in classes' relations
are possible, imposing adjustment to the capital, in answer to the
demands of working classes and peoples. The conditions for such
an evolution to occur imply the progress of social struggles, still
fragmented and on the defensive position altogether, moving towards
a political coherent alternative. In that perspective, the long
transition from capitalism to socialism becomes possible. The advances
in this direction are obviously always uneven from one country to
the other and from one phase to the other.
The
dimensions of this desirable and possible alternative are numerous
and concern all aspects of economical social and political life.
I will recall here the general lines of this necessary answer:
(i) The re invention by the working people of adequate organizations
allowing the construction of their unity, bypassing the fragmentation
due to the forms of exploitation (unemployment, precariousness and
“informal”).
(ii) The awakening of theory and practice for democracy associated
to social progress and respect of people’s sovereignty, not
dissociated from them.
(iii) The emancipation from the liberal virus based on the myth
that the "individual" has already become the subject of
history. Frequent rejects of ways of living associated to capitalism
(multiple alienations, patriarchal relations, consumerism and destruction
of the planet) signal the possibility of this emancipation.
(iv) To get rid of atlantism (NATO) and militarism, associated to
it, aiming at the organization of the planet on the basis of apartheid
on the world scale.
In
the countries of the North, the challenge is to avoid that the general
opinion adopts a consensus in support of privileges unacceptable
by the peoples of the South. The necessary internationalism goes
through anti imperialism and not the “humanitarian”.
In
the countries of the South, the strategy of the world oligopolies
is to transfer the weight of the crisis on these peoples (devaluation
of money reserves, fall of the export raw resources prices and rise
of import ones). In counterpoint the crisis presents the opportunity
for the renewal of national, popular, democratic alliance of working
classes, and on that basis the move from a pattern of capitalist
dependent development with growing exclusion of majorities towards
an alternative pattern of inclusive development, in other words
"delinking". This involves:
(i)
The national control of monetary and financial market (moving away
from the integrated global monetary and financial "market").
(ii) The control of modern technologies, accessible now (defeating
the exclusive monopoly of the North, overprotected by WTO rules
on industrial property).
(iii) The recuperation of the use of natural resources.
(iv) The defeating of global management, dominated by the oligopolies
(WTO) and the military control of the planet by the USA and their
allies.
(v) The liberation from the illusions of an autonomous national
capitalism system as well as of passeist myths (para religious or
para etnic).
(vi) The agrarian question lies in the heart of decisive choices
in Third world countries. An inclusive pattern of development needs
an agrarian radical reform, that is a political strategy based on
the access to the soil for all peasants (half of humankind). On
the opposite, the solutions proposed by the dominant powers –to
accelerate the privatization of arable soil, and its transformation
into merchandise- lead to massive rural disintegration. The industrial
development of the concerned countries being not able to absorb
this overabundant manpower, this one crowds together in shantytowns
or risks its life trying to escape in dugouts via the Atlantic Ocean.
There is a direct link between the suppression of access to the
soil and the migratory pressures.
(vii) Can regional integration, while encouraging the emergence
of new development poles, constitute a resistance and an alternative?
Regionalisation is necessary, maybe not for giants such as China,
India or even Brazil, but certainly for many other regions in South-East
Asia, in Africa or Latin America. Venezuela has rightly chosen to
create ALBA (Bolivarian Alternative for Latin America and the Caribbean’s)
and the Bank of the South (BANCOSUR), long before the crisis. But
ALBA –an economical and political integration project- has
not yet received the support of Brazil or even Argentina. However,
BANCOSUR, whose aim is to promote another development, gathers these
two countries, even though they still have a conventional conception
about the role of this bank.
Progresses
in this or that direction, North and South, the basis of workers
and peoples internationalism, constitute the only guarantees for
the reconstruction of a better, multipolar democratic world, the
only alternative to the barbarism of the aging capitalism. More
than ever, the struggle for the 21st century socialism is on the
agenda.
Translated
from French by Daniel Paquet for Investig'Action
Revised by Samir Amin
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