Marxism and under-consumption

4th August 2012 Socialist Action 0

By Tom O’Donnell

The current crisis is leading to a revival of interest in Marxism in general and in Marxist explanations of capitalist crises in particular. Even in Britain this occasionally reaches the commentary of the mass media. Unfortunately, the commentary is usually produced by non-Marxists who mangle ideas and reproduce only their own misunderstandings.

In particular, a persistent distortion of Marxist ideas is the notion that economic crises are caused by ‘under-consumption’. Under-consumption is the process where workers are denied the full value of their expended labour-power in the production of commodities, and so cannot consume all the commodities produced in any economy.

Two classes, two responses to the crisis

1st June 2012 Socialist Action 0

By Nicky Dempsey

Martin Wolf, the chief economics commentator for the Financial Times, has laid out a devastating critique of current government economic policy in Britain. In a widely-reported article titled ‘Cameron is consigning UK to stagnation’ he says it is a scandal that the government has cut its own investment, especially when it can in effect borrow for free, as real interest rates are at zero.

Photo by endiaferon

Europe’s economic crisis

19th May 2012 Socialist Action 0

By Jane West

As the Euro-crisis unfolds and Greece heads to new elections, the left party, Syriza is capturing the support of most of those in Greece who want to reject the austerity programme imposed by the EU.

It is striking that the impact of the world developments, and particularly the growth of the left in Latin America, has clearly interacted with this political leadership of resistance to austerity in Greece. It was recently reported in the Guardian, of Syriza’s leader, Alexis Tsipras: ‘one of his heroes is Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez, with whom he shares the same birthday.’

Photo: apαs

Who will pay the cost of Europe’s defaults?

23rd May 2011 Socialist Action 0

By Nicky Dempsey

Open disagreements have broken out between the EU Commission and the European Central Bank on the issue of whether Greek government debt should be ‘restructured’  or ‘reprofiled’ in some way.  Debt restructuring would require that the bondholders, mainly European (including British) banks, take some losses on their bonds by having their value written down. ‘Reprofiling’ is a much more modest proposal which may involve little more than extending the life of the bonds, so that interest and capital repayments are drawn out over time.

Marxism and the Economic Crisis

27th April 2011 Socialist Action 0

By Nicky Dempsey

All societies based on social classes tend to produce surplus value, to a greater or less extent. The character of the society may be determined by which class receives the bulk of the surplus.

The economic and financial crisis that became apparent in 2007 and 2008 was located primarily in the imperialist centres, led by the United States. The crisis was engendered by a crisis of profitability, a reduction in the surplus available to the capitalist class. Economic policy since that time has been designed to restore as far as possible the greater proportion of that surplus to the capitalist class in the imperial centres.

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A serious work of Marxist economics – meeting on 11 July

9th July 2007 Socialist Action 0

First published: 9 July 2007

On 11 July there will be an opportunity to attend a meeting on a book summarising very serious work in Marxist economics – Andrew Kliman’s Reclaiming Marx’s Capital. The notice for the meeting is appended below, for those who wish to skip to it. But to understand its importance it is worth making some observations on the developments which led to it.

It is a truism of Marxism that theory has a relative autonomy from the direct development of the class struggle. Both parts of that phrase, the autonomy and that it is relative and not absolute, are important.