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Although I had decided not to respond, trusting that others would see the error in CC's formulation (and A came closest), nobody really hit it square on the head. So permit me to take a swing: "An economic crisis is the crisis of a particular economic regime _withn_ capitalism. There is no reason what3ver to call such a crisis a Crisdis of Capitalism! There is no reason to think it represents any challenge to or weakening of Capitalism as such." ... "So what is the purpose of this endless chatter about the state of the economy?" Carrol ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Well, first of all, capitalism only ever exists in a particular, concrete historical and material form. IOW, actually existing capitalism is only ever a particular "economic regime" and the supposed distinction here is purely tautological once we correct and invert the image of a Great Abstract God Capitalism hovering above and outside reality, to say that actual, real particular capitals exist _within_ an overall _political_ economic regime to the extent that they determine the class character of that regime, and further subsume the social attributes of that regime to its own laws, permitting us to describe it as "capitalist". Now if by "capital-ISM" there is meant a reference to ideology, then especially in the epoch of "real subsumption" an economic crisis almost immediately generates a crisis in the political and ideological structures of capitalism, as we are seeing in the financial media wailing about the future of "neo-liberal" doctrine, since so much of it has been contradicted in the present crisis. By this same token capitalist economic instability will also produce crises in the structures of the working class and oppressed. Under the pressure of the "downturn" phase of the cycle, old formations will be broken up and out of these new ones will begin formation. During this period the class struggle will appear muted. As recovery sets is - because capitalism isn't going to be abolished by muted class struggle - the struggle reemerges in its new formations and overt class battles make their appearance. Likewise the bourgeoisie would have busied themselves developing "new lines" of ideology and repression, just like any new line of products might be developed for marketing in the recovery. At this point both A. and L.P. gave some good examples of this synchronization of the economic processes of capitalism with that of politics. I'd add that in the case of the CRM, the critical phase of its reformation from a regional to a national movement corresponded to the 1957-61 "double dip" recession, the most troublesome economic crisis in U.S. capitalism in the postwar era up to that time. See http://www.infoplease.com/spot/civilrightstimeline1.html . It's the period depicted in the book and film "Revolutionary Road". It ends with the marketing of the new bourgeois "Kennedy" line, the New Frontier for home consumption, the revamped carrot and stick approach for Latin America, etc. The overtly militant battles then emerge in the 60's recovery and expansion. This recessionary period is also that of the Cuban Revolution, indicating that the transmission of economic crises through the structures of imperialism might be phased differently than the way it is transmitted within the imperialist country "hosting" the crisis. Finally, its no accident that the demise of the New Left corresponds to the outbreak of the generalized capitalist overproduction crisis of the 1970's. And so forth. In fact the correlation is so strong that I think a whole _science_ of class struggle, and not mere chatter, can be generated on the basis of the vast sea of data existent from the 1840's - when I believe this correlation can first be seen as a definite law in certain countries - to the present. -Matt ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: [email protected] Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
