Financial turmoil heralds return to Keynesianism
What lies behind the current financial crisis? Hillel Ticktin, editor of
Critique, spoke to Peter Manson
Q: You have described the current situation as a “turning point”. Can
you explain what you mean?
A: The question at the moment is not really whether there is a downturn.
It is clear that is the case. The question is whether there is a
depression - and I think there is. If you read the Financial Times you
will see that this has become common ground amongst the right. It ought
to be common ground on the left as well.
The right is citing the fact that the government has had to intervene.
For the last 20 years the mantra has been that the market will solve
everything through self-regulation and the government does not
intervene. That whole argument has collapsed and clearly policy will
have to change.
We must examine why this is so. What is happening now is not the same as
the recurring post-war cycle. One must make a distinction between a
cycle and a crisis. The left has been wrong to refer to every downturn
in this way. A crisis can only be that of the system, in which the
ruling class cannot rule in the old way and is actually threatened by
the working class - that is the meaning of it. At the moment there is no
actual threat from the working class, but the potential is certainly there.
Traditionally when Marxists have talked about a crisis of capitalism
that has not necessarily been connected with a movement from the working
class, has it?
People have used it in that way - wrongly - although I do not think that
was true for Marx, Lenin or Trotsky. How can any system be in crisis
unless it is under threat? The term has been used so loosely by the
left, it has been unclear what it has actually meant.
full: http://www.cpgb.org.uk/worker/715/financialturmoil.html
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