>From the article: When the sub-prime mortgage crisis broke last year � Socialist Appeal' warned that this was more than �a little local difficulty'; it was the beginning of a general crisis of capitalism. When the Fed hastened to bail out Bear Stearns in the spring, the financial establishment hugged themselves, claiming �the worst is over.' This is a new, deeper stage in the ongoing crisis. The sub-prime mortgage scandal led to the credit crunch. The sub-prime crisis and the credit crunch pricked the house price bubble. As house prices fell off a cliff, housebuilding collapsed. Now share markets are heading south and one financial institution after another is under siege. There seems no end to the unravelling.
It may or may not be "a general crisis" for the world economy or some parts of it. If it is, billions of people will suffer horribly, and many particular capitalist concerns may go broke. But it is absurd to jump from there to "a general crisis of capitalism." Only a political challenge, a revolutionary workers' movement, can represent any threat to capitalism as such. At present, there is no indication of such a movement. Carrol _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
