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Well, do we expect the bourgeois ideologists, professional flacks, recuperators, to do anything else? Do we expect them to grasp even the depth of the economic disruption? . If you want to know if this is a crisis OF rather IN capitalism, we have to look at where the bourgeoisie do all their dirty work-- and that's in the markets. So... 1. bank lending continues to decline in both Europe and the US 2. China has reinflated its economy with nitromethane-- lending approximately 3X more in the first 10 months of 09 than it did in the similar period of 08-- and of course is worried about the low interest rates in the US creating an asset bubble. 3. The next round of panic is just about to begin. You say hello, and I say Dubai. Watch what happens Monday, Monday can't trust that day. The return flight to safety has just begun. IMO the determining factor is not if right now the working class has broken through the ideolgical shell. The determining factors are if capitalist accumulation been restored, and restored on solid footings, and if not yet, then what will it take to restore expanded capitalist accumulation? More IMO-- a year ago, I thought capitalism had only "worked through" a quarter of this predicament, had only written off 25% of the bad assets out there-- and not just in the US, but in the EU, non-EU Europe, Russia, Japan, Singapore. I think that with the change in accounting rules allowing banks to keep the worthless ABS on their books at cost or model, and with the movement of hot money into commodity plays [aluminum, copper, etc], capitalism has accumulated more "bad assets" than it has written off, so that maybe 15% have been effectively devalued. Short version, we are barely past the beginning of this crisis. We have barely realized, in terms of consciousness and in loss of value, the depth of the overproduction in ships, aluminum, steel, copper, clothing, aircraft that afflicts capitalism. We are in the early stages of this. Has the ideology of "neo-liberalism" been disrupted, cracked, shaken? Of course it has. Remember Greenspan's testimony in Congress? Remember how this once genius, the living picture to the Dorian Gray of US capitalism, was attacked by his interrogators? Remember how he said, actually tried to say in his usual gobbledy-gook double-talk about how his theoretical model contained a flaw, but he was cut off by a panel member who said, "You mean you were wrong."? I would expect that such a crack in the ideology would produce an even more reactionary, vicious response than the usual viciousness of our Hobbesian Leviathan politicians; an even more frenzied attack on unions, women, immigrants. And it has. I would expect that after having the snot kicked out of it for 36 years, and losing jobs at these rates, workers in the US, UK in particular would be a little slow off the mark, but again we are in the early stages, and I do not see anyway capital can restore accumulation without incinerating record tonnage and value of fixed assets. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Rakesh Bhandari" <bhand...@berkeley.edu> ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
