The
hypothetical threat of accumulation on global stability is becoming
an unpleasant reality. Carbon dioxide and methane have accumulated in
the atmosphere, and ocean temperatures are rising. Debts have
accumulated at all levels, and a cascade of defaults is on the
horizon. Wealth has accumulated in the hands of a few, and many are
destitute, insecure and deprived of future prospects. Power has
accumulated, and the USA spends as much on its armed forces as the
rest of the planet. All these accumulations have reached their final
stages in a synchronised way because they are fundamentally joined
together.
The
process that allows the private accumulation of capital is shrouded
in mystery. Marx never figured out how expanded reproduction
functioned. Later Rosa Luxemburg gave an explanation for her time,
with the input of colonial plunder. What was actually happening, as
neocolonialism would show, was a trade of consumption for
investments. European nations supplied their colonial administrators
with a European lifestyle in exchange for raw and precious materials.
When independence replaced colonial rule by local rule, the trade-off
became more obvious.
The
difficulty in explaining the accumulation of private capital lies in
the nature of surplus value, that part of the value added by labour
that has not been paid for and is the profit of production. How can
markets function when more value comes out than is put in? How can
exchanges always be profitable for the sellers, always getting more
than they paid for, without a continual input of fresh money? Capital
accumulation’s imperative is that surplus value must be transformed
into investments. When the surplus value is an investment, it can be
exchanged for other another investment surplus value. But when the
surplus value is consumption, if it cannot be traded for investments
abroad it must first be exchanged for money. This extra liquidity
needed to pay for consumer surplus value comes from government and
household borrowing. The debt of nations funds the private
accumulation of capital.
Wealth
piles up and debts pile up even faster, and as the rift between the
two increases so must the protective measures needed to maintain it.
As the rich get richer, they need more police and military might to
protect their riches. But this defence of private interests can no
longer be promoted as a national cause, so the defenders are
mercenaries and come at a cost. National budgets have increased their
deficits and their borrowing, social allocations have been reduced
and democratic institutions have been put in a state of emergency.
The common weal has been sacrificed, and the republic is just a
multi-purpose tool for mega corporations obsessed by profit.
The
priority given to the accumulation of private wealth makes all other
preoccupations secondary. The whole planet, its atmosphere, oceans,
continents and inhabitants, exists to be exploited for gain. The
world is not seen as the marvellous and improbable result of
countless transformations over unimaginable time. This beautiful blue
and green sphere in the vast emptiness of space is just stuff that
can be sold, and a dustbin for all the waste. Private capital
perceives the community as workers and consumers who make and buy the
goods and services produced, and borrow to pay for profits. Borrowing
is a necessary part of demand, which is sometimes excessive and often
insufficient. Insufficient demand exacerbates competition and
increases the need to cut production costs. This can be the result of
new technology, when productivity grows significantly and the work
force is reduced. But most of the time it is about abrogating
workers’ entitlements, subsidising energy and disregarding the
environment. Private profit is plunder and pollution.
The private property of the means of production
sees the surrounding community as slaves, serfs, wage workers and, with mass
production, as consumers. It must prey on the community to achieve its ends,
just as it preys on the environment. The private appropriation of the planet
could lead to its beautification, but the competitive accumulation of wealth is
contrary to esthetical and naturalist preoccupations. The rich keep their back
yards clean, but the rest of the world is just a potential source of profit.
They may have mental images of poverty, depredation, war, homelessness, child
labour, water and air pollution, dying seas and melting ice-caps, but they have
no time to think about it. And if they did, it would distract them from the
only important subject of getting richer. That means selling surplus value and
lending the money to pay for it. This mechanism, with all its side-effects and
collateral damages, has led the world up a dead-end street with no going back.
There Is No Alternative. So the planet will get hotter and people will be crazier,
and mercenary troops will rule a declining empire. However, the amount of
surplus value that can be monetised by debt has peaked, and the whole financial
house of (credit) cards may suddenly fold over and precipitate an endgame.
