Endgame

This capitalist growth cycle is on its last legs. Massive injections of cash have kept it alive, but have not revived it. And debts have risen to astronomical heights. Is this the result of capitalism’s fundamental flaw (surplus value) (1), or is it just time for a serious bout of Schumpeter’s creative destruction? In the latter case the scale of the destruction for a change from fossil fuels to renewable energy is difficult to imagine, outside of a nuclear free-fight. Starting from post-war cinders and rubble may have helped Japan and Germany to become industrial giants, along with insignificant defence budgets, but carpet bombing leaves unexploded ordnance, not radio-active fallout. As for redistribution of income between capital and labour, that has also been facilitated in the past by total war. When capital calls on the nation to fight its wars, it must resort to wholesale bribery. Whereas today’s mercenary armies are bought piecemeal. The ruins will be the work of professionals not conscripts.

Ninety years ago capitalism floundered and went on the road to destruction, so that it could rise anew like the Phoenix. Ten years ago it floundered again, and its present destination is unknown. There are recurrences however. The Syrian civil war has similarities with the Spanish one, with its radical factional infighting, its international brigades and its foreign interventions. And America’s hegemony is being contested by China and Russia, in the way Germany and Japan did in the1930s. As there is no alternative, the capitalist fatality must play itself out for a fresh start. The years of future incomes (3.25) that have been spent to realise capitalist profits will not materialise, and the colossal financial structure built on these promises to pay will disintegrate. Will belligerent nations start fighting before this happens, thereby exonerating Ponzi capitalism, or will the mechanism be laid bare for all to see?

1. For more on the link between profit and credit see the previous posting: Rosa Luxemburg.