communist lefthttp://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/국제주의, 좌익공산주의, 혁명적 맑스주의, 노동자평의회, 세계혁명, 공산주의 인터내셔널2015-05-12T10:39:31+09:00Textcube 1.8.3.1 : Secondary DominantUnder Capitalism the Housing Problem Never Goes Away자유로운 영혼http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/1592012-09-08T09:51:29+09:002012-09-08T09:51:29+09:00<h1 class="title" id="page-title" style="text-align: justify">
Under Capitalism the Housing Problem Never Goes Away</h1>
<div class="region region-content" sizcache="4" sizset="0">
<div class="block block-block first odd collapsiblock-processed" id="block-block-31">
<div class="content" style="text-align: justify">
<SCRIPT type=text/javascript src="https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js" gapi_processed="true"></SCRIPT> </div>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<!-- /.block --> </p>
<div class="block block-system even collapsiblock-processed" id="block-system-main">
<div class="content">
<div class="node node-article view-mode-full clearfix" id="node-8352">
<div class="content">
<div class="field field-name-field-images field-type-image field-label-hidden">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item even" style="text-align: justify">
<a href="http://www.leftcom.org/files/hungry-for-housing-005.jpg"><img height="312" src="http://www.leftcom.org/files/styles/galleryformatter_slide/public/hungry-for-housing-005.jpg" width="462" /></a></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="field field-name-body field-type-text-with-summary field-label-hidden">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item even">
<p style="text-align: justify">
<em>“It is not that the solution of the housing question simultaneously solves the social</em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<em>question, but that only by the solution of the social question, that is, by the abolition of the capitalist mode of production, is the solution of the housing question made possible.”</em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<em>Frederick Engels</em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The housing problem never goes away, it’s nature just changes with the crisis. Since the collapse of the housing bubble (which of course heralded the present economic crisis) mortgages have become ever more difficult to get and house prices have continued to increase, putting the dreams of home ownership (so beloved of all governments since Thatcher) out of the reach of many workers. According to a study by the National Housing Federation, the price of the average home in England has risen 94% between 2001 and 2011 and is now on average rising three times faster than wages. With most mortgage companies typically asking for deposits of between 20-25%, the home owning dream will remain for many people just that, a vague dream. <sup id="ref1"><a href="http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/159#fn1"><font size="2">(1)</font></a></sup> According to David Orr, the National Housing Federation's chief executive 'Ten years ago the average amount that you would have needed for a deposit was about nine months worth of salary. Now you need three years' worth."</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Figures earlier this year showed that owner occupation has fallen to 66% of all households in England, which takes it back to the level of 1989. House building is obviously no longer as profitable as it was in the boom and the number of new houses being built between April and June this year slumped to a three year low. According to the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) only 21,540 new homes were started by builders in the three months to June this year, some 24% down on the same period a year ago and a 10% drop from the first three months of the year.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
It's hardly surprising then that record numbers of people are being forced to rent, which of course means rents are going up, to record levels in fact in England and Wales. A report issued by LSL property services, which owns estate agency chains such as Your Move and Reeds Rains, reported in July that tenants are paying on average £725 a month, 2.9% more than in July 2011. According to LSL rents are rising fastest in London and the South East, with the average rent in the capital climbing by 4.8% to £1,057 a month. It's the perfect storm for workers facing stagnant wages and layoffs. With mortgage funds for first time buyers rationed by the banks, and with those who will lend demanding large deposits, the only option for many trying to get onto the housing ladder is to rent first, but with wages dropping and rents rising, the chances of tenants being able to save for a deposit gets ever slimmer, which in turn pushes up demand for rented properties which in turn pushes up rents. According to the housing charity Shelter, rents were now 'out of control' and many families now had to make choices between paying their rent or cutting back on food and other essentials. According to Campbell Robb, Shelter's chief executive 'Many will be wondering how much longer they'll be able to stay in their home.'</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Which begs the question, if they can't afford to stay, where else can they go? Over the past few decades council housing stock has dwindled through a combination of the right to buy and severe restrictions on the ability of councils to build new homes. Social policy has been deliberately formulated to steer us away from being a nation of renters to a nation of home owners, but now the bubble has burst there's no safety net. In 1979 about two fifths of the British population lived in local authority housing. Legislation to increase the right to buy and force councils to transfer their stock to other landlords led to a near halving of the proportion of homes owned by local authorities. Only the most vulnerable will be picked up if they lose their homes. At the moment some two million families are waiting for social housing, often in cramped and unsuitable conditions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The latest proposal to head off the brewing storm is the idea of selling off the most valuable housing stock and use the money to build homes outside the capital. According to the Policy Exchange, a think tank advising the government, some 22% of council housing is above the median value for their area, and in London it's 31%, with the total value of such stock at £159 billions. They estimate selling such property would free up £4.5 billions each year for new house building (ignoring of course that councils had been prohibited from using the money from council house sales to build new stock for decades). It also ignores the fact that prices in London especially have been artificially inflated (some 60% of all recent central London sales have been to rich foreigners, a figure which jumped after the influx of Greek investors looking for somewhere safe to invest their money). Not only will this lead to ever more social segregation, making parts of London an option only for the rich and super rich, but it will push many of London's poorer paid workers out of London altogether forcing them to commute even longer distances than many do at present. And with rail fares rocketing (and Tory MPs like Mark Reckless wringing his hands over the fact that some of his constituents are having to get up at five in the morning to get the bus in to work in the capital because the train fares are so high), the future does indeed look bleak for many workers and their families. Some tens of thousands already pay more than £5,000 according to research by the Transport Salaried Staffs Association, with rail fares being amongst the most expensive in Europe. <sup id="ref2"><a href="#fn2"><font size="2">(2)</font></a></sup></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Despite Cameron’s declared enthusiasm, it's unlikely that the government will take up such a policy (not least since it will force out many of the capital's low paid workers who rely on subsidised council housing; the last thing the government wants is any impetus to push wages up), but it's also clear that the government, just like the capitalist class as a whole, have no answer to the housing problem. As we write the government has just announced plans to relax the planning laws in the hope that this will encourage builders to build more homes. This has been accompanied by an announcement that £10 billions worth of government guarantees will be set aside to boost the private rented sector in the hope of seeing 100,000 new homes constructed and made available at market rents. This marks a shift away from the previous emphasis on affordable homes (new starts of which were down 60% over the last year) and by moving the focus (i.e. the subsidies) from the construction of affordable housing to that of housing at market rents, the government hopes to encourage the building sector to follow the almost guaranteed profits and thereby boost the economy. The economy of course will be boosted, but only for a lucky few who stand to make a fortune. The losers will be the new tenants faced with high market rents. And next year’s planned cut of 10% in central government funding for council tax benefit will undoubtedly be passed on to those who are low paid or unemployed and who will have to somehow find the money to make up the shortfall themselves <sup id="ref3"><a href="#fn3"><font size="2">(3)</font></a></sup>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
According to the Empty Homes Agency some 930,000 homes in the UK are currently empty, 350,000 of which are considered long-term empty i.e. for six months or more, and most of them are privately owned. If these homes were brought back into the housing stock it would almost halve the numbers on council waiting lists. The government has anticipated this logic and its response has been to push through legislation ending squatters’ rights, making squatting a criminal rather than a civil offence, with penalties of up to six months in prison and/or a fine of £5000.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The basic provisions of any society are food, clothing and shelter. Capitalism cannot meet housing need. Waiting lists are set to grow against a backdrop of spiralling rental costs, cuts in benefits, cuts in social housing, increasing homelessness and mortgage defaults. Despite the propaganda about us ‘all being in it together’, the future looks tough for those who find themselves falling victim of capitalism’s inadequacy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<strong>RT</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<strong>Notes</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<a href="#ref1" id="fn1">(1)</a> According to the Guardian 18 August 2012 because of the house price increases, a typical family in, for example Copeland in the Lake District would now have to find a deposit of more that £32,000 compared with the £5,000 they could have put down in 2001.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<a href="#ref2" id="fn2">(2)</a> According to the Campaign for Better Transport, UK rail fares can be up to ten times those for equivalent journeys in other EU countries.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<a href="#ref3" id="fn3">(3)</a> Given the fact that pensioners will be exempt from the proposed council tax benefit cut (the famous salami tactic), the 10% cut will be shared out between less than 100% of those receiving the benefit which means they could end up paying more than 10% of their council tax.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="field field-name-field-authored field-type-datetime field-label-hidden">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item even" style="text-align: justify">
<span class="date-display-single">Friday, September 7, 2012</span></div>
<div class="field-item even" style="text-align: justify">
</div>
<div class="field-item even" style="text-align: justify">
<span class="date-display-single"><출처 : <a href="http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2012-09-07/under-capitalism-the-housing-problem-never-goes-away">http://www.leftcom.org/en/articles/2012-09-07/under-capitalism-the-housing-problem-never-goes-away</a>></span></div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="buttons-bottom center jinboblog-i-like-this-buttons"><a class="button-jinboblog" href="javascript:void(0);" title="스크랩으로 글 링크를 저장하세요" onclick="recommend('4942',159,'/iscralee','');"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/mini_chuchon.png" alt="진보블로그 공감 버튼" /></a><a class="button-twitter" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F159+%22Under%20Capitalism%20the%20Housing%20Problem%20Never%20Goes%20Away%22" target="_blank" title="트위터로 리트윗합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/twitter.png" alt="트위터로 리트윗하기" /></a><a class="button-facebook" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F159&t=Under%20Capitalism%20the%20Housing%20Problem%20Never%20Goes%20Away" target="_blank" title="페이스북에 공유합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/facebook.png" alt="페이스북에 공유하기" /></a><a class="button-delicious" href="http://delicious.com/save" onclick="window.open('http://delicious.com/save?v=5&noui&jump=close&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F159&title=Under%20Capitalism%20the%20Housing%20Problem%20Never%20Goes%20Away','delicious','toolbar=no,width=550,height=550'); return false;" title="딜리셔스에 북마크합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/delicious.png" alt="딜리셔스에 북마크" /></a></div><p><strong><a href="http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/159?commentInput=true#entry159WriteComment">댓글 쓰기</a></strong></p>유럽 극우주의 망령 되살아난다자유로운 영혼http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/1582012-09-08T09:42:28+09:002012-09-08T09:42:28+09:00<p style="text-align: justify">
<strong><span style="font-size: 18pt"><font color="#c31a1b">유럽 극우주의 망령 되살아난다</font></span></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<span class="tit_subtit" style="font-size: 12pt"><strong><font color="#c31a1b">경제위기가 불러낸 ‘인종전쟁 공포’… 이민자 겨누다</font></strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<b><a class="keyword" href="http://search.daum.net/search?w=tot&rtupcoll=NNS&q=%EC%A0%9C2%EC%B0%A8%20%EC%84%B8%EA%B3%84%EB%8C%80%EC%A0%84&nil_profile=newskwd&nil_id=v20120908022118547" target="new" title=">검색하기"><font color="#0b09cb">제2차 세계대전</font></a> 이후 극우주의의 망령을 떨치고 공동체를 꿈꿔온 유럽에 '인종전쟁' 공포가 되살아나고 있다.</b><b>지난 20여년간 유럽 극우세력의 인종 증오 범죄는 이슬람 무장단체의 테러 못지않을 정도로 확산돼 왔다. 국제반테러리즘센터(ICCT) 조사에 따르면 1990년 이후 유럽에서 극우 범죄로 희생된 사람은 249명으로, 같은 기간 유럽에서 이슬람 극단주의자들의 공격으로 숨진 희생자 규모(263명)를 넘어설 기세다. <a class="keyword" href="http://search.daum.net/search?w=tot&rtupcoll=NNS&q=%EB%84%A4%EC%98%A4%EB%82%98%EC%B9%98&nil_profile=newskwd&nil_id=v20120908022118547" target="new" title=">검색하기"><font color="#0b09cb">네오나치</font></a> 단체 등이 '인종전쟁'까지 준비하고 있다는 우려도 제기되고 있다. 영국의 싱크탱크 인종관계연구소(IRR)가 최근 펴낸 보고서에 따르면 독일, <a class="keyword" href="http://search.daum.net/search?w=tot&rtupcoll=NNS&q=%EB%8D%B4%EB%A7%88%ED%81%AC&nil_profile=newskwd&nil_id=v20120908022118547" target="new" title=">검색하기"><font color="#0b09cb">덴마크</font></a>, 체코, <a class="keyword" href="http://search.daum.net/search?w=tot&rtupcoll=NNS&q=%ED%97%9D%EA%B0%80%EB%A6%AC&nil_profile=newskwd&nil_id=v20120908022118547" target="new" title=">검색하기"><font color="#0b09cb">헝가리</font></a> 등 일부 유럽국가에서 극우주의자들이 자체적으로 민병대를 조직하고 무기와 폭발물 등을 비축하고 있는 증거가 포착됐다.</b><br />
</p>
<div class="image" style="width: 375px">
<p class="img" style="text-align: justify">
<img alt="" height="366" src="http://i2.media.daumcdn.net/photo-media/201209/08/seoul/20120908022118535.jpg" width="375" /></p>
</div>
<div class="image" style="width: 522px">
<p class="img" style="text-align: justify">
<img alt="" height="343" src="http://i2.media.daumcdn.net/photo-media/201209/08/seoul/20120908022118520.jpg" width="522" /></p>
</div>
<div class="image" style="width: 520px">
<p class="img" style="text-align: justify">
<img alt="" height="353" src="http://i2.media.daumcdn.net/photo-media/201209/08/seoul/20120908022118495.jpg" width="520" /></p>
</div>
<p style="text-align: justify">
헝가리의 시민경호대(CG)나 체코의 노동당수호군(WPPC) 등이 대표적인 네오나치 계열의 민병대이다. 시민경호대는 지난해 3월 집시 거주지를 2개월간 점령하는 과정에서 도끼 등으로 무장한 채 밤낮으로 마을을 행진하며 주민들을 '더러운 집시'라고 모욕하고, 학교에 난입해 어린이들을 괴롭히는 등 온갖 무법행위를 저지르기도 했다.<br />
<br />
<a class="keyword" href="http://search.daum.net/search?w=tot&rtupcoll=NNS&q=%EA%B2%BD%EC%A0%9C%EC%9C%84%EA%B8%B0&nil_profile=newskwd&nil_id=v20120908022118547" target="new" title=">검색하기"><font color="#0b09cb">경제위기</font></a>의 직격탄을 맞은 남유럽에서는 이민·망명자, 서유럽에서는 급증하는 무슬림, 동유럽에서는 집시를 상대로 한 극우세력의 폭력과 살인이 일상이 됐다. 여기에 극우 정치인들의 묵시적인 선동과 물밑 지원까지 더해져 극우 범죄는 더 조직적으로 세력화하고 있다.<br />
<br />
유럽 극우정당들은 경제살리기 정책 대신 분열과 증오를 낳는 반(反)이민 정책을 내세워 대중들의 분노심을 자극하고 있다. 고실업, 빈부격차 확대, 복지 축소 등의 정부 실책을 모두 이민자 탓으로 돌리고 있는 것이다.<br />
<br />
최근 <a class="keyword" href="http://search.daum.net/search?w=tot&rtupcoll=NNS&q=%EA%B7%B8%EB%A6%AC%EC%8A%A4&nil_profile=newskwd&nil_id=v20120908022118547" target="new" title=">검색하기"><font color="#0b09cb">그리스</font></a>에는 '경제위기로 붕괴된 유럽의 미래를 보여 주는 축소판'이라는 평가가 나올 정도로 이민자를 겨냥한 도를 넘은 광기가 넘실대고 있다. 니코스 덴디아스 아테네 공공질서장관은 "이민자가 그리스를 침공했다."며 이민자를 암적인 존재로 규정하고, 대대적인 검거작전에 앞장섰다. 그만큼 그리스 사회는 인권 탄압에 무감각해졌다.<br />
<br />
그리스 전역에서 지난 7~8월 두달 동안에만 200건의 이민자 폭행 사건이 발생했다. 올 상반기 전체로는 500건에 이른다. 지난달 그리스·터키 국경지대 배치 경찰은 전달보다 5배 많은 2500명으로 대폭 늘었다.<br />
<br />
특히 지난 6월 네오나치 계열의 황금새벽당이 6.9% 지지율로 의회에 입성하면서 이민자 탄압은 더 극렬해졌다. 황금새벽당이 이민자 협박과 폭행, 살인을 일삼는 지하 범죄세력과 결탁하고 경찰을 매수해 이를 방조하도록 했다는 증언과 의혹이 쇄도하자 유럽평의회의 인권 담당 위원인 닐스 무이즈니엑스는 "황금새벽당은 유럽의 나치당"이라면서 그리스 정부에 정당의 합법성에 대한 조사를 요청했다.<br />
<br />
나치당의 집권으로 유럽에 전쟁의 상흔을 안긴 독일에서도 과거의 기억은 희미해지고 있다. 한 주가 멀다 하고 유대인 묘에 나치 문양이 그려졌다거나 터키인들이 운영하는 케밥 식당에 벽돌이 날아들었다는 뉴스가 터져 나온다. 외국인이라는 이유만으로 버스 정거장에서 얻어맞거나 "꺼지라."는 욕설을 듣는 건 다반사다.<br />
<br />
독일에서는 1990년 통일 이후 인종 증오와 관련된 <a class="keyword" href="http://search.daum.net/search?w=tot&rtupcoll=NNS&q=%EC%82%B4%EC%9D%B8%EC%82%AC%EA%B1%B4&nil_profile=newskwd&nil_id=v20120908022118547" target="new" title=">검색하기"><font color="#0b09cb">살인사건</font></a>이 180건이나 자행됐다. 올 상반기에만 하루 평균 34건의 <a class="keyword" href="http://search.daum.net/search?w=tot&rtupcoll=NNS&q=%EC%9D%B8%EC%A2%85%20%EC%B0%A8%EB%B3%84&nil_profile=newskwd&nil_id=v20120908022118547" target="new" title=">검색하기"><font color="#0b09cb">인종 차별</font></a> 범죄가 발생했다. 네오나치 단체는 오히려 더 번성하고 있다. 2009년 5000개였던 네오나치 단체는 2010년 5600개, 지난해 6000개로 매년 수백개씩 늘고 있다. 폭력에 가담한 극우주의자 규모도 2010년 9500명에서 지난해 9800명으로 일년 새 300명이나 늘었다. 극우 시위 역시 같은 기간 240건에서 260건으로 증가 추세다.<br />
<br />
독일에서도 네오나치 단체와 극우 정당 간의 커넥션이 확인됐다. 지난달 23일 서부 <a class="keyword" href="http://search.daum.net/search?w=tot&rtupcoll=NNS&q=%EB%85%B8%EB%A5%B4%ED%8A%B8%EB%9D%BC%EC%9D%B8%EB%B2%A0%EC%8A%A4%ED%8A%B8%ED%8C%94%EB%A0%8C%EC%A3%BC&nil_profile=newskwd&nil_id=v20120908022118547" target="new" title=">검색하기"><font color="#0b09cb">노르트라인베스트팔렌주</font></a>의 극우단체 3곳의 근거지로 추정되는 건물 146곳을 압수수색하는 과정에서 극우 정당인 민족민주당(NPD)의 선거 포스터 1000여장과 무기가 쏟아져 나왔다. 독일도 극우 범죄와의 전쟁에서 패배하고 있다는 평가를 받는다.<br />
<br />
독일 일간 <a class="keyword" href="http://search.daum.net/search?w=tot&rtupcoll=NNS&q=%EC%8A%88%ED%94%BC%EA%B2%94&nil_profile=newskwd&nil_id=v20120908022118547" target="new" title=">검색하기"><font color="#0b09cb">슈피겔</font></a>은 극우주의를 눈감아주는 사회적인 풍토와 이들의 위협을 심각하게 받아들이지 않는 당국의 안이한 태도를 독일이 네오나치를 뿌리뽑지 못하는 원인으로 꼽았다. 2000~2007년 외국인 이민자 9명과 경찰 1명을 살해한 극우단체 NSU의 범죄가 지난해 11월 밝혀졌을 때도 경찰이 그간 극우 세력의 범행 가능성을 무시해 왔다는 비판이 제기된 바 있다.<br />
<br />
인종 증오 범죄가 범람하자 유럽 각국 정부의 책임론도 대두된다.<br />
<br />
특히 그리스는 구제금융을 받은 만큼 유럽 전체에 빚을 갚아나가야 하는데 이로 인해 그리스 정부뿐 아니라 유럽 각국이 그리스가 긴축 조치를 이행하는 한 이민자 탄압을 '사회적 비용'으로 여기며 기꺼이 감내할 것이라고 영국 일간 가디언은 꼬집었다. 이 같은 파시즘의 대가는 정부부채보다 더 가혹할 것이라고 전문가들은 우려하고 있다.<br />
<br />
물론 평범한 사람들의 일상까지 송두리째 파괴한다는 점에서 유럽에서도 극우 범죄에 무관용 정책이 필요하다는 자성의 목소리가 쏟아져 나오고 있다. 반(反)인종차별유럽네트워크 소장 마이클 피봇은 "유럽 대륙 전역에 퍼져 있는 인종차별 정서는 사람들이 살고 있는 경제적, 사회적 상황과 긴밀히 연관돼 있다."면서 "각국 정부가 국민들의 삶의 질을 더 높여야 한다."고 말했다.<br />
<br />
정서린기자 rin@seoul.co.kr</p><div class="buttons-bottom center jinboblog-i-like-this-buttons"><a class="button-jinboblog" href="javascript:void(0);" title="스크랩으로 글 링크를 저장하세요" onclick="recommend('4942',158,'/iscralee','');"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/mini_chuchon.png" alt="진보블로그 공감 버튼" /></a><a class="button-twitter" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F158+%22%EC%9C%A0%EB%9F%BD%20%EA%B7%B9%EC%9A%B0%EC%A3%BC%EC%9D%98%20%EB%A7%9D%EB%A0%B9%20%EB%90%98%EC%82%B4%EC%95%84%EB%82%9C%EB%8B%A4%22" target="_blank" title="트위터로 리트윗합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/twitter.png" alt="트위터로 리트윗하기" /></a><a class="button-facebook" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F158&t=%EC%9C%A0%EB%9F%BD%20%EA%B7%B9%EC%9A%B0%EC%A3%BC%EC%9D%98%20%EB%A7%9D%EB%A0%B9%20%EB%90%98%EC%82%B4%EC%95%84%EB%82%9C%EB%8B%A4" target="_blank" title="페이스북에 공유합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/facebook.png" alt="페이스북에 공유하기" /></a><a class="button-delicious" href="http://delicious.com/save" onclick="window.open('http://delicious.com/save?v=5&noui&jump=close&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F158&title=%EC%9C%A0%EB%9F%BD%20%EA%B7%B9%EC%9A%B0%EC%A3%BC%EC%9D%98%20%EB%A7%9D%EB%A0%B9%20%EB%90%98%EC%82%B4%EC%95%84%EB%82%9C%EB%8B%A4','delicious','toolbar=no,width=550,height=550'); return false;" title="딜리셔스에 북마크합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/delicious.png" alt="딜리셔스에 북마크" /></a></div><p><strong><a href="http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/158?commentInput=true#entry158WriteComment">댓글 쓰기</a></strong></p>후쿠시마 1년후자유로운 영혼http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/1252012-02-16T08:15:37+09:002012-02-16T08:15:37+09:00<p>
<strong><span style="font-size: 24pt">후쿠시마 1년후</span></strong></p>
<p>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<!-- start main content --></p>
<div class="node" style="text-align: justify">
<div class="info">
</div>
<div class="terms">
</div>
<div class="terms">
</div>
<div class="content">
2011년 3월 11일 거대한 쓰나미가 일본 동부 해안을 휩쓸었다. 12- 15미터이상의 높은 파도가 믿을 수 없을 만큼 큰 피해를 초래했다. 2만명 이상이 그 쓰나미로 사망했고, 아직도 수천명의 실종자들이 보고되어 있다. 무수한 사람들이 집을 잃었다. 전세계적으로 상당 수의 인구가 해안가나 해안 부근에 정착해 있는데, 그 대부분의 사람들은 좁은 공간에 밀집해 살고 있으며, 돌이킬 수 없는 해수면 상승으로 점점 더 위협당하고 있다. 그 쓰나미의 높은 파도는 그렇게 해안선을 따라 밀집된 정착으로 야기되는 모든 위험들을 보여주었다.
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
그러나 정부의 모든 예상과는 달리, 재앙적인 사건이 후쿠시마핵발전소에서 발생했다. 이번의 지진과 쓰나미는 해안선을 따라 이뤄진 정착으로 인해 기후변화시대에 야기되는 잠재적인 위험들과 지배계급의 원자력 취급방식을 극명하게 보여주었다. 우리는 쓰나미의 파괴적 결과들을 무시하려는 의도에서가 아니라 단지 공간의 제약으로 인해 이 글에서는 핵노심용융의 결과들에 촛점을 맞추고자 한다.</p>
<p>
<strong> </strong></p>
<p>
</p>
<h4>
<strong>체르노빌</strong><strong>, </strong><strong>후쿠시마</strong><strong> : </strong><strong>지배계급의</strong><strong> </strong><strong>만연한</strong><strong> </strong><strong>무력감과</strong><strong> </strong><strong>부도덕</strong></h4>
<p>
</p>
<p>
후쿠시마에서 대재앙적 사태가 발생한 후, 주민의 대피는 너무 늦게 시작되었고 필요한 통행금지구역을 모두 포괄한 것도 아니었다. 구제대책과 대피가 쓰나미의 결과로 지연되고 방해받았다고 변명할 수도 있겠지만, 정부가 발생된 위험들의 규모를 완전히 의식하고 싶지 않았고 또 그것들을 과소포장하길 원했기에 광범위한 대피를 피하고 싶어했음은 부정할 수 없다. 일본의 책임자들(원전운영사 텝코와 국가)은 그러한 일을 전혀 예기치 않았으며 안전대비책들도 그러한 규모의 지진과 쓰나미에 대해서는 전적으로 불충분했음이 갑자기 밝혀졌다. 계획된 구제대책들과 그 용도로 제공된 구제수단들은 하이테크국가 일본을 빈약하게 무장된 무력한 거인처럼 보이게 했다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
그 재앙이 발생한지 며칠이 지난 후, 경우에 따라서는 3천 5백만인구를 거느린 토쿄 광역권의 인구를 대피시켜야할 필요성의 문제가 제기되었을 때, 정부는 이 생각을 즉시 포기했다. 일단 그렇게 할 수단이 없었고 그러한 대피가 국가의 붕괴위험으로 발전할 수도 있었기 때문이다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
원자력발전소 안과 그 주변에서는 방사능측정치가 치명적으로 높게 나타났다. 그 재난이 시작되고 얼마지 않아 일본수상 칸은, “원자로내 압력을 수동으로 낮출 노동자들로 이뤄진 '자살부대'”를 요청했다. 그곳 현장에서 작업하는 노동자들은 전적으로 충분한 보호장비 없이 그 재난에 대항해 싸워야만 했다. „종종 측정기과 허가된 적당한 보호장화가 부족했다. 노동자들은 대신에 플라스틱봉지를 신발 둘레에 테잎으로 붙혀 썼다고 보고했다.“ 대부분의 노동자들은 현장에서 잠을 자야했고 납으로 된 덮개 외에는 아무것도 덮을 것이 없었다. 비상상태에 남성 핵발전소노동자의 한해동안의 피폭한계치는 3월 15일 100mSv에서 250mSv로 높게 책정되었다. 부분적으로는 그 노동자들은 원전에서 해체작업을 한지 몇 주 그리고 몇 달이 지난 후에야 건강검진을 받았다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
25년전 체르노빌의 원자력발전소가 폭발했을 때, 당시 몰락의 길에 들어서 있던 소련체제는 기술적 수단의 부족으로, 대부분 강제동원된 엄청난 수의 사람들을 피해복구작업을 위해 그 지옥으로 파견하는 것 밖에 할 수 없었다. 세계보건기구의 자료에 따르면 60만에서 80만명의 해체인력이 파견되었는데, 그 중에서 지금까지 수십만명이 피폭의 결과로 사망하거나 암을 앓고 있다. 그에 대한 통계숫자는 정부측에서 지금까지 결코 공개되지 않았다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
그후 25년이 지난 지금, 하이테크국가 일본은 무력하게 소방호스와 헬리콥터로 불을 끄고 그 설비를 냉각시키려 시도했다. 지금까지의 모든 기획된 구상들과는 반대로, 냉각을 위해 엄청난 양의 해수를 투입하고 이렇게 해서 방사능물질로 오염된 물을 다시 바다로 배출할 수 밖에 없었다. 소련정부가 25년전에 수백만명의 해체인력을 강제로 동원했던 반면, 일본의 경제적인 곤궁은 무수한 노동자들로 하여금 그들의 생명을 위험에 빠뜨리게 만들었다. 텝코는, 예를 들어 오사카의 노동자구역인 카마가사키와 같은 곳에서 노숙자나 실직자를 대상으로 인력을 구했고, 그렇게 동원된 사람들에게는 투입지역이나 위험들에 대해서 종종 정보가 제공되지 않았다. 그러나 해체인력들의 생명만이 위험에 처한 것이 아니라, 시민들의 생명도 마찬가지였다. 특히 그 지역의 아이들은 아무 대책없이 높은 방사능량에 노출되었다. 그 방사능방출이 지금까지의 모든 측정치를 넘어섰기 때문에, 정부는 후쿠시마지역 학생들의 한해 피폭한계치를 20mSv까지로 상향조정했다. 스탈린주의적인 소련의 권력자들만 체르노빌의 폭발에 대해 처음 몇일 간 완전히 침묵한 것이 아니라, 일본의 민주주의 정부도 후쿠시마의 경우에 진실을 말하지 않고 그 재앙의 규모를 과소포장하려 했다. 이런 점으로 볼 때, 냉소주의와 생명경시에 있어서 일본의 책임자들은 스탈린주의 소련의 권력자들에 조금도 뒤지지 않는다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
장기적인 결과를 오늘날 사실상 가늠해 보기란 전적으로 불가능하다. 노심용융이 일어난 것은 용융된 연료봉들이 엄청난 방사능을 지닌 덩어리로 뭉쳐져 압력용기를 관통해 들어갔음을 의미한다. 투입된 냉각수 자체는 극도로 오염되어 있고, 계속해서 다시 냉각되어야 하며 그때마다 다시 엄청난 양의 오염된 해수가 발생한다. 물뿐만 아니라 보호되지 않은 원자로들은 세슘, 스트론튬과 플루토늄 동위원소들을 방출한다. 이 물질들은 핫 파티클스(뜨거운 입자들)”로 불리는데, 나중에 일본 전역에서, 그래서 토쿄에서도 발견되었다. 지금까지의 기술적 수단으로는 후쿠시마에서 발생한 핵쓰레기의 처리는 불가능하다. 냉각하는 것만도 몇년이 걸릴 것이다. 체르노빌에서는 일종의 석관이 설치되었는데, 약 100년후헐어내고 다시 설치되어야 한다. 후쿠시마에 대해서는 아직 어떤 해답의 전망도 없다. 그러는 동안 방사능에 오염된 물이 점점 더 쌓여가고, 그것을 어디에 버려야할지 알 수가 없다. “대부분의 방사능은 냉각수를 통해서 후쿠시마를 빠져나가 곧장 바다로 들어가서 해류를 따라 곳곳으로 확산되기에, 태평양과 먹이사슬 그리고 그와 더불어 인간들에게 미치게 될 결과는 예측할 수가 없다. 일본의 북동부 해안 앞의 극히 풍부한 어장이 타격을 입었고, 예를 들어 베링해역의 바다연어로 확산되는 것이 가능성의 영역권에 놓여있다.” (1)</p>
<p>
</p>
<h4>
“그렇게 많은 양의 방사능물질의 해양으로의 방출은 지금까지 없었다.”</h4>
<p>
</p>
<p>
일본 이지역의 인구밀도가 우크라이나보다 15배나 높기때문에, 주민에 대한 영향은 지금 아직은 더 정확하게 가늠될 수가 없다.</p>
<p>
그래서 노심용융은 그러한 핵재앙의 결과들이 전적으로 통제불가능함을 명백히 보여주었다. 왜냐하면 책임자들은 페스트와 콜레라사이에서만 선택할 수 있는데, 즉 노심용융을 방치한 채 보고만 있거나 아니면 해수로 냉각을 시도해서 결국은 소방물질을 통해 방사능이 더 광범위하게 확산되도록 하거나. 무력한 정부는 두번째의 경우, 즉 높은 방사능으로 오염된 소방물질을 통한 해수의 오염을 선택했다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
<strong> </strong></p>
<h4>
<strong>오염제거</strong><strong>: </strong><strong>문제의</strong><strong> </strong><strong>해결</strong><strong> </strong><strong>대신</strong><strong> </strong><strong>불운의</strong><strong> </strong><strong>악화</strong></h4>
<p>
</p>
<p>
주변의 오염된 토양을 처리하려는 시도도 무력감과 부도덕을 백일하에 드러낸다. 30만 인구의 도시 후쿠시마에서 8월초까지 334개의 학교와 유치원에서 그 마당의 오염된 토양을 제거하는 정화작업이 이뤄졌다. 후쿠시마지방의 코리야마시는 방사능으로 오염된 흙을 어디로 처리할지 몰라서, 많은 부모들이 경악하게도... 학교주변에 묻었다. 그 외에도 일본의 48개의 지방들 중 17개 지방들이, 그중에는 토쿄도 속하는데, 방사능으로 오염된 진흙찌꺼기를 처리 못한 채 보유하고 있다고 전한다. 심지어 토쿄로부터 20킬로미터 떨어진 곳에서까지도 방사능으로 오염된 토양이 발견되었다. 한편 방사능입자들을 제거작업이 이뤄져야될 건물들이 수천개나 여전히 남아있다. 수목이 우거진 산 조차도 아마 오염제거작업이 이뤄져야만 될 것이다. 아마 많은 나무들을 베어내야만 할 것이다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
일본의 언론 보도에 따르면, 정부는 방사능으로 오염된 수백만 톤의 물질들을 위한 임시보관장소를 찾고 있다. 마땅한 해결책이 없기 때문에, 방사능 오염된 폐기물은 일부분 소각되었다. 그렇게 생겨난 매연을 통해 방사능이 더 광범위하게 확산될 것이다. 발생된 핵폐기물에 대한 이러한 속수무책은 방사능폐기물의 처리라는 풀릴 수 없는 근본적인 문제를 조명한다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
<strong> </strong></p>
<h4>
<strong>핵폐기물처리</strong><strong> </strong><strong>파괴적인</strong><strong> </strong><strong>유산</strong><strong> </strong><strong>또는</strong><strong> </strong><strong>우리를</strong><strong> </strong><strong>뒤따를</strong><strong> </strong><strong>대홍수</strong></h4>
<p>
</p>
<p>
원자력 발전에서 특별한 점은, 그 원자력발전소의 수명이 다해 가동 종결된다 하더라도 그 방사능의 발산이 끝난 것은 결코 아니라는 점이다. 가동중지와 동시에 핵분열과정이 종결되지는 않기 때문이다. 방사능물질과 접촉한 모든 것은 오염되는데, 원자력발전소에서 발생된 폐기물은 어떻게 할 것인가? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
세계원자력협회 제공 정보에 따르면, 매년 1만 2천톤의 고방사능 폐기물이 발생한다. 모두 합치면 전세계적으로 2010년 말까지 생겨난 고방사능폐기물은 이미 약 30만톤에 달한다. 몇몇 나라들에서 실행중이거나 계획중인 지리적인 저장, 즉 옛광산에 저장하는 것은 그 위험성에 대해 눈가림식의 임시방편에 불과하다. 그런식으로, 독일의 아세(Asse)에 저장된 12만 5천 통의 핵폐기물은 조만간 인접한 소금의 영향으로 침식될 것으로 보이는데, 지금 벌써 방사능으로 오염된 여과액이 흘러나오고 있다. 독일의 임시저장소 고어레벤(Gorleben)에서 전문가들은 지반함몰 위험을 조사했다. 비슷한 위험들이 전세계 대부분의 저장소灯에 존재한다. 다시 말해서, 원자력발전소의 운전이 이미 큰 위험 요소들과 관련되어 있다면, 그렇게 핵페기물의 처리는 전적으로 해결되지 않은 문제이다. 지금의 책임자들은 이 모든 폐기물을 저장소나 임시보관소에 떠넘기는데, 이는 결국 문제의 해결을 무수한 미래의 세대들에게 미루는 것에 불과하다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
원자력발전소의 아주 정상적인灯 운행도 결코, 원자력산업의 옹호자들이 주장하듯이 그렇게 깨끗하지灯 않다. 사실상 원자력을 이용한 전력생산시에는 연료봉의 냉각을 위해 엄청난 양의 물이 요구된다. 그래서 원자력발전소는 주로 해변이나 강변에 건설된다. 14개월마다 원자로의 연료봉들을 교체하는데, 이 연료봉들은 아직 매우 뜨겁기때문에 계속해서 폐연료냉각수조 안에 저장되어 2-3년간 냉각되어야 한다. 강으로 유입된 냉각수는 물의 온도상의 오염을 가져와서 수초가 자라고 물고기가 떼죽음을 당한다. 또한 화학물질들(특히 나트륨, 붕산, 암모니아등)이 핵발전소로부터 강으로 유입된다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<h4>
<strong>대재앙</strong><strong> </strong><strong>이후</strong><strong> </strong><strong>근</strong><strong> 1</strong><strong>년</strong><strong>: </strong><strong>권력자들은</strong><strong> </strong><strong>어떤</strong><strong> </strong><strong>결론을</strong><strong> </strong><strong>냈는가</strong><strong>?</strong></h4>
<p>
</p>
<p>
권력자들, 책임자들은 원인규명에 관심이 있는가? 분명히 그렇지 않다! 사실은, 후쿠시마 원자력발전소의 설계 전체가 지진에 제대로 대비되어 있지 않았다는 것이다. 그동안 밝혀진 바로는, 원전운영사 텝코는 그 이전에 많은 단순사고들을 얼버무렸고 지적된 안전결함들을 해결하지 않았으며, 특히 그 발전소는 40년간의 수명을 다해서 어차피 가동종결되었어야 했다. 하필이면, 자국 자본의 경쟁력 강화를 위해 MITI와 같은 제도들을 통해 경제에 깊이 개입하는 일본국가가 바로 그 원자력산업에 백지수표를 줘어 주었다. 조사보고서 조작이나 사고 얼버무리기의 진상이 백일하에 들어났을 때 조차도 국가는 어떤 결정도 내지 않았다. 그 밖에도, 경쟁의 압력과 위기의 무게로 인해 감독과 유지에 점점 투자를 덜 하게 되고, 점점 덜 숙련된 인력을 투입하려는 경향은 전세계적으로 널리 확산되어 있다. 자본주의의 위기는 불충분하게 양성된 인력에 의해 안전기준이 낮아지게 됨으로써 원자로의 안전을 더 위협하게 되는 셈이다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
그러나 무엇보다도, 전세계적으로 운영되고 있는 442개의 원자력발전소중 많은 발전소가 지진발생위험지역에 놓여있음이 분명해졌다. 일본에서만도 50개 이상의 원전이 지진발생위험지역에 세워져있다. 미국에서는 12개 이상의 원전이 잠재적으로 비슷한 재앙발생에 노출되어 있다. 러시아에는 많은 원전들이 지진발생시 자동으로 작동되는 가동중지메커니즘 없이 가동되고 있다. 터어키에서는 아쿠유베이(Akkuyu Bay) 원자로가 활성 에세미스(Ecemis) 단층선 근처에 건설되었다. 한편 현재 27개의 새로운 원전을 건설중인 중국은 지진활동이 가장 왕성한 나라들 중의 하나이다. 더 많은 예들을 리스트에 포함시킬 수 있을 것이다. 자연재해의 위험을 고려하는 대신, 자본주의는 도처에 시한폭탄을 만들어냈다! 고도로 발전한 나라들에서 안전기준들이 이미 불충분한 것으로 드러난 마당에, 이제서야 원전의 운전에 뛰어드는 나라들은 안전기준들과 사고처리경험을 조롱한다. 이 지역에 사고가 발생했을때 어떤 일이 일어날지 상상할 수 조차도 없다....</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
게다가 오래된 원자력발전소의 수명이 연장된다. 미국에서는 60년으로, 러시아에서는 45년으로 연장되었다. 국제적 수준에서는 엄격한 안전기준에 대한 저항이 그리고, 원자력산업에 대한 국가들의 허술한 통제를 넘어서는 국제감시기관의 개입에 대한 저항이 상당히 거세다. 국가의 독립성이 안전에 우선시되고 있다(3).</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
종합하자면, 후쿠시마사태에도 불구하고 인류는 여전히 시한폭탄 위에 앉아있는데, 이 시한폭탄들은 곳곳에서 그리고 언제라도 지진이나 고장 또는 테러리즘 등에 의해 새로운 재앙으로 작용할 수 있다. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<h4>
<strong>원자력</strong><strong> </strong><strong>전력</strong><strong> </strong><strong>값싸고</strong><strong>, </strong><strong>깨끗하며</strong><strong> </strong><strong>다른</strong><strong> </strong><strong>대안이</strong><strong> </strong><strong>없는가</strong><strong>?</strong></h4>
<h4>
<strong>사회를</strong><strong> </strong><strong>댓가로</strong><strong> </strong><strong>한</strong><strong> </strong><strong>이윤</strong></h4>
<p>
</p>
<p>
원자력산업의 옹호자들은 반복해서, 원자력 전력은 값싸고, 더 깨끗하며 다른 대안이 없다는 주장을 펼친다. 사실은, 원자력발전소 하나를 세우는데 엄청난 비용이 들고, 이는 전력회사들에 의해 충당되어야 한다. 그리고 이는 다시 국가의 보조, 즉 세금을 통해 지원된다. 핵페기물의 처리비용의 주요부분도 운영회사들에 의해 사회에 전가된다. 지금까지 핵페기물처리에 대한 어떤 해답도 없다는 점은 논외로 치더라도, 핵로비측의 계산 전체에 이러한 폐기물처리비용은 참작되어 있지 않다. 원전이 약 50년의 운전후에 가동중지되더라도, 지금까지 참작되지 않은 거대한 비용이 생겨난다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
단순사고이거나 대형사고이거나를 막론하고, 여기서도 그 비용은 사회에 전가된다. 후쿠시마에서는 그 규모가 지금으로선 현실적으로 산정되기 불가능한 결과비용들은 지금까지 2-3천억 유로로 추정된다. 이 금액은 텝코가 도저히 조달할 수 없는 것이다. 일본 국가는 텝코노동자들이 희생한다는 조건하에 이미 원조灯를 약속했다. 그렇게 해서 연금이 삭감되고 임금이 인하되며 수천개의 일자리가 없어질 것이다. 또한 일본의 전체 가정에 특별세도입이 계획되어 있다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
경제적 및 생태적인 측면에서 원전운행으로 발생하는 사실상의 비용과 폐기물처리라는 미해결 문제는 밑빠진 독과 같다. 원자력은 어떤 측면으로 보더라도 비합리적인 프로젝트이다. 원전사들은 전력생산으로 거대한 금액을 벌어들이지만 그 결과비용灯은 사회에 전가한다. 원자력발전소는 그래서 이윤추구 그리고 인류와 자연의 장기적 보호사이의 극복될 수 없는 대립을 체화하고 있다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<h4>
<strong>위기와</strong><strong> </strong><strong>자연</strong><strong> </strong><strong>남용</strong></h4>
<p>
</p>
<p>
원자력이 환경에 대한 유일한 위협은 아니다. 자본주의는 끊임없이 자연 남용을 자행하고 있다. 전혀 보존에 대한 고민 없이 모든 자원을 강탈하고 환경을 창고처럼 취급한다.</p>
<p>
그 사이에 점차 전 지역이 사람이 살 수 없게 되는 곳이 늘어나고, 바다는 쓰레기로 가득하며, 얼마전까지만 해도 도달불가능했던 자원들이 점점 더 정교화된 기술로 남김없이 약탈된다. 이때 투입되는 수단은 점점 더 폭력적이고 더 비용이 많이 들 뿐만 아니라 위험과 잠재적파괴력이 배가된다. 2010년 4월 멕시코만에서 원유시추선, 딮워터 호라이즌이 폭발했을 때, 진상조사위원회는 안전규정상의 명백한 결함들을 발견했다. 엄청난 경쟁의 압력때문이기도 하고 또 바로 그때문에, 시설의 건설, 감독 및 운영에 거대한 투자를 했어야할 그 대기업은 결국 엄격한 긴축정책을 펼수 밖에 없었고, 이는 안전비용에 있어서도 마찬가지였다. 최근의 예로는 브라질해안이 원유로 오염된 것을 들 수 있다. 이 모든 과실들은 결코 기술적으로 후진적인 나라들에 국한될 수 없는 현상들이다. 오히려 고도로 발전된 나라들에서 믿을 수 없는 양상을 띠게 된다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<h4>
<strong>인류</strong><strong> </strong><strong>전체에</strong><strong> </strong><strong>대한</strong><strong> </strong><strong>위협</strong></h4>
<p>
</p>
<p>
1970년대 말 미국에서 발생한 쓰리마일아일랜드(Three Mile Island)사태나 체르노빌의 경우와는 달리, 후쿠시마사태는 인구가 밀집된 대지대, 즉 3천 5백만의 인구를 거느린 토쿄를 직접적으로 위협했다.</p>
<p>
원자력은 2차 세계대전시에 전쟁무기로서 개발되었다. 일본의 두 도시에 투하된 원자탄과 더불어, 쇠퇴하는 자본주의 체제에 새로운 단계의 파괴가 도입되었다. 2차 대전후 군비경쟁은 체계적인 고도의 핵무장과 더불어 이러한 군사적인 파괴무기를 더욱 강화시켜서 오늘날에는 단 한번의 핵무기전투에 전 인류가 절멸될 수 있을 정도가 되었다. 냉전 종결후 20여년이 지난 오늘에도 여전히 대략 20만개의 핵무기가 존재하고, 이는 인류를 몇십번이나 절멸시킬 수있는 파괴력을 지니기 때문이다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
쓰리마일아일랜드, 체르노빌 그리고 후쿠시마의 핵사고를 통해서, 인류가 군사상의 핵무기투입을 통해서 뿐만 아니라 원자력의 '비군사적' 이용을 통해서도 위협받고 있음이 분명해졌다. 일본정부의 추산에 따르면, 후쿠시마 다이이치 원전사고의 결과로 대기중에 방출된 세슘-137 동위원소의 양은 1945년 히로시마에 원폭투하로 야기된 양의 대략 168배에 해당된다고 한다.(4)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
후쿠시마사태 발생 이후 그 사태수습의 전반적인 전개양상을 볼 때, 책임자들은 속수무책이었고 그 사태의 규모를 과소포장하려 했으며 그 사태로부터 어떤 결론도 내리지 않은 채, 비용에 대한 어떤 통제도 상실했다. 오히려, 원자력 문제에 있어서 뿐만 아니라 환경 전체의 보호에 있어서도 지배계급은 점점 더 가차없어진다. 환경파괴는 점점 더 위협적인 규모를 띠고 지배계급은 환경보호를 위해 책임있는 대책들을 시행함에 있어서 그 무능함을 점점 더 뚜렷하게 드러내고 있다. 지구가, 인류가 이윤의 제단 위에 희생되고 있다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
게다가 지난 해에 더 첨예해진 세계경제위기로 인해, 자연유지를 위한 보호대책을 도입하기에는 지배계급의 재량권의 폭이 부가적으로 더 축소되었다. 자본주의는 위기를 통해서만, 기아, 빈곤, 전쟁등과 같은 위기의 재앙적인 결과들을 통해서만 인류를 파멸로 내모는 것이 아니다. 자본주의는 그 파괴력을 통해 전체 생태계의 존재를 위협하고 있다. 원자력발전소들은 단지 빙산의 일각에 불과하다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
시간과의 경쟁이 시작되었다. 자본주의가 지구 전체를 파괴하거나, 아니면 착취당하고 억압받는 자들이 노동자계급을 선두로 하여 이체제를 극복하느냐가 문제이다. 자본주의는 인류를 다양한 수준들(위기, 전쟁, 환경)에서 위협하기 때문에, 예를 들어 원자력에 대항하는 것과 같이, 자본주의적 현실의 오직 한 측면에 대해서만 배타적으로 대항하는 것은 별 의미가 없다. 이 모든 공포의 시나리오들과 자본주의 체제에 놓인 그 뿌리들 사이의 연관성들을 파악하는 것이 중요하다. 특히 1980년대와 1990년대에 성행했던 소위 “1-쟁점-운동들”(반핵운동, 가택점거, NATO무장반대운동)에 투쟁을 내맡겨버리는 것은 치명적인 오류가 될 것이다. 오늘날 그 어느때 보다도, 전세계적인 파산을, 체제가 그 막다른 골목에 다달았음을 세계적으로 보여주는 것이 중요하다. 위기와 전쟁과 환경파괴 사이의 이러한 연관성을 외면한다면, 어쩔 수 없이 개량주의라는 살얼음판 위에 도달하게 되고 이 체제에 의해 흡수되어버릴 위험에 빠지게 된다. D. 2012년 1월 <국제공산주의흐름></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
(1) 후쿠시마 북동쪽에서 2개의 해류들, 즉 큐로시오난류와 오야시오한류가 만나서 세계에서 가장 풍부한 어장들 중의 하나를 이룬다. 그곳에서 이뤄지는 일본의 어획은 일본에서 소비되는 생선제품의 반을 이룬다. 그렇게 해서 생선공급이 위태롭게 될수 있다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
(2) <a href="http://news.ippnw.de/index.php?id=72" target="_blank"><u><font color="#0000ff">Http://news.ippnw.de/index.php?id=72</font></u></a>, 일본환경단체의 정보에 따르면, 일본정부는 후쿠시마지역으로부터의 오염된 토사들을 일본 전 지역으로 분배해서 소각할 계획이라고 한다. 일본환경성이 추산하기에, 이와테, 미야기 및 후쿠시마등 해안지대에서 3월의 재앙으로 인해 생겨난 건축폐기물은 대략 2천 3백 8십만톤에 달한다고 한다. 이미 이와테에서 토쿄로 대략 천톤의 폐기물의 첫운송이 지난 11월에 시행되었다고 마이니치신문은 보도했다. 이와테 지방정부가 추정하기에 이 폐기물은 133bq/kg의 방사능물질을 함유한다. 2011년 3월이전이라면 이것은 불법이었겠지만, 일본정부는 7월에 건축폐기물안전수준을 100bq/kg에서 8,000bq/kg으로, 10월에는 다시 10,000bq/kg으로 상향조정했다. 토쿄는 총합 500,000톤의 폐기물을 받아들일 것이라고 밝혔다.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
(3) 후쿠시마이후, 2022년까지 원전으로부터 하차하겠다는 독일 자본의 태도에 대해서는 세계혁명 168, 169호에 실린 우리의 기사를 참조.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
마이니치신문, 2011년 8월 25일자 기사참조 </p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="buttons-bottom center jinboblog-i-like-this-buttons"><a class="button-jinboblog" href="javascript:void(0);" title="스크랩으로 글 링크를 저장하세요" onclick="recommend('4942',125,'/iscralee','');"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/mini_chuchon.png" alt="진보블로그 공감 버튼" /></a><a class="button-twitter" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F125+%22%ED%9B%84%EC%BF%A0%EC%8B%9C%EB%A7%88%201%EB%85%84%ED%9B%84%22" target="_blank" title="트위터로 리트윗합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/twitter.png" alt="트위터로 리트윗하기" /></a><a class="button-facebook" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F125&t=%ED%9B%84%EC%BF%A0%EC%8B%9C%EB%A7%88%201%EB%85%84%ED%9B%84" target="_blank" title="페이스북에 공유합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/facebook.png" alt="페이스북에 공유하기" /></a><a class="button-delicious" href="http://delicious.com/save" onclick="window.open('http://delicious.com/save?v=5&noui&jump=close&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F125&title=%ED%9B%84%EC%BF%A0%EC%8B%9C%EB%A7%88%201%EB%85%84%ED%9B%84','delicious','toolbar=no,width=550,height=550'); return false;" title="딜리셔스에 북마크합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/delicious.png" alt="딜리셔스에 북마크" /></a></div><p><strong><a href="http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/125?commentInput=true#entry125WriteComment">댓글 쓰기</a></strong></p>Fukushima: one year after자유로운 영혼http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/1222012-02-03T09:23:18+09:002012-02-03T09:23:18+09:00<p style="text-align: justify">
<strong><span style="font-size: 14pt"><span style="font-size: 18pt">Fukushima: one year after</span></span></strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In March 11th 2011 a gigantic tsunami flooded the Japanese east coast. Waves as high as 12-15 meters caused incredible damage. More than 20.000 were killed by the tsunami; thousands are still reported to be missing today; an uncountable number of people lost their home. On the whole planet a big part of the population has settled at the coasts or near coasts; most people live on a narrow space jammed together, more and more threatened by the irreversible rise of sea water levels. The flood waves of the tsunami showed all the dangers that flow from such dense settlement along the coasts.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
But contrary to all expectations of the government, a disastrous accident occurred in the Fukushima nuclear power plant. The earthquake and the tsunami brought to the fore the potential dangers arising from both settlement along the coasts in times of climate change and the way the ruling classes deal with nuclear power. For reasons of space, we want to focus in this article on the consequences of the nuclear melt-down.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<h4 style="text-align: justify">
Chernobyl, Fukushima: helplessness and unscrupulousness of the ruling class everywhere</h4>
<p style="text-align: justify">
After the disastrous accident in Fukushima the evacuation of the population began too late and it did not cover the necessary no-go zone. Even though it may be objected that the rescue measures and the evacuation were delayed and made more difficult due to the consequences of the tsunami, the government wanted to avoid a large scale evacuation, because it did not want the population to become aware of the scope of the danger and wanted to downplay the whole situation. All of a sudden it became obvious that the responsible people in Japan (both the company which runs the nuclear plant, Tepco, and the government) had never expected such a scenario and that the safety measures in case of an earthquake and a tsunami of such a magnitude were totally insufficient. The planned emergency measures and the means of emergency intervention were quite inadequate and made hi-tech Japan look like a poorly equipped, helpless giant.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
A few days after the disaster, when the possible need for an evacuation of the metropolitan area of Tokyo with its 35 million inhabitants was discussed in the government, this idea was immediately turned down because they simply did not have the means to implement it, and moreover it would have shown the state to be in danger of collapse.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In and around the nuclear plant the recorded radiation reached fatal heights. Shorty after the disaster Prime Minister Kan “demanded the formation of a suicide team of workers who would have to attempt the task of easing the pressure in the plant”. The workers who intervened on the site were totally ill equipped. “For some time there was a lack of dosimeters, and a lack of appropriate and admitted safety boots. One worker reported that the workers had to bind plastic bags with cellotape around their shoes instead. Very often it was impossible for the workers to communicate with each other or with the control centres. Many of the workers had to sleep on the premises of the site, they could only cover themselves with lead blankets. The critical values for male power plant workers in emergency situations was increased on March 15<sup>th</sup> from 100 to 250 mSv per year”. In several cases workers could only undergo a health check weeks or months later. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
25 years ago, at the time of Chernobyl, the collapsing Russian Stalinist regime, due to a lack of other resources, found nothing else to do but send a gigantic army of forced recruits to fight the disaster on the spot. According to the WHO some 600,000 to 800,000 liquidators were sent, of whom hundreds of thousands died or became ill because of the impact of radiation or cancer. The government never published any official reliable figures.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Now, 25 years later, hi-tech Japan tried desperately to extinguish the fire and cool the site amongst others with fire hoses and by spraying water from helicopters. In contradiction to all previous planning Tepco was forced to use large masses of sea water for cooling the plant and to dump the polluted water into the Pacific Ocean. And while the Russian Stalinist regime 25 years ago forcibly recruited hundreds of thousands of liquidators, economic misery forced thousands of workers in Japan to risk their lives. Tepco recruited in particular among homeless and unemployed workers in the poorest area of Osaka, Kamagasaki. In many cases they were not told where they had to work, and they were often not informed about the risks.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
But not only were the lives of the liquidators put at risk; the civilian population was also put at risk. In particular children in the radiated area were exposed to high doses. Since the emissions superseded any previously recorded value, the government decided to consider the exposure of children in the Fukushima area to a radiation level of 20 millisievert as “not dangerous”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
During the first days the rulers in Stalinist Russia tried to stay altogether silent about the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl; the government of democratic Japan was equally determined to hide the full scope of the catastrophe. The people in charge in Japan showed no less cynicism and contempt for life than the Stalinist regime in power at the time of Chernobyl.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
It is impossible today to assess the long-term consequences of the disaster in a realistic manner. The melt-down means that the melted fuel rods have formed a gigantic radioactive clot, which has penetrated through the pressure container. The cooling water has become extremely contaminated. It needs permanent cooling, and new gigantic masses of contaminated water accumulate all the time. Not only the water but also the “unprotected” reactors emit caesium, strontium, and plutonium isotopes. These are called ‘hot particles’, which can be found all over Japan, including Tokyo. So far there are no technical means available to dispose of the nuclear waste piled up in Fukushima. The cooling process itself takes years. In Chernobyl it was necessary to construct a sarcophagus which will have to be torn down at the latest in one hundred years time to be replaced by another one. There is not yet any solution in sight for Fukushima. However, in the meantime contaminated water accumulates and the authorities in charge do not know where to dispose of it. A large part of the cooling water is directly poured into the ocean, where the currents spread it across the Pacific, and its consequences for the food chain and for human beings cannot yet be measured. The Japanese northeast coast which counts as one of the richest fisheries will be affected, even the Bering Strait with its salmon resources may be hit<a href="http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201201/4661/fukushima-one-year-after#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span><span><span><span><span><u><font color="#0000ff">[1]</font></u></span></span></span></span></span></a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Because the population density in this region of Japan is 15 times higher than in Ukraine the consequences for the population cannot yet be assessed.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The meltdown thus reveals that the consequences of such a nuclear disaster are totally out of control. The authorities in charge had the choice between plague and cholera. Either let the melt-down happen without any means of intervention or attempt to cool the site with sea water, thus accepting a further spread of radioactivity through the dissemination of the extinguishing devices. The helpless government opted for the contamination of sea water through highly radioactive fire fighting water.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<h4 style="text-align: justify">
Decontamination: instead of solving the problems, everything becomes worse </h4>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The attempts to dispose of the contaminated soil in the surrounding area displayed a terrible lack of responsibility and lack of scruple. Up until August 2011 in the town of Fukushima some 334 school yards and nurseries were cleaned. But the authorities do not really know where to dispose of the contaminated soil. For example in Koriyama in the Fukushima prefecture, it was just buried in the soil on the school yards themselves. 17 out of 48 prefectures of Japan, amongst them Tokyo, reported that there were contaminated slicks, but the prefectures do not where and how to get rid of them. Even as close as 20 km to Tokyo radiated soil was recorded. Thousands of buildings still need to be scrubbed of radioactive particles. Even forested mountains will probably need to be decontaminated, which might necessitate clear-cutting and literally scraping them clean. Japanese media have reported that the government is planning an intermediary deposit for millions of tons of radioactively contaminated waste. Since there is no solution some of the radioactively contaminated garbage has been burnt<a href="http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201201/4661/fukushima-one-year-after#_ftn2" name="_ftnref2" title=""><span><span><span><span><span><u><font color="#0000ff">[2]</font></u></span></span></span></span></span></a>. This is a way of spreading radioactivity even further via the smoke. This helplessness vis a vis the piles of nuclear waste casts a light on the impossibility of decontaminating the radioactive waste. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<h4 style="text-align: justify">
Nuclear decontamination – the disastrous legacy, or shitting on the future…</h4>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The specificity of the production of electricity through nuclear energy is that the radiation does not stop once the nuclear power plants at the end of their operation time are switched off. The process of nuclear fission is not terminated once the nuclear power plant has been switched off. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
What is to be done with the nuclear waste, because any material which has come into contact with radioactive material is contaminated?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
According to the World Nuclear Association, every year some 12,000 tons of highly radioactive waste accumulates. Until the end of 2010 some 300,000 tons of highly radioactive waste had been piled up in the world as a whole, out of which some 70.000 tons can be found in the USA. In 2008 in Russia some 700,000 tons of radioactive waste were stored, out of which 140,000 tons came from European nuclear sites. At the Hanford Site in the USA some 200,000 cubic meters of radioactive material need to be disposed of. In France more than one million cubic meters of contaminated soil is stored (‘Nucléaire, c’est où la sortie’, Le Canard Enchainé, p74), The geological storage which has been practiced or planned in several countries, for example in old mines, is nothing but a temporary makeshift, the dangers of which the defenders of nuclear energy stay more or less silent about. For example in Germany 125,000 barrels of nuclear waste are deposited in an old mine in Asse; these barrels are eroding due to the influence of salt; contaminated lye is already escaping from the barrels. In the German case intermediate storage experts Gorleben found out about the danger of landslides. Similar risks have been diagnosed in most of the dumpsites. This means that while the “normal running” of a nuclear plant is full of dangers, the disposal of nuclear waste is a totally unsolved question. The people in charge have been placing all the nuclear waste into dumpsites, leaving behind a pile of nuclear waste which an endless number of generations will have to cope with.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
And the “normal” running of a nuclear plant is not as “clean” as always claimed by the defenders of nuclear industry. In reality enormous masses of water are necessary for the cooling of the fuel rods. Nuclear plants have to be constructed at rivers or shores<a href="http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201201/4661/fukushima-one-year-after#_ftn3" name="_ftnref3" title=""><span><span><span><span><span><u><font color="#0000ff">[3]</font></u></span></span></span></span></span></a>. Every 14 months in each reactor one quarter of the fuel rods need to be renewed. However, since they are extremely hot, after their replacement they have to be placed into the spent fuel pit, where they need to be cooled for a period of 2-3 years. The cooling water, which is pumped into rivers, leads to a thermal pollution. Algae develop, fish perish. Moreover, chemicals are emitted into rivers (e.g. hydrochloric acid, sodium, boric acid, detergents) In addition water is also polluted with radioactivity, even though only in small doses. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<h4 style="text-align: justify">
Almost one year after the disaster – what conclusions have the people in charge drawn?</h4>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Are the holders of power, the people in charge, interested in clarifying the root of the problem? Obviously not! As a matter of fact the entire construction plan of the power plant in Fukushima was not adapted to the danger of earthquakes and tsunamis. By now, it has become known that the operating company Tepco covered up many nuclear incidents; important safety deficiencies were camouflaged; widely criticised faults in the safety system were not eliminated, partly because the plant was to be closed after 40 years of operating time. The Japanese state, which usually intervenes heavily in the industry and is known for its intervention through the MITI in the economy, in order to strengthen the competitiveness of Japanese capital, almost issued a blank cheque to the nuclear industry. Even when the manipulation of inquiry reports or the trivialisation of nuclear incidents came to the fore, the state did not intervene more strictly. At any rate, under the weight of competition and the worsening crisis, there is a worldwide trend for less and less money to be invested in maintenance and fewer and fewer qualified staff to be employed in maintenance and repairs. The capitalist crisis makes the nuclear plants even less safe, as safety standards are lowered by employing less qualified staff.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
But above all it has become clear that of the 442 operating power plants worldwide many of them were built in earthquake-prone areas. In Japan alone more than 50 power plants were constructed in such areas. In the USA more than a dozen nuclear plants with a similar risk were constructed. In Russia there are many nuclear power plants without an automatic mechanism for shutting down in case of nuclear incidents. In many Russian nuclear power plants cracks and surface subsidence were reported. Chernobyl was probably no exception: such a disaster can occur at any time again. (Le Monde p49). In Turkey the reactor Akkuyu Bay was built near the Ecemi fault. India and China are planning to build the most new nuclear power plants. Yet China with its 27 new nuclear power plants under construction is one of the most seismologically active countries<a href="http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201201/4661/fukushima-one-year-after#_ftn4" name="_ftnref4" title=""><span><span><span><span><span><u><font color="#0000ff">[4]</font></u></span></span></span></span></span></a>.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Saudi Arabia is planning to construct 16 power plants, not least to be better armed against Iran.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In Pakistan a new reactor is to be opened near Lahore, where there is a moderate to high risk of earthquakes. Taiwan has 6 reactors although the country is in one of the most endangered seismological zones. Instead of considering the dangers of nature capitalism has constructed global time bombs. And while safety standards in the most highly developed countries have turned out to be insufficient, the safety philosophy is even weaker in those countries which are starting to draw on nuclear energy. They have even less experience in dealing with incidents and accidents. Hard to imagine what might happen in case of a nuclear disaster…</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Moreover the operating time of old nuclear power plants which were to be shut down are now to be prolonged. In the USA their operating time has been prolonged to 60 years, in Russia to 45 years.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
While the control mechanisms over nuclear industry by states on a national scale have proven to be incomplete and insufficient, on an international scale the states are opposed to restrictive safety standards or too much intervention by international monitoring organisations. National sovereignty takes precedence over safety.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In Germany the government decided in the summer 2011 to abandon nuclear energy by 2022. As an immediate measure, some nuclear power plants were switched off shortly after the Fukushima explosion. Does German capital act in a more responsible manner? Not at all! Because only a few months before the same government had prolonged the operating time of several nuclear power plants, i.e. before Fukushima it had planned to maintain nuclear energy. If, however, it has decided to abandon nuclear energy now, this corresponds on the one hand to a tactical political move, because the government hopes to improve its chances of being re-elected; and on the other hand there was an economic calculation, because German industry is very competitive with its alternative energy production know-how. German industry now hopes for very profitable markets. Moreover the whole problem of getting rid of the nuclear waste remains unsolved…</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
To sum up: with or without Fukushima humanity is still faced with these nuclear time bombs ticking away. In many places they can ignite a new disaster because of earthquakes or other weak points.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<h4 style="text-align: justify">
Nuclear power generated electricity – cheap, clean and without any alternative? Profits at the expense of society and nature</h4>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Time and again we hear the arguments put forward by nuclear energy’s defenders that nuclear power generated electricity is cheaper, cleaner, and without any alternative. It is a fact that the construction of a power plant costs gigantic sums, which – thanks to the help of state subsidies – are shouldered by the electricity supply companies. But the bulk of the costs of the disposal of nuclear waste is pushed onto society by the operating companies. Furthermore the whole economic calculation put forward by the nuclear lobby does not take into consideration the cost of disposing of the waste. And once the nuclear plants which are more than 50 years old have to be dismantled, there are tremendous costs in tearing them down. In the UK it was estimated that the cost of demolishing the existing nuclear power plants would amount to 100 billion euros, some 3 billion euros per nuclear plant. In the USA they want to make it even cheaper – only 104 million dollars are to be spent for the 104 operating nuclear power plants. In France the demolition of Superphénix will cost 2.1 billion euros (Le Monde, p. 68). And again, the remaining nuclear waste cannot be disposed of in any way.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
And if there is a nuclear incident or accident, normally the state has to intervene and come to the rescue. In Fukushima the follow-up cost, the size of which is yet unknown, are estimated to amount to 200-300 billion euros. Tepco could not raise this money. The Japanese state has promised its “help”, provided that the Tepco employees make sacrifices – their pensions are to be cut, wages lowered, thousands of jobs to be axed. Special tax charges are scheduled in the Japanese budget. Having drawn the lessons from previous accidents the operating companies in France have limited their liability to 700 million euros in case of accidents: this is peanuts in comparison to the possible economic costs of a nuclear disaster.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
From an economic and ecological view the real costs of the running of the plants and the unsolved question of nuclear waste are a bottomless pit. In every respect nuclear power is an irrational project. The nuclear power companies receive massive amounts of money for energy production, but they shove the follow-up costs onto society. The nuclear power plants embody the insurmountable contradiction between the search for profit and the long-term protection of man and nature.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<h4 style="text-align: justify">
Crisis and depletion of nature</h4>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Nuclear power is not the only danger for the environment. Capitalism practises a permanent depletion of nature. It constantly plunders all resources without any concern for sustainability, for harmony with nature. It treats nature like a garbage landfill<span>. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
By now entire stretches of the Earth have become uninhabitable, whole areas of the sea have become poisoned. The system has embarked upon an irrational course, where more and more new technological means are developed to deplete natural resources, while at the same time the investment into this exploitation becomes more and more costly and immense and the risks and potential of destruction increase. When in 2010 at the shores of the leading industrial power USA the oil platform Deepwater Horizon exploded, the investigation into the accident unmasked striking deficiencies in the safety regulations. </p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The pressure flowing from competition forces all the rivals, who have to invest large sums of money in the construction and the maintenance of production sites and their operation, to try to save money and to undermine safety standards. The most recent example is the oil pollution off the Atlantic shores of Brazil. All this negligence does not just crop up in technologically backward countries. In fact it takes on the most unbelievable proportions precisely in the most highly developed countries, because there competition is often even fiercer.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<h4 style="text-align: justify">
The whole humanity is threatened</h4>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In comparison to Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, Fukushima meant that for the first time a metropolitan area such as Tokyo with its 35 million inhabitants was directly threatened.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Nuclear energy was developed during World War Two as an instrument of warfare. The nuclear bombing of two Japanese cities inaugurated a new level of destruction in this decadent system. The arms race during the ‘cold war’ after WW2, with its systematic deployment of nuclear weapons, pushed the military capacity for destruction to the point where humanity could be wiped out in one stroke. Today more than two decades after the end of the ‘cold war’ there are still some 20,000 nuclear war heads which can still annihilate us many times over.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
With the nuclear disasters in Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima it has become obvious that humanity is not only threatened with annihilation through the military use of nuclear power. Its “civilian” use for the production of energy can also cause the destruction of humanity.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The Japanese government estimated that due to the nuclear disaster at Fukushima the radioactive level of Caesium-137 was 168 times higher than the one provoked by the nuclear bomb of Hiroshima in 1945 (Shimbun, 25/8/2011). The amount of Caesium-137 was estimated to have reached 15.000 Terabecquerel, while the effect of the American atomic bomb Little Boy on Hiroshima was ‘only’ 89 Terabecquerel.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The whole development since the beginning of the disaster shows that the authorities and Tepco lost control, that the scope of the disaster was trivialised, that the costs of the rescue operation were skyrocketing and that the people in charge had not drawn the necessary conclusions. On the contrary. Not only concerning the question of nuclear power, but concerning the protection of the environment as a whole, the ruling class is becoming more and more ruthless – as the results of the recent Durban summit show. The destruction of the environment has been reaching higher levels, and the ruling class is totally unable to change the course of events and to take appropriate measures. The planet is sacrificed for the sake of profit.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Moreover the worsening economic crisis, which sharpened even more in 2011, leaves the ruling class with less room for manoeuvre for protecting nature. Thus capitalism pushes humanity towards the abyss through the effects of the crisis such as hunger, pauperisation and trade wars, shooting wars etc., while its power of destruction threatens the whole of civilisation. The nuclear power plants are only the tip of the iceberg.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
A race against time has begun. Either capitalism destroys the entire planet or the exploited and oppressed – with the working class at their head – succeed in overthrowing the system. Because capitalism poses a threat to humanity on different levels (crisis, war, environment) it is insufficient to struggle only against one aspect of capitalist reality, e.g. against nuclear energy. We have to highlight the link between these different threats and their roots in the capitalist system. During the 1980s and 1990s there were many “single issue” movements (such as the struggle against nuclear energy, against militarism, against the housing shortage etc.), which reduced their focus only to one aspect. Today more than ever it is necessary to show the bankruptcy of the entire system, to demonstrate that the system cannot take humanity out of this impasse. It is true that the connections between the different elements are not easy to understand, but if we do not take the link between crisis, war and ecological destruction into account our struggle will end up in the dead-end of thinking that things could be reformed within the system.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<em>Di 1/12 </em></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<div style="text-align: justify">
<p>
</p>
<hr align="justify" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1">
<p>
<a href="http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201201/4661/fukushima-one-year-after#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" title=""><span><span><span><span><u><font color="#0000ff">[1]</font></u></span></span></span></span></a> <b>N</b>ortheast of Fukushima the two currents, the warm Kuoshio and the cold Oyashio, merge. This is one of the most abundant areas of the earth for fishing. <span>And in this area Japanese fishing boats catch roughly half the amount of fish consumed in Japan. Thus fish supplies in Japan could be endangered. “<i>Such a high emission of radioactivity into the sea has never been measured</i>.” <b><i><a href="http://www.ippnw.de/commonFiles/pdfs/Atomenergie/Zu_den_Auswirkungen_der_Reaktorkatastrophe_von_Fukushima_auf_den_Pazifik_und_die_Nahrungsketten.pdf" target="_blank"><u><font color="#0000ff">hpnw.de/commonFiles/pdfs/Atomenergie/Zu_den_Auswirkungen_der_Reaktorkatastrophe_von_Fukushima_auf_den_Pazifik_und_die_Nahrungsketten.pdfttp://www.ip</font></u></a></i></b></span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn2">
<p>
<a href="http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201201/4661/fukushima-one-year-after#_ftnref2" name="_ftn2" title=""><span><span><span><span><u><font color="#0000ff">[2]</font></u></span></span></span></span></a> According to information from Japanese environmental organisations, the government is planning to spread contaminated debris from the Fukushima area across the whole country and to burn it. The Japanese ministry for the environment estimates the amount of building rubble at around 23.8 million tons. As the <i>Mainichi Daily News</i> reported a first shipment of 1000 tons of debris from Iwate to Tokyo took place in early November 2011. The Iwate authorities estimate that this debris contains 133 bq/kg of radioactive material. Before March 2011 this would have been illegal, but the Japanese government lowered the norms in July from 100 bq/kg to 8000 bq/kg, and in October to 10.000 bq/kg. The city of Tokyo announced that it would receive some 500.000 tons of radioactive rubble. <a href="http://news.ippnw.de/index.php?id=72" target="_blank"><span><u><font color="#0000ff">http://news.ippnw.de/index.php?id=72</font></u></span></a>,</p>
<p>
</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn3">
<p>
<a href="http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201201/4661/fukushima-one-year-after#_ftnref3" name="_ftn3" title=""><span><span><span><span><u><font color="#0000ff">[3]</font></u></span></span></span></span></a>In France, where more than 44 reactors are located at rivers, more than 57% of the water taken from the sea and rivers is used for the production of electricity. A French nuclear plant, Graveline, which needs 300 cubic meter of water per second, returns the water 12° warmer to the river. And if during dry seasons there is not sufficient water available, some nuclear plants have to be cooled by helicopter. (Les dossiers du <i>Canard Enchainé</i>, ‘Nucléaire, c’est par où la sortie?, le grand débat après Fukushima’, p80)</p>
<p>
</p>
</div>
<div id="ftn4">
<p>
<a href="http://en.internationalism.org/icconline/201201/4661/fukushima-one-year-after#_ftnref4" name="_ftn4" title=""><span><span><span><span><u><font color="#0000ff">[4]</font></u></span></span></span></span></a> How much safety is valued by Chinese capital can be seen through the training of qualified workers. China would need each year at least 6000 nuclear experts for the planned new nuclear power plants, but presently only 600 are trained every year. In China some 500,000 dollars are spent every year on safety; in the USA 7 million dollars are spent per year (<i>Le Monde</i>, p. 52). </p>
</div>
</div>
<div class="buttons-bottom center jinboblog-i-like-this-buttons"><a class="button-jinboblog" href="javascript:void(0);" title="스크랩으로 글 링크를 저장하세요" onclick="recommend('4942',122,'/iscralee','');"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/mini_chuchon.png" alt="진보블로그 공감 버튼" /></a><a class="button-twitter" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F122+%22Fukushima%3A%20one%20year%20after%22" target="_blank" title="트위터로 리트윗합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/twitter.png" alt="트위터로 리트윗하기" /></a><a class="button-facebook" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F122&t=Fukushima%3A%20one%20year%20after" target="_blank" title="페이스북에 공유합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/facebook.png" alt="페이스북에 공유하기" /></a><a class="button-delicious" href="http://delicious.com/save" onclick="window.open('http://delicious.com/save?v=5&noui&jump=close&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F122&title=Fukushima%3A%20one%20year%20after','delicious','toolbar=no,width=550,height=550'); return false;" title="딜리셔스에 북마크합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/delicious.png" alt="딜리셔스에 북마크" /></a></div><p><strong><a href="http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/122?commentInput=true#entry122WriteComment">댓글 쓰기</a></strong></p>자본주의는 왜 부채위기에 빠졌는가?자유로운 영혼http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/1182011-12-23T08:25:25+09:002011-12-22T17:10:21+09:00<p style="text-align: center">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 42px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 20pt; font-weight: bold">자본주의는 왜 부채위기에 빠졌는가?</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">세계경제가 심연에 빠진 듯 보인다. 대공황의 위기가 점점 더 가까워지고 있는데, 그것은 1929년의 대공황보다 더 심각할 것이다. 은행, 기초지방단체, 지방들, 심지어는 국가들도 오늘날 파산에 내몰리고 있다. 언론매체는 온통 “부채위기”에 대해 떠들어댄다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 25px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold">부채 장벽에 부딪힌 자본주의</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">다음의 그래프는 1960년 이래 오늘까지 전 세계의 부채(1) 증가를 보여준다. 이러한 부채들은 전 세계 국민총생산 대비 백분율로 표현되어진다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<img alt="사용자 삽입 이미지" height="271" src="/attach/4942/1262160793.jpg" style="width: 588px; float: left; height: 271px" width="500" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> <font color="#0055ff">graph1 </font></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">이 그래프를 통해, 1960년 부채비율은 전 세계 국민총생산의 100%에 해당했지만 2008년 이는 두 배 반으로(즉 250%)로 증가됨을 볼 수 있다. 바꿔 말하자면, 1960년 이래 전 세계적으로 누적된 부채를 완전히 상환하자면 이는 전 세계에서 일 년 반 동안 생산된 모든 생산물의 총합에 상응한다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">소위“ 선진국”의 이러한 극적인 경향은 또한 미국의 공채에 관한 다음의 그래프를 통해 분명히 볼 수 있다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<img alt="사용자 삽입 이미지" height="309" src="/attach/4942/1271342384.jpg" style="width: 598px; float: left; height: 309px" width="500" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<font color="#0055ff"><span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"><font color="#0055ff">graph 2</font> </span></font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">지난 몇 년 동안 거대한 공채더미가 생겨나서 그 증가가 거의 수직적으로 진행됨을 볼 수 있다. 경제학자들은 이를 “부채 장벽”이라 부른다. 그리고 자본주의는 지금 이 부채 장벽에 맞부딪혔다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 25px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold">부채, 자본주의 쇠퇴의 결과</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">세계경제가 이러한 부채 장벽을 향해 치닫고 있음은 분명했다. 왜 전 세계의 정부들은, 좌우파를 막론하고, 극좌 극우를 막론하고, “자유방임” 지향 이건 “국가개입” 지향 이건을 막론하고 모두가 신용 조건들을 점점 더 느슨하게 만들었는가, 결손이 점점 더 증가하게 내버려두었는가, 모든 짓을 다하면서 국가와 기업과 가계의 부채더미가 지난 50년간 더 증대되도록 방치하였는가? 그 대답은 간단하다. 선택의 여지가 없었다는 것이다. 만약 그 정부들이 그런 식으로 대처하지 않았다면, 우리가 현재 빠져들고 있는 끔직한 침체가 이미 1960년대에 이미 시작되었을 것이다. 사실상 자본주의는 지난 몇 십 년 이래 신용의 도움으로 살고, 생존해 있다. 이 현상의 뿌리를 파악하기 위해서는 맑스가 현대사회의 커다란 비밀이라고 나타냈던 것, 즉 잉여가치의 창출까지 거슬러 올라가야만 한다. 우리는 여기서 간단하게 이론적인 서술을 할 필요가 있다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">자본주의는 처음부터 이 선천적 질병을 앓고 있다. 자신의 신체가 배설해낼 수 없는 많은 양의 독, 즉 과잉생산을 끊임없이 생산한다. 자본주의의 시장이 수용할 수 있는 것보다 더 많은 상품을 생산한다. 왜? 설명을 위해 순전히 단순화된 예로서, 컨베이어 벨트 노동자나 pc작업을 하면서 매달 100만 원 정도의 임금을 받는 노동자를 생각해보자. 실상 그는 자신의 매달 임금총합에 해당하는 100만원 가치의 상품을 생산하는 것이 아니라 200만원 가치의 상품을 생산한다. 그는 지불되지 않은 노동(잉여노동)을 한 것이다. 즉, 잉여가치를 만들어낸 것이다. 자본가는 그 노동자로부터 훔친 (물론 그렇게 생산된 상품을 파는데 성공한다는 가정 하에) 그 100만원으로 무엇을 하는가? 그 돈의 일부를 자본가는 자신의 사적인 소비에 충당한다. 이를 대략 25만원이라고 치자. 그 나머지 75만원을 그는 자본금으로 자신의 회사에 투자한다, 대부분은 더 현대적인 새 기계를 구입하는 등등의 형태로. 그러나 왜 자본가는 이런 식으로 행동하는가? 왜냐하면 그는 경제적으로 그렇게 할 수 밖에 없기 때문이다. 자본주의는 경쟁에 기반 한 체제다. 모든 자본가는 자신들의 상품을 동일한 상품을 생산하는 다른 자본가들에 비해서 더 싸게 팔아야 한다. 그래서 그 기업가는 생산비용, 즉 임금을 낮추어야 할 뿐만 아니라, 점점 더 많은 부분의 미지불노동을 더 좋은 성능의 기계에 우선적으로 투자하는데, 자신의 생산성을 높이는데 사용해야 한다. 만약 그가 이렇게 하지 않으면, 그는 현대화를 할 수 없고, 한편 이렇게 한 주의 깊고 활동적인 경쟁자는 결국 더 싸게 생산하고 시장을 정복할 수 있게 된다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">자본주의 체제는 그래서 다음과 같은 모순이 특징적인데, 즉 노동자들이 사실상 생산한 것에 상응한 보상을 받지 못함으로써 자본주의에서는 자본가가 '분배'할 수 있는 것보다 더 많은 가치가 발생한다는 점이다. 결코 자본가들과 노동자들 모두를 합쳐도 생산된 그 모든 상품들을 소비할 수 없다. 그래서 자본주의는 이러한 상품과잉을, 자신의 생산영역의 외부에 존재하는 아직 자본주의 생산관계에 의해 정복되지 않은 시장들에 팔아야 한다. 이는 자본주의 외부의 시장들이라 불린다. 이것이 성공하지 못하면, 과잉생산위기가 초래된다. 이것이 바로 핵심에 있어서, '자본론'에서 맑스가 그리고 '자본축적론'에서 로자 룩셈부르크가 도달하게 된 결론들의 일부이다. 이를 좀 더 명확하게 말하기 위해서 우리는 과잉생산이론을 요점으로 요약해 보겠다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> - 자본은 자신의 노동자들을 착취 한다 (달리 말해서, 그들의 임금은 그들이 생산한 실제 상품가치보다 더 낮다). </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> - 그렇게 해서 자본은 자신의 상품을 이윤과 함께, 임금과 잉여가치 그리고 생산수단의 비용들이 반영된 가격에 판매할 수 있다. 그러나 여기서 문제는, 자본가들은 그 상품을 누구에게 팔 것인가? 이다.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> - 당연히 노동자들이 이 상품들을 구매한다... 그들에게 지불된 임금의 한도 내에서. 그래서 아직도 판매되어야할 일부분이 여분으로 남게 되고 그것은 노동자들에게 지불되지 않은 그 부분에 해당된다. 왜냐하면 오직 이 부분- 잉여가치- 만이 자본으로 하여금 이윤을 얻게 하는 마술적인 힘을 갖고 있기 때문이다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> - 자본가들도 물론 마찬가지로 소비를 한다... 그리고 대부분 상당히 호화롭게 산다. 하지만 잉여노동을 통해 생산된 그 모든 상품을 그들 혼자서 다 구매할 수는 없다. 자본은 상품들을 스스로에게 판매함으로써는 이윤을 획득할 수 없다. 그것은 말하자면, 왼쪽 호주머니에서 돈을 꺼내서 오른쪽 호주머니에 넣는 꼴이 될 것이다. 그런 식으로는 아무도 부유해질 수가 없다. 가난한 사람들은 이것을 알고 있다... </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> - 축적을 하기 위해서는, 성장을 위해서는 자본은 그래서 노동자와 자본가 이외의 다른 구매자를 찾아야 한다. 달리 말해서, 반드시 자신의 체제의 외부에 있는 구매자를 찾아야만 한다. 그렇지 않으면, 시장에서 홍수를 이루는 판매될 수 없는 상품더미 위에 앉아 있을 수 밖에 없다. 따라서 “과잉생산위기”가 초래된다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">이러한 “내적 모순”(내재된 과잉생산경향과 항상 외부의 시장을 찾아야한다는 강박)은 이 체제가 그 출현 이래 오늘날까지 갖고 있는 소위 믿을 수 없을 정도의 활력을 이루는 뿌리들 중의 하나이다. 16세기에 자본주의가 출현한 이래 자본주의는 주변에 놓인 모든 경제영역들과 통상을 해야만 했다 : 전 세계의 낡은 지배계급들과, 농부들과 수공업자들과. 18세기와 19세기에 자본주의 강대세력들은 세계의 정복을 놓고 경쟁에 돌입했다. 그들은 차츰차츰 지구를 식민지들로 분할했고, 그것을 서로 빼앗으며 진정한 제국을 건설했다. 가끔 두개의 세력들이 동일한 영토에 대한 소유권을 주장했다. 그러면 더 약한 자는 포기해야만 했고, 원주민에게 자신의 상품을 사도록 강제할 수 있을 지구의 다른 한 조각을 찾아보아야 했다. 이렇게 자연경제들은 변화되고 차츰 차츰 자본주의 속으로 강제 편입되었다. 식민지들이 유럽과 미국에서 생산된 그 모든 상품들을 수용하는데 점점 더 실패하게 되었을 뿐만 아니라 그곳에서도 과잉생산이 발생했다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">18세기와 19세기 자본의 이러한 활력, 과잉생산위기와 장기간의 복지와 확장시기의 반복 및 자본주의의 부단한 상승은 맑스와 엥겔스에 의해 매우 명확하게 서술되었다: </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> “공황시기에는, 이전의 모든 시기에는 어불성설로 보였을 하나의 사회적 전염병이 돌발한다, 과잉생산이라는 전염병이. 사회는 갑자기 순간적인 야만의 상태로 돌아간 것처럼 보인다 ; 기아와 전면적인 섬멸전이 사회로부터 모든 생활 수단들을 박탈해간 것처럼 보인다 ; 공업, 상업이 파괴된 듯이 보인다. 왜 그런가? 그것은 사회가 너무 많은 문명, 너무 많은 생활 수단, 너무 많은 공업, 너무 많은 상업을 갖고 있기 때문이다.”(공산당선언, 부르주아와 프롤레타리아, 1848, 칼 맑스 프리드리히엥겔스저작선집, 박종철 출판사, 1권 406쪽) </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">자본주의가 아직 확장기에 있었고 그 당시 아직도 새로운 시장을 정복할 수 있었기에, 매 위기마다 새로운 재회복기가 뒤따를 수 있었다. “자신의 생산물의 판로를 부단히 확장하려는 욕구는 부르주아지를 전 지구상으로 내몬다. 부르주아지는 도처에서 뿌리를 내려야 하며, 도처에서 정착해야 하고, 도처에서 연계를 맺어야 한다... 부르주아지의 상품의 싼 가격은, 부르주아지가 모든 만리장성을 쏘아 무너뜨리고, 외국인에 대한 야만인들의 강도 높은 증오심을 굴복시키는 중포(重砲)이다. 부르주아지는 모든 민족들에게 망하고 싶지 않거든 부르주아지의 생산 양식을 채용하라고 강요 한다 ; 그들은 소위 문명을 도입하라고, 즉 부르주아지가 되라고 강요한다. 한마디로 부르주아지는 자신의 모습대로 세계를 창조하고 있는 것이다(공산당선언, 같은 책, 403 - 404쪽) “ </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> 그러나 이미 그 당시에 맑스와 엥겔스는 주기적인 위기의 뒤편에 있는 무언가를, 항상 더 많은 번영을 만들어낼 것 같던 단순한 영원한 주기 그 이상의 무엇을 인식했다. 그들은 한층 더 자본주의를 무너뜨릴 더 심각한 모순들이 나타남을 그 속에서 보았다. “새로운 시장들의 정복”을 통해 부르주아지는 “더 전면적이고 더 강력한 공황들을 준비하고, 그 공황들을 예방할 수단들을 감소시킨다.”(공산당선언, 같은 책, 406쪽). 또는: “그 공황들은 더욱더 빈번해지고 더욱더 격렬해지는데 그 까닭은 생산물들의 양이 많아지고 따라서 확대된 시장들에 대한 욕구가 커지는 것과 같은 정도로 세계시장은 축소되어 이용할 여지가 있는 새시장이 점점 더 적어진다.” (임금 노동과 자본, 1849년, 같은 책, 571쪽)” </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">그런데 단지 작고 둥글 뿐인 우리의 지구는. 20세기 초, 모든 지역들이 정복되었다, 자본주의 강대국가들이 지구를 분할해 가졌다. 그 이후 그들은 그 어떤 새로운 지역도 정복할 수 없었고, 오히려 경쟁자들로부터 지역들을 무력으로 빼앗을 수밖에 없었다. 이제 더 이상 아프리카나 아시아 또는 남아메리카에서 식민지를 놓고 경쟁하는 것이 문제가 아니라, 각자의 영향 및 권력지대의 방어를 위한 치열한 전쟁이 현안이었다. 그래서 제국주의적 경쟁자들로부터 무력으로 지역들을 빼앗으려 시도할 수밖에 없었다. 자본주의 국가들에게 있어서 그것은 진정 생존의 문제였다. 그래서 아주 소수의 식민지만을 소유하고 있으며 대영제국의 선의에 의존적(독일 부르주아지에게는 견딜 수없는 상황) 이던 독일이 통상을 해나갈 수 있기 위해 1914년 제 1차 세계대전을 일으킨 것은 결코 우연이 아니었다. 독일은 그 강제적 상황 때문에 공격적인 역할을 맡게 되고, 이 역할을 히틀러는 나중에 제 2차 세계대전을 준비하면서 다음과 같이 요약했다: “수출이냐 아니면 죽을 것이냐“. 400년간의 확장 후 자본주의는 쇠퇴하는 체제가 되었다. 이점에 대해 양대 세계대전의 악몽 그리고 1930년대의 대공황은 반론을 제기할 수 없는 극적인 증거를 제시한다. 그렇지만 그 후 그때까지는 여전히 존재하던 자본주의 외부 시장들이 완전히 고갈되는 1950년대에도, 자본주의는 아직 치명적인 과잉생산위기에 빠져들지 않았다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">100년 이상 서서히 진행된 단말마적 고통 뒤에도 이 체제는 여전히 살아있다 : 발버둥 치면서, 비참한 상황에 놓여있긴 하지만 여전히 존재한다. 이 체제는 어떻게 생존해 있는가? 왜 이체제의 몸은 과잉생산이라는 독에 의해 아직도 완전히 마비되지 않았는가? 그 해답은, 빚이라는 수단을 활용했다는 것이다. 세계경제는 점점 더 대대적으로 채무를 짐으로써 극적인 붕괴를 피할 수 있었다. 그렇게 해서 결국은 일종의</span><span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: bold"> 인위적인 시장이 창출</span><span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">될 수 있었다. 지난 40년은 침체와 신용 주입이라는 도움에 힘입은 재회복의 연속으로 표현될 수 있다. 그리고 그것은 사적인 가계의 소비를 국가적인 도움으로 회복하려 시도했던 것만은 아니다... 아니, 국가들 자체가 경쟁 국가들에 대한 경제 세계경쟁력을 인위적으로 유지하기 위해 (기간산업 프로젝트에 투자하고 은행들에 저금리로 돈을 대어주고 이 은행들은 다시 기업과 가계들에 돈을 대출함으로써...) 빚을 졌다. 신용의 수문들이 도처에서 활짝 열려 돈이 좔좔 흘렀고 야금야금 모든 경제영역들이 과잉채무를 갖게 되었다. 기존의 빚을 갚기 위해 매일 새로운 빚을 얻어야만 했다. 이러한 메커니즘은 어쩔 수 없이 막다른 골목에 다다를 수밖에 없었다. 자본주의는 오늘날 전 세계적으로 이러한 막다른 골목의 가장 낮은 지점에 빠져있다. “부채 장벽”에 직면해 있는 것이다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 25px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold">자본주의에서 ‘부채위기’는 죽어가는 사람에게 몰핀을 과다 투여하는것과 같다</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">비유를 하자면, 부채는 자본주의에게 있어서, 곧 죽을 사람에게 몰핀을 의미한다. 몰핀을 투여함으로써 병자의 위기는 잠시 경감된다. 병자는 안정을 얻고 달래질 수가 있다. 그러나 매일 의존성이 증가되고 점점 더 높은 용량의 몰핀이 투여된다. 처음에는 경감하는 작용을 했던 수단이 나중에는 해롭게 되고 결국에는 과다복용으로 작용하게 된다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">전 세계적인 부채더미는 자본주의의 역사적 쇠퇴의 한 증상이다. 세계경제는 1960년대 이래 신용에 매달려 있지만, 부채는 몸 도처에 스며들어있다. 몸의 모든 부위로 파고들어 그것을 장악해 버린다. 점점 더 많은 은행들, 회사들, 지방자치단체, 국가들이 지불불능이고, 또 그렇게 될 것이며 그들의 채무를 더 이상 상환할 수도 없고 이자를 더 이상 지불할 수도 없다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">2007년 여름, 제 1차 세계대전과 함께 시작된 자본주의 쇠퇴의 역사에서 새로운 장이 열렸다. 점점 더 커다란 신용 투입에 의지하여 위기의 발전을 늦추려는 부르주아지의 능력은 끝이 났다. 이제 중간 중간에 한숨 돌릴 틈도 없이, 경제의 회복기도 없이 점점 더 많은 충격들이 있을 것이다. 부르주아지는 위기에 대한 실제적이고 지속적인 해답을 찾을 수 없을 것이다. 이는 그들이 갑자기 무능해졌기 때문이 아니라, 그 문제가 해결될 수 없다는 단순한 이유 때문이다. 자본주의의 위기는 자본주의 자체 내에서는 해결될 수 없다. 왜냐하면, 우리가 이글에서 보여주려 시도했던 것처럼, 문제가 자본주의 자체에 있기 때문이다. 자본주의체제 전체에 있기 때문이다. 오늘날 자본주의는 체제 전체가 파산상태이다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: right; line-height: 21px; font-style: italic; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">-Pawel 26/11/11</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">(1) 전 세계의 총부채, 즉. 모든 나라들의 가계, 기업 및 국가들의 부채를 의미한다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: left; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"><번역 : 국제공산주의흐름 International Communist Current></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<a name="[문서의 처음]"></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 20pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 42px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 20pt; font-weight: bold">Why is capitalism drowning in debt?</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 20pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">The global economy seems to be on the brink of the abyss. The threat of a major depression, worse than that of 1929, looms ever larger. Banks, businesses, municipalities, regions and even states are staring bankruptcy in the face. And one thing the media don’t talk about any more is what they call the “debt crisis”.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 25px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold">When capitalism comes up against the wall of debt</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">The chart below shows the change in global debt from 1960 to present day. (This refers to total world debt, namely the debts of households, businesses and the States of all countries). This debt is expressed as a percentage of world GDP.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">[Graph 1]</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">According to this chart, in 1960 the debt was equal to the world GDP (i.e. 100%). In 2008, it was 2.5 times greater (250%). In other words, a full repayment of the debts built up today would swallow up all the wealth produced in two and a half years by the global economy.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">This change is dramatic in the so-called “developed countries” as shown in the following graph which represents the public debt of the United States.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<font color="#0055ff"><span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">[Graph 2]</span> </font></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<br />
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">In recent years, the accumulation of public debt is such that the curve on the previous graph, showing its change, is now vertical! This is what economists call the “wall of debt.” And it is this wall that capitalism has just crashed into.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 25px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold">Debt, a product of capitalism’s decline</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">It was easy to see that the world economy was going to hit this wall eventually; it was inevitable. So why have all the governments of the world, whether left or right, extreme left or extreme right, supposedly “liberal” or “statist”, only extended credit facilities, run bigger deficits, actively favoured increasing the debts of states, firms and households for over half a century? The answer is simple: they had no choice. If they had not done so, the terrible recession we are entering now would have begun in the 1960s. In truth, capitalism has been living, or rather surviving, on credit for decades. To understand the origin of this phenomenon we must penetrate what Marx called “the great secret of modern society: the production of surplus value”. For this we must make a small theoretical detour.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">Capitalism has always carried within it a kind of congenital disease: it produces a toxin in abundance that its organism cannot eliminate: overproduction. It produces more commodities than the market can absorb. Why? Let’s take a simple example: a worker working on an assembly line or behind a computer and is paid £800 at the end of the month. In fact, he did not produce the equivalent of the £800, which he receives, but the value of £1600. He carried out unpaid work or, in other words, produced surplus value. What does the capitalist do with the £800 he has stolen from the worker (assuming he has managed to sell all the commodities)? He has allocated a part to personal consumption, say £150. The remaining £650, he reinvests in the capital of the company, most often in buying more modern machines, etc.. But why does the capitalist behave in this way? Because he is economically forced to do so. Capitalism is a competitive system and he must sell his products more cheaply than his neighbour who makes the same type of products. As a result, the employer must not only reduce his production costs, that is to say wages, but also increase the worker’s unpaid labour to re-invest primarily in more efficient machinery to increase productivity. If he does not, he cannot modernise, and, sooner or later his competitor, who in turn will do it, and will sell more cheaply, will conquer the market. The capitalist system is affected by a contradictory phenomenon: it does not pay workers the equivalent of what they have actually produced as work, and by forcing employers to give up consuming a large share of the profit thus extorted, the system produces more value than it can deliver. Neither the workers, nor the capitalists and workers combined can therefore absorb all the commodities produced. Therefore capitalism must sell the surplus commodities outside the sphere of its production to markets not yet conquered by capitalist relations of production, the so-called extra-capitalist markets. If this doesn’t succeed, there is a crisis of overproduction.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">This is a summary in a few lines of some of the conclusions arrived at in the work of Karl Marx in Capital and Rosa Luxemburg in The Accumulation of Capital. To be even more succinct, here is a short summary of the theory of overproduction:</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">* Capital exploits its workers (i.e. their wages are less significant than the real value they create through their work).</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">* Capital can thus sell its commodities at a profit, at a price which, greater than the wage of the worker and the surplus value, will also include the depreciation of means of production. But the question is: to whom?</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">* Obviously, the workers buy commodities ... using their entire wages. That still leaves a lot for sale. Its value is equivalent to that of the unpaid labour. It alone has the magic power to generate a profit for capital.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">* The capitalists also consume ... and they are also generally not too unhappy about doing so. But they cannot alone buy all the commodities bearing surplus value. Neither would it make any sense. Capital cannot buy its own commodities for profit from itself; it would be like taking money from its left pocket and putting it in its right pocket. No one is any better off that way, as the poor will testify.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">* To accumulate and develop, capital must find buyers other than workers and capitalists. In other words, it is imperative to find markets outside its system, otherwise it is left with unsalable commodities on its hands that clog up the capitalist market; this is then the “crisis of overproduction”!</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">This “internal contradiction” (the natural tendency to overproduce and the necessity to constantly seek out external markets) is one of the roots of the incredible driving force of the system in the early stages of its existence. Since its birth in the 16th century, capitalism had to establish commercial links with all economic spheres that surrounded it: the old ruling classes, the farmers and artisans throughout the world. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the major capitalist powers were engaged in a race to conquer the world. They gradually divided the planet into colonies and created real empires. Occasionally, they found themselves coveting the same territory. The less powerful had to retreat and go and find another territory where they could force people to buy their commodities. Thus the outmoded economies were gradually transformed and integrated into capitalism. Not only the economies of the colonies become less and less capable of providing markets for commodities from Europe and the United States but they, in turn, generate the same overproduction.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">This dynamic of capital in the 18th and 19th centuries, this alternation of crises of overproduction and long periods of prosperity and expansion and the inexorable progression of capitalism towards its decline, was described masterfully by Marx and Engels in The Communist Manifesto:</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<br />
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> “In these crises, there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity, the epidemic of overproduction. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of momentary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed; and why? Because there is too much civilisation, too much means of subsistence, too much industry, too much commerce.”</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">At this time, because capitalism was still expanding and could still conquer new territories, each crisis led subsequently to a new period of prosperity. “The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establishes connections everywhere ... The cheap prices of its commodities are the heavy artillery with which it batters down all Chinese walls, with which it forces the barbarians’ intensively obstinate hatred of foreigners to capitulate. It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what is calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image ...”(ibid)</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">But already at that time, Marx and Engels saw in these periodic crises something more than an endless cycle that always gave way to prosperity. They saw the expression! of profound contradictions that were undermining capitalism. By “the conquest of new markets”, the bourgeoisie is “paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means by which crises are prevented.”(ibid) Or: “as the mass of products and consequently the need for extended markets, grows, the world market becomes more and more contracted; fewer and fewer new markets remain available for exploitation, since every preceding crisis has subjected to world trade a market hitherto unconquered or only superficially exploited” (Wage Labour and Capital)</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">But our planet is a small round ball. By the early 20th century, all lands were conquered and the great historic nations of capitalism had divided up the globe. From now on, there is no question of making new discoveries but only seizing the areas dominated by competing nations by armed force. There is no longer a race in Africa, Asia or America, but only a ruthless war to defend their areas of influence and capturing, by military force, those of their imperialist rivals. It is a genuine issue of survival for capitalist nations. So it’s not by chance that Germany, having only very few colonies and being dependent on the goodwill of the British Empire to trade in its lands (a dependency unacceptable for a national bourgeoisie with global ambitions), started the First World War in 1914. Germany appeared to be the most aggressive because of the necessity, made explicit later on by Hitler in the march towards World War II, to “Export or die”. From this point, capitalism, after four centuries of expansion, became a decadent system. The horror of two world wars and the Great Depression of the 1930s would be dramatic and irrefutable proof of this. Yet even after exhausting the extra-capitalist markets that still existed in the 1950s, capitalism had still not fallen into a mortal crisis of overproduction. After more than one hundred years of a slow death, this system is still standing: staggering, ailing, but still standing. How does it survive? Why is this organism not yet totally paralysed by the toxin of overproduction? This is where the resort to debt comes into play. The world economy has managed to avoid a shattering collapse by using more and more massive amounts of debt. It has thus created an artificial market. The last forty years can be summed up as a series of recessions and recoveries financed by doses of credit. And it’s not only there to support the consumption of households through state spending ... No, nation states are also indebted to artificially maintain the competitiveness of their economies with other nations (by directly funding infra-structural investment, by lending to banks at rates as low as possible so they in turn can lend to businesses and households...). The gates of credit having been opened wide, money flowed freely and, little by little, all sectors of the economy ended up in a classic situation of over-indebtedness: every day more and more new debt had to be issued... to repay yesterday’s debts. This dynamic led inevitably to an impasse. Global capitalism is rooted in this impasse, face to face with the “wall of debt.”</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 25px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt; font-weight: bold">The ‘debt crisis’ is to capitalism what an overdose of morphine is to the dying</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 12pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">By analogy, debt is to capitalism what morphine is to a fatal illness. By resorting to it, the crisis is temporarily overcome, the sufferer is calmed and soothed. But bit by bit, dependency on daily doses increases. The product, initially a saviour, starts to becomes harmful ... up until the overdose!</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<br />
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">World debt is a symptom of the historical decline of capitalism. The world economy has survived on life supporting credit since the 1960s, but now the debts are all over the body, they saturate the least organ, the least cell of the system. More and more banks, businesses, municipalities, and states are and will become insolvent, unable to make repayments on their loans.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<br />
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">Summer of 2007 opened a new chapter in the history of the capitalist decadence that began in 1914 with the First World War. The ability of the bourgeoisie to slow the development of the crisis by resorting to more and more massive credit has ended. Now, the tremors are going to follow one after the other without any respite in between and no real recovery. The bourgeoisie will not find a real and lasting solution to this crisis, not because it will suddenly become incompetent but because it is a problem that has no solution. The crisis of capitalism cannot be solved by capitalism. For, as we have just tried to show, the problem is capitalism, the capitalist system as a whole. And today this system is bankrupt.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px 0px 5px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<br />
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-style: italic; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">Pawel 26/11/11</span></p>
<p>
<!-- --><!-- end clix_content --></p>
<div class="buttons-bottom center jinboblog-i-like-this-buttons"><a class="button-jinboblog" href="javascript:void(0);" title="스크랩으로 글 링크를 저장하세요" onclick="recommend('4942',118,'/iscralee','');"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/mini_chuchon.png" alt="진보블로그 공감 버튼" /></a><a class="button-twitter" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F118+%22%EC%9E%90%EB%B3%B8%EC%A3%BC%EC%9D%98%EB%8A%94%20%EC%99%9C%20%EB%B6%80%EC%B1%84%EC%9C%84%EA%B8%B0%EC%97%90%20%EB%B9%A0%EC%A1%8C%EB%8A%94%EA%B0%80%3F%22" target="_blank" title="트위터로 리트윗합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/twitter.png" alt="트위터로 리트윗하기" /></a><a class="button-facebook" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F118&t=%EC%9E%90%EB%B3%B8%EC%A3%BC%EC%9D%98%EB%8A%94%20%EC%99%9C%20%EB%B6%80%EC%B1%84%EC%9C%84%EA%B8%B0%EC%97%90%20%EB%B9%A0%EC%A1%8C%EB%8A%94%EA%B0%80%3F" target="_blank" title="페이스북에 공유합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/facebook.png" alt="페이스북에 공유하기" /></a><a class="button-delicious" href="http://delicious.com/save" onclick="window.open('http://delicious.com/save?v=5&noui&jump=close&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F118&title=%EC%9E%90%EB%B3%B8%EC%A3%BC%EC%9D%98%EB%8A%94%20%EC%99%9C%20%EB%B6%80%EC%B1%84%EC%9C%84%EA%B8%B0%EC%97%90%20%EB%B9%A0%EC%A1%8C%EB%8A%94%EA%B0%80%3F','delicious','toolbar=no,width=550,height=550'); return false;" title="딜리셔스에 북마크합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/delicious.png" alt="딜리셔스에 북마크" /></a></div><p><strong><a href="http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/118?commentInput=true#entry118WriteComment">댓글 쓰기</a></strong></p>Return of the crisis: Part 2 - the nature and significance of the crisis자유로운 영혼http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/1002011-11-02T10:09:10+09:002011-11-01T11:55:40+09:00<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<span style="font-size: 18px"><strong>Return of the crisis: Part 2 - the nature and significance of the crisis</strong></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<a class="imagefield imagefield-lightbox2 imagefield-lightbox2-article imagefield-field_photo imagecache imagecache-field_photo imagecache-article imagecache-field_photo-article lightbox-processed" href="http://libcom.org/files/images/library/19cover.jpg" jquery1320118017468="18" rel="lightbox[field_photo][Aufheben #19 (2011)]"><img alt="Aufheben #19 (2011)" height="424" src="http://libcom.org/files/imagecache/article/images/library/19cover.jpg" title="" width="300" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<div class="field field-type-filefield field-field-photo">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item odd" style="text-align: justify">
<a class="imagefield imagefield-lightbox2 imagefield-lightbox2-article imagefield-field_photo imagecache imagecache-field_photo imagecache-article imagecache-field_photo-article lightbox-processed" href="http://libcom.org/files/images/library/crisis_2[1].jpg" jquery1320117514281="18" rel="lightbox[field_photo][Return of the crisis: Part 2 - the nature and significance of the crisis]"><img alt="Return of the crisis: Part 2 - the nature and significance of the crisis" height="199" src="http://libcom.org/files/imagecache/article/images/library/crisis_2[1].jpg" title="" width="300" /></a></div>
</div>
</div>
<div class="field field-type-text field-field-introduction">
<div class="field-items">
<div class="field-item odd">
<p style="text-align: justify">
Th<strong>e second part of Aufheben's analysis of the financial crisis.</strong></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
</div>
</div>
</div>
<h3 style="text-align: justify">
<span style="font-size: 14px">Introduction</span></h3>
<p>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In Part I we gave an account of the immediately apparent causes and unfolding of the recent financial crisis, which began with the ‘credit crunch’ in the summer of 2007 and which culminated with near meltdown of the global financial system following the collapse of Lehman Brothers in the autumn of 2008. Here, in Part II of our article, we step back to consider the nature and significance of this crisis by looking at its deeper and longer term causes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As we pointed out in the introduction to Part I, the recent financial crisis has brought forth a plethora of ‘radical theories’ purporting to explain the underlying causes of the recent crisis – mostly drawn from Marxism, but also from the more radical interpretations of the writings of John Maynard Keynes.<a class="see-footnote" href="#footnote1_gj3cutb" id="footnoteref1_gj3cutb" title="Originally we intended to begin Part II of this article with a critical review of the more salient Marxist and radical Keynesian theories of the current crisis. However, lack of space and time has meant that we decided to omit what could have easily become a rather lengthy academic exercise."><font color="#6191c5" size="2">1</font></a> Although these theories have many differences, and often come to distinctly different political conclusions, with a few notable exceptions, they have much in common. Firstly, nearly all of these ‘radical theories’ are essentially the same as those developed to explain the economic crises of the 1970s and 1980s. Secondly, most of these ‘radical theories’ can be described as being ‘stagnationist’: that is they are based on the proposition that capitalism is now in decline, and its underlying tendency is towards economic stagnation.<a class="see-footnote" href="#footnote2_t7wiyqp" id="footnoteref2_t7wiyqp" title="Of course, the notion that capitalism is in decline has been a central tenet of traditional Marxism for the past hundred years (see ‘Theory of decline or the decline of theory’ in Aufheben #2, 3 and 4. But also see our self-critique of this article at http://libcom.org/aufheben/decadence ). As a result of the Great Depression, in the 1930s and 1940s such a notion was also shared by many bourgeois economic thinkers. Schumpeter, for example, in his Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy lamented the passing of the entrepreneurial spirit of nineteenth century capitalism and saw the evolution of capitalism towards a bureaucratic state socialism as almost inevitable. Keynes accepted Schumpeter’s prognosis, but, following John Stuart Mill, took a more sanguine view. Keynes looked forward to the time when capitalism would slow down and eventually reach a steady state in which vulgar money grabbing would no longer be necessary. His only concern was that capitalism would run out of steam before material scarcity could be abolished and wage-labour could be reduced to a minimum."><font color="#6191c5" size="2">2</font></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
During the 1970s and 1980s, when the advanced capitalist economies of North America, Western Europe and Japan were all being afflicted by slow economic growth, rising unemployment and high rates of inflation – a predicament that came to be known as stagflation – the proposition that capitalism had run into an impasse seemed almost self-evident; and certainly enjoyed a wide currency even amongst most bourgeois commentators and policy makers. The main contentious issue had then been how the underlying problem of economic stagnation could be resolved.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
However, from the early 1990s there appeared to be a revival of capitalism with the beginning of what was to become a long economic upswing. The response of most ‘radical theorists’ was to argue that such a revival could only be short lived. Capitalism, it was argued, could now only provide a patina of prosperity on the basis of unsustainable debt and financial speculation. Sooner or later there would be an almighty financial crisis, the bubble of illusory prosperity would burst, and the underlying tendency towards economic stagnation would once again reassert itself. As a consequence, over the last twenty years the onset of any financial crisis of any significance has sent Marxists and radical Keynesians scuttling to their attics to bring down their ‘falling rate of profit machines’, ‘deficient effective demand detectors’ or other theoretical paraphernalia to demonstrate that this time the bubble had truly burst. Then, after each financial crisis had past and capitalism had resumed its upward path, they were obliged to put everything back into their boxes and sullenly take them back upstairs. As a result, with each successive financial crisis, the arguments of stagnationists had become less and less plausible.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The failure to account for the continuation of the economic upswing prompted some more critical Marxists, including ourselves in Aufheben, to question the received ‘stagnationist’ orthodoxy. This has led to the emergence a distinct heterodox current within Marxism that has argued that that the revival of capitalism was far from being illusory. Against the ‘stagnationists’, the ‘upswing’ theorists pointed out, the crises and restructuring of the 1970s and 1980s had succeeded in providing the basis for renewed capital accumulation.<a class="see-footnote" href="#footnote3_82p9kt9" id="footnoteref3_82p9kt9" title="Permanent Revolution are perhaps the most consistent vociferous proponents of the ‘upswing’ thesis. Also see our article on China in Aufheben #14."><font color="#6191c5" size="2">3</font></a> The decisive defeat of the working class in the USA and other advanced capitalist economies, the development of the ‘new economy’ of information and communication technologies and, above all, the integration of China and south-east Asia, with its vast reserves of cheap and acquiescent labour, into the US-centred global accumulation of capital had all served to bring about and sustain the long economic upswing since the early 1990s. As a result, by most measures profit rates returned to levels not seen since the long post war boom, there was steady economic growth, inflation was more or less conquered and unemployment had fallen.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Yet the financial crisis of 2007-8, which has plunged the world into the worst recession since the second world war, would seem to have turned the tables in the polemics between the ‘upswingers’ and the ‘stagnationists’. Although the ‘stagnationist’ theorists were still unable to provide a satisfactory explanation for the prolonged economic upswing, they could now claim to have been at long last vindicated – the almighty financial crash had, if rather belatedly, happened. The long upswing theorists, in contrast, now faced the problem of finding a convincing explanation for the financial crisis.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<br />
Given the problems of existing radical - and in particular Marxist - theories of the crisis, how are we to understand the nature and significance of the financial crisis and the current economic recession? Where should we begin looking for its underlying causes?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
A major theoretical problem that we face is that although Marx provides us with perhaps the most incisive insights in understanding the crisis ridden nature of capitalism, he left no ‘unified general theory of crises’. Hence there has arisen a whole range of often conflicting Marxist theories of crisis, each one claiming support from particular passages in Marx’s ‘economic’ works. Yet even if we had an abstract ‘unified general theory of crisis’ it could only take us so far. Crises are by their nature historically specific. They are part of an open historical process in which the contradictions of capital’s development are brought to the fore and are forcibly resolved through class conflict. The resolution of one crisis then serves as the basis of the subsequent crisis. Each crisis has therefore to be understood in terms of the concrete historical circumstances out of which they arise. They cannot be simply explained a priori by some abstract schemas or formulae.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The basic problem of ‘radical theories’ of the current crisis, and this includes the ‘upswing’ theorists, is that they are still rooted in the analysis of the economic crises of 1970s. Of course there had been a number of financial crises in the 1970s, but these had been largely secondary if not rather peripheral to the fundamental problems afflicting capitalism at the time. After all it had been the sharp rise in the price of oil that had triggered the economic recessions of the 1970s not financial crises. As Marxists at the time had argued, these oil shocks had exacerbated the underlying economic and social problems caused by such underlying factors as the falling rate of profit, the increasing monopolisation of the economy and, of course, the breakdown of the post war class settlement and the consequent upsurge in working class militancy. As consequence, the financial system could be seen as little more than a parasitical excrescence on the real economy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Yet, the recent crisis was first and foremost a financial crisis. After all, it was the crisis in the global financial system that can be seen as the cause of the subsequent world economic crisis. But neither the ‘stagnationists’ nor the ‘upswingers’ have developed an adequate theory of the development of global banking and finance over the past thirty years and have therefore been unable to provide an adequate explanation of the crisis.<a class="see-footnote" href="#footnote4_oto3a0b" id="footnoteref4_oto3a0b" title="This failure to develop an adequate theory of the development of global banking and finance can also be traced back to the inadequacies of both Marx’s and Keynes’s theories of finance. Marx’s theory of money and finance is largely contained in Part V of Volume III of Capital. But this was cobbled together by Engels from various notebooks left by Marx after his death and remains very far from constituting a finished worked-out theory. It is true that Hilferding in his celebrated book Finance Capital attempted to develop and update Marx’s theory of money and finance. However, Hilferding’s theory is based on the particular concrete circumstance of Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century and hence its applicability to the analysis of modern global banking and finance is limited. More recently there has been some important work in attempting to develop systematically a Marxian theory of money and finance. See for example, The Political Economy of Money and Finance by Makoto Itoh and Costas Lapavitsas. However, this remains at too high a level of abstraction to be of much use in analysing the concrete circumstance of the recent financial crisis. Keynes was first and foremost a ‘monetary economist’. However, his primary aim, particularly in his seminal work The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, had been to persuade politicians and policymakers, who had been educated in neoclassical economic theory, to save capitalism through state intervention. To do this Keynes presented his theory as merely a generalisation of neoclassical monetary theory, which saw banks and financial markets as passive intermediaries between individual savers and individual entrepreneurs. Thus, although he made a number of observations and asides that go beyond the abstract conceptions of neoclassical monetary economics that have been taken up by his more radical disciples, the core of Keynes’s theory remains confined within bourgeois economic orthodoxy. As a result it has been relatively easy for mainstream bourgeois economic theory to re-assimilate Keynes’s theory as a special case that applies to the exceptional circumstances when the economy becomes stuck in a ‘sub-optimal equilibrium’."><font color="#6191c5" size="2">4</font></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Of course, it is true that ‘stagnationist theorists’, particularly the radical Keynesians, have placed particular emphasis on the development of global finance and banking. In their polemics against the mainstream neoliberal economic theories of the role of finance and banking, they have certainly provided a powerful moral critique of the impact of the development of global banking and finance, by showing how it has both depressed the living standards of the working class and poor across the globe and caused havoc and economic instability. But in doing so they fail to grasp the positive role the emergence of global banking and finance has played in bring about the restructuring of capital accumulation and the rejuvenation of capitalism. Indeed, by retaining the conception of finance as a parasitical excrescence on the real economy, the ‘stagnationist’ theory of the emergence of global banking and finance, particularly in its more Marxist versions, has simply served to explain away the long economic upswing. As a consequence, their theory of finance has been rather ad hoc and one-sided.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
On the other hand, in their polemics with the ‘stagnationists’, ‘upswingers’ have sought to emphasise the ‘economic fundamentals’ of the real economy - such as the restoration of the general rate of profit - that can be seen to have underpinned the long economic upswing. As a result the ‘upswingers’, including ourselves, have tended to overlook the importance of the rise of global finance and banking – and were thereby caught completely by surprise by the onset of the financial crisis.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In order to overcome the limitations of both the ‘stagnationist’ and ‘upswinger’ theories of the crisis we shall argue that it is necessary to consider far more closely the relation between the emergence and development of global banking and finance and the global restructuring of real capital accumulation that has occurred over the past thirty years. We shall argue that the emergence of global banking and finance has played a central role in the restructuring of global capital accumulation that brought about the long economic upswing. We shall then show how the continued development of economic restructuring of the real accumulation of capital over the past decade sowed the seeds for the crisis at the very heart of the global banking system.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify">
<a name="Explaining_the_current_crisis">Explaining the current crisis</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<span style="font-size: 14px"><span style="font-weight: bold">On the eve of the crisis – the view from the cockpit </span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<br />
As we pointed out in some detail in <a class="bb-url" href="/library/return-crisis-part-1"><font color="#6191c5">part I of this article</font></a>, on the eve of the current economic and financial crisis the masters of the universe, the plutocrats, their ministers and their minions could take a rather sanguine view of their world. Whatever political problems there may have been on the periphery with ‘Islamic terrorism’ and rogue states, the global capitalist system as a whole seemed to be in rude health. Although there were concerns at the growth of class conflict in China and elsewhere in Asia, and the European working class remained entrenched and resistant to ‘pro-market policies, for the most part social peace reigned.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The problems of stagflation that had beleaguered the previous generation of bourgeois policy makers had been overcome. Although it was considered important to maintain due vigilance, it could certainly be said that inflation had by and large been subdued. But more importantly the US had experienced more than fifteen years of, if not spectacular then certainly steady economic growth, which had only been briefly interrupted by the relatively mild economic downturn that had followed the dot.com crash. What was more, the first years of the new century had seen a broadening of world economic growth and prosperity. Newly ‘emerging market economies’ of less developed regions of the world, particularly Asia and Latin America, were now sustaining exceptionally high rates of economic growth; Japan had at long last begun to recover from its ‘lost decade’ of economic stagnation of the 1990s, the laggard economies of western Europe were at last beginning to pick up speed, and even Africa - the long forgotten continent – was showing signs of economic development for the first time in more than two decades.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Most bourgeois policy makers and commentators now accepted that the ‘tough and difficult decisions’ that had been taken to introduce neo-liberal policies had been necessary to lay the basis of the current era of economic prosperity. By helping to tear down the walls of ‘socialism’, protectionism and the national Keynesian economy, neo-liberalism had aided the birth of a new, reinvigorated global capitalism.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Of course, it could now be conceded, as the critics of neo-liberalism and ‘globalisation’ had vociferously pointed out at the time, that the immediate impact of unleashing ‘global market forces’ had produced an era of economic and financial turbulence that had often had a devastating economic impact - an impact that was largely borne by sections of the working class and the poor across the globe. Most of the advanced capitalist economies had been hit by the major economic recessions of the early 1980s and early 1990s. Russia and many of the eastern European countries had taken more than a decade to recover from the economic trauma of the neo-liberal ‘shock therapies’ imposed after the break up of the former Eastern Bloc. The 1990s had seen economic devastation caused by recurrent financial crises in Latin America and east Asia. Meanwhile, the 1980s and 1990s had seen the poorest countries, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, continue to groan under the onerous weight of debt inherited from previous decades.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Indeed, at the time, for many critics of neo-liberalism and ‘globalisation’ the dot.com crash in 2001 had heralded the culmination of the financial and economic turbulence of the 1980s and 1990s. The financial crises that had swept around the less developed parts of the global economy to such devastating effect had now returned home. It was thought that, with the bursting of the dot.com bubble, the US, the very heart of global capitalism, which through institutions such as the IMF and the World Bank had ensured that it had gained from the booms and busts elsewhere in the world, would finally obtain its comeuppance and would itself be plunged into a deep economic recession.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
But, as the apologists for ‘globalisation’ and neo-liberalism could now point out, such predictions had been proved wrong. The bursting of the dot.com bubble, which saw $5 trillion wiped off the nominal value of shares of dot.com companies in the space of just six months, had certainly been a major shock to US-centred global financial system, and had threatened to bring about a severe economic recession in its wake. However, prompt action by the Federal Reserve Board and other central banks in cutting interest rates, combined with Keynesian-style cuts in taxes and expansion of public spending, had proved sufficient to minimise the impact of the dot.com crash. The financial system as a whole remained intact, while the consequent economic recession had proved to be mild and relatively short lived. Indeed, it could be argued that what the dot.com crash had served to demonstrate was the remarkable robustness and resilience of the global capitalist system.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Furthermore, by the spring of 2007 the dot.com crash could be seen as having brought to an end the era of financial and economic turbulence. There was talk amongst bourgeois commentators that the world economy had entered an era that future economic historians may well describe as the ‘great moderation’: an era of steady broadly based economic growth, low inflation and stable and orderly financial markets.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As such, for the apologists of neo-liberalism and global capitalism, the era of economic and financial turbulence of the 1980s and 1990s could be seen as merely the necessary birth pangs of a born again global capitalism that was now driving an ever expanding global prosperity in to the foreseeable future.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<span style="font-size: 14px"><span style="font-weight: bold">Prospects of the long upswing on the eve of the crisis</span></span><br />
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
What bourgeois commentators viewed as the ‘great moderation’ was no patina of prosperity, which somehow simply hid the underlying tendency of modern capitalism towards stagnation. On the contrary, it was a view that was well-founded. The decisive defeat of organised labour in the advanced capitalist economies in the 1980s, combined by the rise of the ‘new economy’ and the integration of the vast armies of cheap and compliant labour in Asia into the world economy in the 1990s, had succeeded in bringing about a major restructuring of worldwide capital accumulation and, with this, a rejuvenation of capitalism. It has been the success of this fundamental restructuring of world capitalism that has led to the restoration of the rate of profit to levels not seen since the long post war boom, and these high rates of profit have consequently underpinned the long economic upswing that took off in the early 1990s and was only brought to an abrupt halt following the credit crunch of 2007.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Of course, against the triumphalism of the neo-liberal apologists of ‘globalisation’, it could be argued that the long upswing would sooner or later come to an end. The continuation of the long upswing had become increasingly dependent on the rapid rise of China as the distinct Asian epicentre in the US-centred global accumulation of capital. But the continued rapid accumulation of capital in China could not be taken for granted. Firstly, the rise of China had depended on its ability to provide a plentiful supply of cheap and compliant labour. Already by 2005 there had been signs that the demand for labour was in places beginning to run ahead of supply leading to a shift in the balance of power between workers and employers. After more than a decade of being static or even falling, there was growing evidence that wage rates in China had begun to rise. Secondly, the rapid economic growth of China had meant that world demand for food, fuel and raw materials was outrunning supply. The consequent rise in the price of food, fuel and raw materials not only threatened to squeeze profits in China but also, by causing an economic slowdown in the US and the west, led to a slowdown in the demand for Chinese exports, thereby curtailing the dynamic of China’s export led growth. Thirdly, China’s rapid and sustained economic growth had been dependent on state-directed investment and the insulation of the Chinese financial system from the volatility of global financial flows. With the Chinese authorities under increasing pressure from the US to open up its financial system, China could find itself going the same way as the Asian tigers of the 1990s. Foreign speculative investment could flood in, in an effort to take advantage of China’s vast surplus profits, and a speculative boom would result ending in an almighty crash.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Even if China managed to avoid such pitfalls and maintain its rapid accumulation of capital and economic growth, the long upswing in the US-centred global accumulation of capital would ultimately be limited. The rise of China had been able to sustain the long upswing because it had been based on a complimentary dynamic of accumulation with the US and other advanced capitalist economies. China, and behind it the rest of east Asia, has come to specialise in the production of cheap commodities that the US, and the other advanced capitalist economies, had either given up producing in the restructuring of the 1980s - such as textiles and clothing - or that they had never produced in the first place - such as computers, electronic toys and other digital and IT hardware. As such Chinese and Asian production did not overlap to any great extent with that in the west. Capital accumulation in China and Asia was therefore largely complimentary with that of the US and the western economies, allowing for a mutually reinforcing dynamic of capital accumulation between the west and Asia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
However, this complimentary dynamic of accumulation could be seen to hold within it the seeds of its own demise. Competition would inevitably reduce the world prices of Asian produced commodities to Chinese costs of production. As a result the surplus profits of Chinese producers would be eroded and the average rate of profit in China would tend to fall towards the world average.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
However, so far this tendency towards a falling rate of profit in China has been limited by the active intervention by the Chinese state to restrict overinvestment. What is more, to the extent that this tendency has operated, it has been largely offset by Chinese producers moving into new but similar lines of production, for example by producing the latest, and more expensive, gadgets and gizmos. Yet, it can be argued, that the ability of China to limit or offset the falling prices and profits cannot be sustained forever. China will sooner or later have to move into the production of more sophisticated commodities, such as cars or machine tools. As a result its output will increasingly come into competition with that produced in the US and the other advanced capitalist economies. The largely harmonious dynamic of accumulation between China and the West will then give way to an increasingly competitive and potentially antagonistic zero sum game. It will be then that China will be obliged to challenge the US and make its bid for world economic hegemony, with perhaps dire consequences in terms of economic and military conflict.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
But in 2007 the limits to the continued rise of China, and with it the rest of Asia, were only possibilities that were only beginning to loom on the distant horizon. In the short term the rise of China and the long upswing, which it was serving to sustain, seemed set to continue for at least another decade or so. Hence, for the time being the bourgeoisie and their minions rather sanguine view of the world could be seen as being more or less well-founded - even if it might prove to be more transitory than they would like to believe.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<span style="font-size: 14px"><span style="font-weight: bold">Conceptions of the significance and nature of crisis</span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<br />
As we pointed out in Part I of this article, by the spring of 2007 the mounting number of defaults on sub-prime mortgages in America had begun to be of some concern to the US monetary authorities. However, while the losses that the financial system was likely to suffer could be quite substantial and required monitoring, it had been assumed that the system would be robust enough to withstand the impact of such losses without too much trouble.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Few, if anyone, at the time foresaw that the collapse of the US sub-prime mortgage market would trigger a series of events that in less than eighteen months would lead to the near meltdown of the entire global financial system and as a consequence threaten the world economy with a great depression comparable with that of the 1930s. Even those Keynesian and Marxist critics who had argued that the housing bubble simply served to disguise the underlying tendency towards economic stagnation had failed to predict that it would end in such a severe financial crisis. For them the deflation of the housing bubble had been expected to lead to a decline in consumption, as homeowners could not borrow against rising house prices, and hence to a slowdown in the rate of economic growth in the economy, or perhaps even an economic recession.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
But this brings us to the crucial question: if global capitalism was in the middle of a long upswing, with historically high rates of profits, how are we to explain the unforeseen financial crisis of 2007-08?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Most mainstream bourgeois commentators start with what would appear as the obvious fact that the current economic downturn was caused first and foremost by a financial crisis. It was the implosion of the financial sector, which had been triggered by the bursting of the US sub-prime mortgage market, which by impacting on what was otherwise a ‘fundamentally sound real economy’, has been the cause of the current ‘great recession’. As such there would seem to be little need to go beyond what can be seen as the immediate causes of the malfunctioning of the financial system, most of which could be seen as the result of policy errors on the part of governments or the monetary authorities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<br />
Thus, as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, Alan Greenspan can be blamed for holding interest too low and for too long in order to cushion the impact of the dot.com crash. This, it can be argued provided the conditions for the plentiful supply of cheap and easy money that fuelled the housing bubble. The bursting of the sub-prime mortgage bubble can then be seen to be a delayed consequence of Greenspan’s decision to belatedly restore interest rates to more normal levels after 2005.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
But although ‘errors’ on interest rate policy might go some considerable way to explaining what fuelled the housing bubble, and why it burst when it did, it is perhaps insufficient to explain how it was possible for rising defaults in one small corner of the American mortgage market to result in the near meltdown of the global financial system. Why was it that a financial system that had been supposedly so robust proved to be so fragile?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
From the wilderness, Keynesians had long warned that the neoliberal policy of gradually dismantling the structure of regulation and supervision of the financial system that had been originally put in place after the Wall Street Crash of 1929 would sooner or later end in tears. Following the credit crunch of 2007, these warnings appear to have been vindicated and are now taken far more seriously by mainstream bourgeois opinion. Even the least chastened ‘masters of the universe’ are now obliged to admit, the process of de-regulation and liberalisation of financial markets and institutions had gone too far. The only issue being how far is too far, and hence how much re-regulation is required.<a class="see-footnote" href="#footnote5_xtw55o7" id="footnoteref5_xtw55o7" title="The crisis has certainly brought to the fore the writings of the rather idiosyncratic and neglected Keynesian economists H. Minsky. In short, Minsky argued that during a period of financial stability what he termed the financial structure of a capitalist economy would tend to become increasingly fragile. Continued financial stability encouraged the growth in confidence that loans would paid back. Reserves against bad loans would be reduced, financial innovations would be devised to get round existing regulations that aimed to ensure financial prudence and regulators would become complacent. Short term loans would be rolled over to finance long term investments and the as a result the financial structure would become increasingly speculative. As a result, eventually even a minor shock to the financial structure of the economy could cause a serious financial crisis. The crisis would then lead to renewed efforts at financial regulator and a return to financial prudence. This Minskyian financial cycle, in which financial stability produces financial instability, has been seized on by both mainstream and radical theorists to explain the recent financial crisis. Certainly at first sight it would appear to provide a neat explanation of how the sub-prime mortgage crisis served as a ‘Minsky moment’ that ended the ‘great moderation’. But on closer inspection the Minskyian explanation is not so neat after all. Firstly, Minsky’s notion of the ‘financial structure’ does not merely include banks and financial institutions but all economic actors such as businesses and individual households. Indeed this had been central for Minsky in order to show how a financial crisis such as the Wall Street crash could have such an impact on the real economy to create the Great Depression of the 1930s. But, as we shall, the great moderation which had preceded the credit crunch had seen non-financial corporate sector become more financially sound not less. Secondly, to the extent that it is taken to explain the recent financial crisis, the less it is able to explain the financial turbulence of the 1980s and 1990s when financial crises were far more frequent."><font color="#6191c5" size="2">5</font></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The notion that the financial crisis was the result of a combination of excessive financial deregulation and low interest rates certainly provides a starting point for an understanding of the immediate causes of the crisis. Of course, it is a notion sufficiently broad to encompass various interpretations and political conclusions. It surely supports the mainstream bourgeois view that has emerged in the wake of the crisis that with minor adjustments to financial regulation and a more prudent monetary policy there can be a return to business as usual.<a class="see-footnote" href="#footnote6_o0996uh" id="footnoteref6_o0996uh" title="From this perspective the crisis might be viewed like a tyre blow out in a Formula One race. But for the adept steering of the driver the crash could have been far more serious. Nevertheless the car as whole remains a functioning high performance vehicle. All that needs to be done is to fit a more suitable tyre and to remind the driver not to accelerate so fast out of a tight corner and all will be ok except for the minutes lost during the pit stop."><font color="#6191c5" size="2">6</font></a> Alternatively it may also support the view of more radical Keynesians that such misguided policy is the inevitable result of dominance of neoliberal ideology over the formulation of monetary, financial and economic policy that has been established over the past thirty years.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
However, on closer inspection this notion that the financial crisis was the result of ‘policy errors’ has a number of loose ends. Firstly, the process of financial regulation has been going on for more than three decades. Why had this deregulation made the global financial system so fragile in 2007 when it had been sufficiently robust to whether the impact of the dot.com boom six years before? Was this because financial deregulation had passed some unidentified tipping point? Or was is it that low interest policy not only produced the housing bubble and bust that caused the shock that triggered the banking crisis, but also itself contributed to increasing the fragility of the financial system?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
But emphasis on the interest rate policy of the monetary authorities has its own problems. As Alan Greenspan would no doubt protest, the ability of central banks to determine interest rates ruling in the economy is limited by the balance of supply and demand for loanable funds in the financial system. It is true that the monetary authorities can regulate the level of short term interests by means of ‘open market operations’, whereby central banks buy or sell short term government securities, and by setting the ‘discount rate’ at which they are prepared to lend to banks. Interest rates on debts and securities with longer maturities or with greater perceived risks are normally based on the short term rates set by the central bank. By raising or lowering its own discount rate, together with the short term rates on government securities, the central bank can normally raise or lower the entire structure of interest rates in the financial markets as a whole. But the central bank can only do this to the extent that the interest rates it seeks to establish are broadly in accordance with the overall balance of supply and demand in the ‘money’ and ‘capital’ markets.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Some of the more perceptive bourgeois commentators, economists and policy makers have long been concerned that international financial imbalances that have arisen since the late 1990s have given rise to what has become known as a ‘global savings glut’.<a class="see-footnote" href="#footnote7_tbyq4dp" id="footnoteref7_tbyq4dp" title="See for example Fixing Global Finance by Martin Wolf and ‘Global Imbalances and the Financial Crisis’, Paper presented to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Asia Economic Policy Conference, October 2009, by M. Obstfeld and K. Rogoff."><font color="#6191c5" size="2">7</font></a> This has led to a tendency towards an oversupply of loanable money capital in the world’s financial markets that has exerted downward pressure on interest rates.<a class="see-footnote" href="#footnote8_eynsh3k" id="footnoteref8_eynsh3k" title="For an attempt to quantify the impact of international imbalances on US interest rates see ‘International capital Flows and U.S. Interest Rates’ F.E.Warnock & V.C. Warnock in Journal of International Money and Finance, 28 (6)."><font color="#6191c5" size="2">8</font></a> As such, it can be argued that it was not low interest rates that caused the flood of easy money and credit; but rather it was the flood of loanable money-capital that was the cause of lower interest rates.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Because of the emergence of a ‘global savings glut’, Alan Greenspan had been able to cut interest rates and sustain them at exceptionally low levels after the dot.com crash, despite a ballooning US government budget deficit that was greatly increasing the demand for loanable funds on the financial markets. However, when he sought to reverse his low interest policy in 2005, Alan Greenspan found that he was now working against the tide of the money and capital markets. The Federal Reserve Board succeed in more than doubling short term rates. However, longer term rates, weighed down by an oversupply of loanable funds, initially rose by far less than short term rates, and then began to fall back. As a result, between 2005 and 2007 there arose a flattening and even an inversion of the so called ‘yield curve’ – as the difference between short and long term interest rates became compressed, and at times even went negative.<a class="see-footnote" href="#footnote9_i3m6m0z" id="footnoteref9_i3m6m0z" title="The ‘yield curve’ relates the interest rates on government securities of increasing maturities. Given that the risk of governments major economies like the US, the US or Germany is considered negligible, the ‘yield curve’ indicates the relation between long and short term loans independent of variations in risk. Usually the yield curve is upward sloping: that is the longer the loan the higher the interest."><font color="#6191c5" size="2">9</font></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
This inversion of the ‘yield curve’ can be seen to have given a further twist not only to the rapidly expanding housing bubble, but also to the increasing fragility of the financial system. Low interest rates had already reduced the profit margins that could be made on loans The commercial banks had responded by offsetting lower margins by increasing the volume of their loans – a sort of financial version of pile them high sell them cheap policy – seeking higher returns on more risky assets – that is known as ‘a search for yield’ - or move into investment banking by securitising its debt and selling it on, making profits from management fees and commissions rather than from interest payments. All of which can be seen to have been vital ingredients of the process that was to lead to the credit crunch of 2007 and the consequent financial crisis. The inversion of the yield curve following Greenspan’s decision to raise short term interest rates, meant that the profit margins of commercial banking operations, which depended on borrowing short term and lending long, became further squeezed, accelerating this process.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
So, while monetary policy regarding interest rates might be blamed for accelerating developments that were to end in the big crunch, it was not the prime cause of the crisis. The prime cause can be traced back to the ‘global savings glut’ that had depressed interest rates and had produced an excess in the supply of loanable capital looking for profitable outlets such as the US mortgage market.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The view certainly goes beyond the notion that the credit crunch was merely a result of misguided policy. It also, as we shall see, serves as a point of departure in placing the crisis in a broader historical perspective. But, as far as it goes, this view still sees the crisis first and foremost as a financial crisis.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Now of course, from a Marxist perspective it may be argued that the sheer scale of the financial crisis, and its dramatic impact on the real economy, indicate that it was a manifestation of much deeper contradictions of global capitalism. After all did not Marx argue that the contradictions of capitalism burst ‘forth as monetary crisis’?<a class="see-footnote" href="#footnote10_gowunut" id="footnoteref10_gowunut" title="Capital I p.236 Penguin edition. But as Engels notes on the same page ‘The monetary crisis, defined in the text as a particular phase of every general industrial and commercial crisis, must be clearly distinguished from the special sort of crisis, also called a monetary crisis, which may appear independently of the rest, and only affects industry and commerce by its backwash. The pivot of these crises is to be found in money capital, and their immediate sphere of impact is therefore banking, the stock exchange and finance’. Thus as Itoh and Lapavitsas have pointed out, there are two quite distinct types of financial crises. The first arising from the contradictions of real capital accumulation, the second arising from with the financial system itself. The financial crisis of 2007-8 would seem closer to the second type."><font color="#6191c5" size="2">10</font></a> Of course, it is from this conception of the financial crisis as being a symptom of deeper economic contradictions that has provided the entry point for the revival of the various radical Keynesian and Marxist stagnationist theories to explain the current crisis. Yet, the problem in resuscitating such theories to explain the financial crisis of 2007-8 is to find a plausible means of explaining away the long upswing of the past decade and half. If we reject the notion that the upswing was little more than an illusion, a patina of prosperity created by a series of asset bubbles that have now all gone pop, how do we explain the nature and significance of the crisis?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Of course the obvious logical way around this problem is to claim that the crisis reveals that, unbeknownst to anyone at the time, we have already passed a decisive turning point in the history of capitalism – the long upswing has in fact ended and we have now entered a long down swing of the Krondratiev cycle.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Yet there would seem to be little to suggest that we have entered a long down swing, other than the fact of the financial crisis itself. Indeed what evidence there is suggests the opposite, particularly for those who emphasise the determining role of the rate of profit. Although they have certainly been dented by the crisis, profit rates still remain at historically high levels in the US and elsewhere. Furthermore, although the levels of investment - and hence capital accumulation - fell sharply during the financial crisis, and still remain at subdued levels, what evidence there is suggests that what is holding back a recovery in investment is a lack of finance due to the continued retrenchment of the banks, rather than because of any lack of profitable opportunities for investment. Indeed perhaps what has been most remarkable about the current crisis has been the resilience and continued buoyancy of much of the ‘real economy’ despite the impact of the implosion of the financial system. Far from representing a critical turning point, the crisis at present appears far more as merely an interruption, or at most an inflexion point, in the continued ascent of the long upswing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
But this does not mean that the financial crisis was merely an accident, or the result of policy errors that have little or no necessary connection with the real accumulation of capital. On the contrary, we shall argue that the financial crisis must be grounded in the upswing itself.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The finance sector is neither an autonomous sphere independent of the ‘real economy’, nor is merely an expression of the real accumulation of capital. There is a complex inter-relation between the accumulation of moneyed capital and the accumulation of real capital. If we are to understand the underlying causes of the recent financial crisis we must consider the historical development of this complex inter-relation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
We shall begin by looking at the origins of the global financial system and the crisis of capital accumulation in the 1970s. We shall then consider the role the emergence of the global financial system played in the restructuring of capital accumulation and the restoration of profit rates in the 1980s and 1990s that was to provide the basis for the long upswing. Finally, we shall examine how further developments in restructuring of global capital accumulation since the late 1990s have given rise to the ‘global savings glut’, and with this the over expansion of global finance that resulted in both the ‘great moderation’ and its denouement in the current financial crisis.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify">
<a name="The_Rise_of_Global_Finance">The Rise of Global Finance</a></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<span style="font-size: 14px"><span style="font-weight: bold">The post war boom and the repression of banking and finance</span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<br />
At least for the advanced capitalist economies of North America and Western Europe, the long post war boom of the 1950s and 60s – the ‘golden age of Keynesianism’ – had been a period of unprecedented economic growth, growing prosperity and social peace. At the time it had seemed that capitalism had at last been tamed. The violent booms and slumps that had afflicted much of the world in previous decades could now be considered a thing of the past. As the more radical Keynesians have emphasised, vital to this taming of capitalism had been the ‘repression of finance’ that had been established on the basis of the Bretton Woods agreement.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The Bretton Woods agreement is perhaps most famous for establishing the post war system of fixed exchange rates. In order to promote international trade the currencies of the major advanced capitalist economies were to be freely convertible, that is they could be freely exchanged with each other on the foreign currency markets. However, in order to prevent the competitive devaluation of currencies, which was widely seen to have severely exacerbated the world depression of the 1930s, it was agreed that all the governments party to the agreement, except that of the USA, should intervene in the foreign currency markets to maintain a fixed rate of exchange of their currency with the US dollar.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
However, central to maintaining this fixed rate system had been the agreed right of governments to impose strict controls on the movement of money-capital across borders. These capital and exchange controls were designed to allow governments to prevent speculative flights of capital that might otherwise undermine their ability to defend the value of their currency.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
By creating barriers to the international movement of money-capital, capital and exchange controls had severely restricted the development of international banking and finance. Most international monetary flows were closely tied to international trade. As such the international operations of banks and financial markets were confined to providing currency transactions necessary for the buying and selling of internationally traded ‘goods and services’, shipping insurance and credit to bridge lengthy shipping times.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Furthermore, what international capital flows there were mostly took the form of inter-governmental loans or direct foreign investment by transnational corporations. In either case banks and financial markets had played merely a secondary and supporting role. As a result the international flows of free loanable money-capital, not immediately tied to the current production and sale of commodities, was limited. International banking and finance remained in a rather embryonic form, confined to the cracks and crevices between the national jurisdictions of the monetary authorities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
With limited opportunities to take flight abroad, it was relatively easy for the monetary authorities in each of the advanced capitalist economies to domesticate financial capital. The highly restrictive regimes regulating banking and finance that had been put in place in the USA following the Wall Street Crash, and in western Europe due to the exigencies of resource planning during the war, were, for the most part, maintained.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The restrictions and compartmentalisation of banking meant that the primary role of banks became that of providing banking services and credit necessary for the efficient reproduction of industrial and commercial capital. As such, banks became regarded as little more than rather staid privately owned public utilities. Financial markets became dominated by institutional investors such as pension funds and insurance companies, which were charged with pooling and investing the savings of the middle and working classes. These institutional investors were primarily concerned with safe and steady long term investments, rather than with making a quick buck. These institutional investors therefore preferred to invest either in the shares of well established and dependable ‘blue chip’ companies or, more often than not, government securities issued to fund state borrowing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The main players in determining capital accumulation were the large commercial and industrial monopoly corporations and conglomerates, which had come to dominate the advanced capitalist economies since the beginning of the twentieth century. Although it is true that these monopoly corporations had continued to raise capital through the issuing of shares or corporate bonds, for the most part their investment was financed through ‘retained earnings’ – i.e. out of their current or past profits.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Through the ‘repression of finance’ governments were able to ensure the financial and economic stability that was necessary to maintain the steady accumulation of real productive capital, and hence economic growth. Through the tight regulation of banking and finance governments were able to limit speculative bubbles that might otherwise disrupt capital accumulation in the real economy. Such constraints on finance also gave governments considerable freedom to use Keynesian monetary and fiscal policies to maintain a steady growth in effective demand conducive to large scale and long term investments carried out by the monopoly corporations. The monetary authorities were able to keep interest rates low in order to maximise ‘retained earnings’ and hence high levels of productive investment. At the same time, despite low interest rates, governments were able to borrow from the captive financial markets to fund the large scale public investments in the nation’s economic and social infrastructure necessary to support real capital accumulation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As a result, banking and finance, in each of the advanced capitalist economies, was subordinated to the national accumulation of real productive capital. This ensured steady economic growth, rising profits and wages, near full employment, increased public services and the establishment of the welfare state central to sustaining the various post war class settlements and hence social peace.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<span style="font-size: 14px"><span style="font-weight: bold">The rise of international banking and finance</span></span><br />
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The 1970s saw a major transformation of international banking and finance that was to bring an end to the ‘repression of finance’. There were three main causes of this ‘liberation of finance’: first of all there was the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates, secondly the recycling of ‘petrodollars’ following the ‘oil shock’ of 1973, and finally the rapid growth of ‘offshore banking’. Let us briefly consider each in turn.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As we have seen, in accordance with the Bretton Woods agreement, the governments of the advanced capitalist economies, other than the USA, had been obliged to maintain a fixed rate of exchange between their currency and the US dollar. The US government, for its part, had in turn agreed to fix the value of dollar to gold. To do this the US guaranteed to convert on demand dollars into gold at the rate of $35 for each ounce. At the time of the signing of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1944 this obligation to convert US dollars into gold at a fixed rate had been inconsequential for the US government’s economic and political policies. As a consequence of the war, Fort Knox held around three quarters of the world’s entire stock of gold. But more importantly, with much of Europe devastated by war, American industry faced little competition. As a result throughout the 1950s the US enjoyed a substantial trade surplus, as its exports flooded into Europe. This had led to a severe dollar shortage in western Europe. Foreigners, particularly Europeans, wanted US dollars, now the undisputed world currency, not gold.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
However, with the recovery and reconstruction of western Europe and the rise of Japan, US industry faced increasing competition. The US trade surplus declined at the same time as foreign direct investment by US transnational corporations in Europe increased. By the 1960s the dollar shortage had begun to become a dollar glut. The threat that the overhang of surplus dollars held by foreign banks and governments might be presented for conversion into gold now began to place onerous constraints on the freedom of US economic and political policy. The arms race with the USSR, the escalation of the Vietnam War, together with the need to secure social peace at home through expensive social programmes such as President Johnson’s ‘Great Society’, required unprecedented levels of government spending. But such high levels of government spending only served to worsen the outflow of US dollars.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In 1971, in order to cut himself free of such constraints, President Nixon suspended the US government’s commitment to convert dollars into gold and unilaterally announced a 10% devaluation of the dollar. This precipitated the collapse of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates. By 1973 attempts to shore up the system had been abandoned in favour of a system of managed floating exchange rates, in which governments only intervened in the foreign currency markets to limit excessive fluctuations in the value of their currencies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The abandonment of fixed exchange rates opened up profitable opportunities for speculation in the day-to-day fluctuations of exchange rates on the foreign exchange markets. It also opened up profitable opportunities for banks to sell ‘financial products’ that would allow exporters and importers to hedge against adverse movements in the value of currencies. The collapse of Bretton Woods thereby certainly contributed to an increased internationalisation of the operations of the national banking and finance systems of the advanced capitalist economies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
But the collapse of the fixed exchange rate system did not immediately lead to an end to capital and exchange controls or the barriers separating the national banking and financial systems of the advanced capitalist economies. Far more important in this was the recycling of petrodollars, caused by the oil shock of 1973, and the consequent development of offshore banking.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In 1973 the world economy was rocked by OPEC quadrupling the price of oil. As a result of the sharp rise in oil prices, the low cost oil-producing sheikdoms of the Middle East suddenly found themselves awash with US dollars with little to spend it on other than yet more palaces and camels. As a consequence, they began depositing their surplus oil revenues in Eurodollar accounts of European banks and European subsidiaries of American banks, which had grown up to avoid US capital and exchange controls. These accounts were particularly attractive, not only because they offered high rates of return, but also because they were out of the reach of the US monetary authorities, and were therefore less likely to become impounded by the US government in the event of a political or diplomatic crisis. With the stream of ‘petrodollars’ flooding into their Eurodollar accounts the western banks, which operated within the Eurodollar system, now had to find somewhere to invest this money that could provide them with sufficiently high returns to cover the returns they offered on their Eurodollar deposit accounts. With the US and other advanced capitalist economies plunged into recession following the oil shock, the banks had to look beyond their traditional clientele of other banks and transnational corporations. As a result they began making large scale loans to ‘third world’ governments.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
This recycling of ‘petrodollars’ brought about a dramatic expansion in both the scale and complexity of the international finance and banking system. Whereas previously it had been a rather marginal and arcane activity for the major US and other western commercial banks, international banking operations now became a substantial potential source of profits. As a consequence, banks rapidly expanded their international operations, bringing about a profusion of specialist international financial intermediaries, and the development of new ‘financial products’ and markets in order to facilitate the increased volume deals.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
But this was not all. In order to expand their share of international banking and finance, the western banks began opening up subsidiaries that were nominally registered in small ‘third world’ states that offered both minimal taxes on financial transactions and lax banking regulations. The banks were then able to offer their domestic corporate and more well-heeled individual depositors the option of transferring their deposits to their ‘offshore’ subsidiaries. With economic and political uncertainty and falling returns in the US and western Europe, the risk of placing funds in minimally regulated banks was for many depositors more than offset by the higher returns such offshore banking offered - particularly as these banks had the implicit backing if things went wrong of their reputable parent banks.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Loanable money capital accumulated in the advanced capitalist economies could now flow into the channels of international finance that had been carved out by the recycling of petrodollars. The growth of offshore banking allowed the banks to evade regulatory controls that had inhibited the free movement of money-capital across national boundaries. In doing so offshore banking prised open the cracks in the national regulation of finance, weakening the walls that had been erected to separate the various national banking and financial systems from the largely unregulated and unconstrained international banking and finance.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As a result of the break up of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates, the recycling of petrodollars and the development of offshore banking, the 1970s saw an explosive growth in international banking and finance. By the end of the 1970s the volume of international flows of loanable money capital had grown to such a scale that they threatened to overwhelm any attempt to control it on the part of governments and monetary authorities. In 1979 the levees began to break.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Firstly, in May 1979 Margaret Thatcher came to power committed to dismantling Keynesianism and the post war social democratic settlement in Britain. Under the slogan ‘you can’t buck the [financial] markets’, one of her first moves in this direction – the significance of which is often overlooked - was to scrap capital and exchange controls, allowing the free movement of money and capital in and out of the British economy. Within the next few years all the advanced capitalist economies had been obliged to follow Thatcher’s lead. As a consequence, the barriers to the free movement of capital across borders were torn down.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Secondly, in October 1979, Paul Volcker, the newly appointed chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board, announced a sharp about turn in US monetary policy. Following the second ‘oil shock’, which had seen a doubling of oil prices, there had been growing fears that the consequent increase in the US trade deficit could trigger an uncontrollable speculative flight of capital from the US and, with this, a collapse of the US dollar on the foreign exchange markets. In order to ward off such a threat Volcker abandoned the last vestige of Keynesian monetary policy of maintaining low interest rates. US interest rates were forced up leading to a huge influx of loanable money-capital into the USA and a soaring dollar. In order to limit the outflow of money-capital to the US, the other advanced capitalist economies were obliged to follow suit and raise their own interest rates and, in doing so adopt monetarist economic policies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As such, 1979 marked the end of Keynesianism and the triumph of what was to become known as neoliberalism. Governments and monetary authorities gave up attempting to subordinate banking and finance to the national accumulation of real productive capital through restrictive regulations. The free movement of capital was now to be promoted. As barriers to the free movement of finance capital were progressively dismantled the national banking and financial systems became merely segments of what was to become a US-centred global banking and financial system, in which money-capital could freely flow in search of the highest returns.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<span style="font-size: 14px"><span style="font-weight: bold">The ‘liberation’ of finance and the stagnation of the ‘Fordist mode of accumulation’.</span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<br />
As radical Keynesians such as Susan Strange and Howard Watchel have pointed out, concerted action on the part of governments and monetary authorities could have perhaps prevented the explosion of international banking and finance. Thus, for example, following the rise in oil prices in 1973, there could have been an international agreement that would have allowed for petrodollars to be recycled through official intergovernmental channels, overseen by such bodies as the IMF and the World Bank. Furthermore, the monetary authorities in the US and elsewhere could have imposed new financial regulations to clamp down on the subsequent growth of offshore banking, and thereby nipped it in the bud.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
For radical Keynesians, the lack of political will to take such action is seen, at least in part, as the result of the growing political influence of finance and banking over the formulation of economic policy. The economic crisis, which had for them been primarily caused by the sharp rise in the costs of oil, food and raw materials in the early 1970s, had led to a crisis in confidence in the continued efficacy of Keynesian policies. Taking advantage of this, banking and financial interests had been able to push towards the reversal of the ‘Keynesian revolution in economic policy’ and, with this, the progressive abandonment of the ‘repression of finance’.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Furthermore, as the radical Keynesians pointed out, the consequent rapid growth of international banking and finance in turn brought with it a corresponding increase in the political power and influence of the bankers and financiers. By the end of the 1970s they had reached a position where they could seize control over state policy. Keynesianism was deposed and replaced by neoliberalism. As a result, over the last thirty years economic policy across the world has been driven by the overriding special vested interests of bankers and financiers, much to the detriment of the rest of society, particularly the poor and the working class.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Many Marxists might well agree with radical Keynesians on this. However, for most Marxists, the sharp rise in the costs of oil, food and raw materials in the early 1970s had only served to exacerbate and bring to a head a much deeper crisis in the process of capital accumulation that had underpinned the long post war boom. As such the ‘crisis of Keynesianism’ had not been due to the transient problems of adjustment following the impact of the ‘oil shocks’ and rising ‘commodity prices’, but had been due the fact that capitalism had reached an impasse, which manifested itself in recurrent economic and political crises. There could therefore be no return to the ‘progressive capitalism’ of the ‘golden age of Keynesianism’.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As the Marxist French of the Regulation School, and many others have pointed out, the long post war boom had been driven by the rapid expansion of the mass assembly-line production of standardised consumer durables – epitomised of course by the production of ‘automobiles’ and known accordingly as the ‘Fordist mode of accumulation’. It may be admitted that Keynesian policy and the consequent ‘repression of finance’ had served a vital role in facilitating the large scale and long term investments in building and equipping the car factories, steel plants and petro-chemical complexes that had been necessary for the post war ‘Fordist’ economy. However, by the late 1960s these investments had begun to result in an over-accumulation of productive capital.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As a result there began a long term tendency for the general rate of profit to fall. Attempts to reverse the falling rate of profit faced formidable, if not insurmountable, problems.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Firstly, as we have seen, the large scale investments necessary for the rapid expansion of ‘Fordist’ mass production had been carried out by commercial and industrial monopoly corporations and conglomerates. As a consequence, these corporations had accumulated substantial amounts of fixed capital in the expansion of productive capacity. But by exploiting their monopoly position they were able to resist any scrapping of excess productive capacity and the devaluation of their fixed capital that this would entail. Thus there was little scope to remedy the over-accumulation through the scrapping of excess capital and the devaluation of accumulated capital.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Secondly, after nearly two decades of near full employment, the organised working class in the advanced capitalist economies had established strong entrenched positions that allowed them to thwart attempts to reverse the falling rate of profit through increasing the rate of exploitation. The ability of the working class to defend existing terms and conditions and working practices meant that attempts to increase the productivity of labour, through such means as raising the pace and intensity of production or through introducing new technology, had become increasingly limited.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Furthermore, attempts by capitalists to restore profits by raising prices only served to solicit demands for higher wages to compensate for the rising cost of living. This resulted in a price-wage spiral and thus accelerating inflation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<br />
The falling rate of profit, coupled with the growing social instability and class conflict that it helped to exacerbate, resulted in a decline in productive investment and thus a slowdown in the real accumulation of productive capital. In order to offset this slowdown in capital accumulation and to maintain economic growth and full employment, governments sought to use Keynesian fiscal policies to ‘spend their way out of the crisis’. However, this merely aggravated inflation and put upward pressure on interest rates and led to mounting state debts.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Marxists could then argue that, in the face of falling rates of profit, economic stagnation and increasing political and social instability, the capitalists typical response to such problems was to take refuge in financial speculation. But banking and finance only served to redistribute not create surplus value. As such it was ultimately a zero sum game, in which capitalists sought to gain at the expense of other capitalists. Thus, the rise of the political and economic power of finance and the corresponding ideological turn to neoliberalism, could be seen as merely a symptom of the underlying stagnation of capitalism.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
However, whatever the disagreements at the time between radical Keynesians and Marxists about the causes and significance of both the release of finance and the turn to neoliberalism, it could be agreed that it could only have a devastating economic and social impact, which seemed to offer little in the way of a long term to solution to the economic stagnation of capitalism. Indeed, following Volcker’s adoption of monetarist policies, the US, and consequently the rest of the world, was plunged into a deep recession. Manufacturing industry, in particular, was decimated, and unemployment soared to levels not seen since the Great Depression of the 1930s.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Although the decimation of industry served to eliminate excess productive capacity and thereby halt the fall in the rate of profit, at the time it seemed far from sufficient to resolve the problems of capitalism’s stagnation. Capital, it appeared, had nowhere to go after the ‘Fordist mode of accumulation’. The computer, information and communication technologies, which were to provide the basis of what was to become known as the ‘new economy’, were still in their infancy. At the same time, the concentration of Fordist capital accumulation in the advanced capitalist economies during the post war era had left much of the rest of the world undeveloped and lacking the economic infrastructure that would enable a large scale relocation of capital.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The recovery from the recession of the 1980s was only brought about by Ronald Reagan’s adoption of an economic policy that has often been described as being ‘military Keynesianism’. Following his election in 1980, Reagan abandoned the policy of detente and set about accelerating the arms race with the USSR. Military spending rocketed at the same time as Reagan slashed taxes on the rich and large corporations. As a result the US government budget deficit soared from 2.7% in 1980 to 6% of GDP in 1984. This quasi-Keynesian deficit spending provided a huge stimulus to the US economy allowing it to pull the rest of the world economy out of recession.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
However, at the time, this appeared as merely a short term palliative to the underlying problem of economic stagnation. It could be persuasively argued that the US could not sustain such high deficits, particularly when the money that was being borrowed was being economically wasted on unproductive militarily expenditure and increased conspicuous consumption for the rich. It could be concluded with - what has become a repeated refrain amongst both Marxists and radical Keynesians up until the present day - that the economic recovery was based on an unsustainable bubble of debt.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
This argument seemed to be confirmed with the return of the world economic recession at the beginning of the 1990s.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<br />
Meanwhile the sharp rise in interest rates and the economic recession at the beginning of the 1980s triggered the ‘third world’ sovereign debt crisis. This was followed by the biggest stock market crash in 1987 and the US Savings and Loans crisis of 1990. As such, the ‘liberation’ of finance and banking could be seen to have only served to increase economic and financial instability.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
By the end of the 1980s many Marxists could argue that the restructuring of capital accumulation had largely failed. The only way out for capitalism was a cataclysmic event such as a world war that could bring about a mass destruction of capital and allow capital accumulation to take place on renewed footing. After all it could be argued that it had been the Second World War that had prepared the way for the long-post war boom. Yet with hindsight we can see how the basis for a new long upswing was already being put in place. We must now look a little closer at the role the emergence of global finance and banking had in this.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify">
<span style="font-size: 16px">Global banking and finance and the foundations of the long upswing</span></h3>
<p>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The growth of international banking and finance meant that an increasing proportion of shares of the large monopoly corporations were being held by investors looking for the highest short term returns. Even a rumour that the next quarter’s profit forecast might prove disappointing could now lead to speculative flight from a company’s shares and a collapse in its share price. Such a fall in its stock market valuation could then put a company at risk of a hostile take-over bid.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As a result company managers were obliged to concentrate on the short term profit performance of the company in order to maintain high dividend payouts and keep the valuation of their company high. The ‘maximisation of shareholder value’ became an overriding imperative. Managers could no longer put off difficult decisions. They had to face down opposition from their workforce and push through rationalization, downsizing and outsourcing of ‘non-essential’ functions in order to make their companies mean and lean. Capital sunk in the company had to be sweated to earn the highest return. Failure to do so would mean being replaced by a new management team appointed by the new owners who would be ruthless enough to force through the necessary changes.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
This competitive pressure exerted by the financial markets had two distinct effects. Firstly, it ensured that management kept wage rates down and work rates high in order to maximise profits. Secondly, by ensuring companies were ‘mean and lean’ it meant that any excess capital could be liquidated and siphoned off into the financial markets, in the form of higher dividend payments, to swell the pool of free loanable money-capital.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
At first the growing pools of international loanable money-capital had ended up flooding into the USA to finance Reagan’s massive budget deficit. Although at the time it might seem the emerging global financial system was simply financing Reagan’s profligate tax cuts and military spending programmes, with hindsight it can seen that in doing so it was playing an important, if indirect, role in bringing about the restructuring of capital accumulation.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Firstly, the escalation of the arms race eventually brought about the fall of the ‘evil empire’ thereby opening up whole new regions of the world for capital accumulation in the following decades.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Secondly, and more immediately, the military programmes inaugurated by Reagan, particularly the Strategic Missile Defence Initiative or ‘Star Wars’ as it was commonly known, effectively served as a hidden state investment programme. Through Star Wars military spending was channelled into funding the vast research and development of the computer, information and communication technologies that was necessary to provide the foundation for the take off of the ‘new economy’ in the 1990s.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Under the Bush (Snr) and the Clinton administrations, concerted efforts were made to wind down the huge deficits that had been inherited from the Reagan era. By the end of Clinton’s second term the US budget deficit had been eliminated. However, by then whole new spheres of investment opportunities had opened up providing ample demand for the supplies of free loanable money-capital flowing through the global banking and financial system. Firstly there were the new emerging economies of Asia and secondly there was the emergence of the ‘new economy’.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<span style="font-size: 14px"><span style="font-weight: bold">Global finance and the ‘newly emerging market economies’</span></span><br />
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As we have previously mentioned, the long post war boom, driven by the ‘Fordist mode of capital accumulation’, had been largely confined to the USA and the other advanced capitalist economies. Most international capital investment had taken the form of foreign direct investment within the developed world – and was predominantly by US transnational corporations setting up production in Western Europe.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As a result, as third worldists at the time often lamented, much of the ‘third world’ was relegated to primarily producing raw materials and agricultural products, which lacked the economic dynamism provided by ‘Fordist’ manufacturing industries. As a consequence, capital accumulation in the core had only a minimal impact in promoting economic growth and development in the economies on the periphery of the western world.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
There had, of course, been attempts by various ‘third world’ governments, often in alliance with the USSR and other state capitalist countries of the Eastern bloc, to pursue national autarchic industrialisation strategies. With varying degrees of success, governments in the periphery had sought to promote the development of domestic manufacturing industries by protecting the home market from manufactured imports. But by the 1970s these ‘import substitution’ strategies had largely run out of steam due to both limited home demand for manufacturers and by a lack of access to modern production technologies. Nevertheless, this limited development of manufacturing industries in the more developed ‘third world’ had created a substantial pool of cheap and compliant labour, which was both, accustomed to the disciplines of wage labour and possessed the necessary skills for factory production. Indeed, with much of the world population outside the heartlands of western capitalism there was, in the longer term, a vast potential for the global expansion of capital beyond the advanced capitalist economies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
However, there had been formidable barriers preventing western capital exploiting the vast potential pool of labour in the ‘third world’. Firstly there had been numerous political problems. Thus for example, any transnational corporation considering investment in a ‘third world’ country, particularly one that had been committed to a nationalist industrialisation strategy, faced the risk that the government might at some time in the future nationalise their investments.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
But, perhaps more importantly, there were the sizeable economic barriers to the globalisation of capital. If transnational corporations were to set up production they first of all needed dependable communication and transport networks, and they needed reliable sources of power, gas and water, but the economies of the ‘South’ often lacked such basic economic infrastructure. Although there might be substantial savings in labour costs, given that labour in the ‘third world’ was far cheaper than that in the transnational corporation’s home country, this would usually be more than offset by the large scale investments required for the construction of the economic infrastructure necessary before production could even begin.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Secondly, the transfer of productive capital required the existence of an economic milieu of small- and medium-sized enterprises that could provide the vast range of ‘goods and services’ necessary to maintain day-to-day production and to feed, clothe and house the company’s workforce. In the absence of such local suppliers, a transnational corporation would have to ship everything required to maintain production itself. This would often not only have been prohibitively expensive, but also a logistical nightmare.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As a consequence, it had only been in agriculture and the extractive industries, such as mining, where climatic or geological factors meant there was no option but to site production in the less developed world, that the transnational corporations of the US and the western world had ventured south. Even then, as third worldists and development economists at the time often pointed out, foreign direct investment for the most part only created economically developed enclaves, since the transnational corporations only invested in economic infrastructure that was strictly necessary for their own operations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In the 1970s the seeds were sown for what was to become the ‘globalisation of capital’, which was to see the outflanking of the entrenched positions of the working class in the advanced capitalist economies. And, as we shall see, the emergence of what was to become the global banking and financial system was to play a central part in the relocation of productive capital. First of all, in the face of falling profits, growing political instability and an increasingly intransigent working class in the heartlands of capitalism, transnational corporations began to look upon the prospect of relocating production, particularly manufacturing, to the more developed economies in the periphery far more favourably than they had previously. Secondly, there was the impact of the recycling of petrodollars through the emerging international banking system.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As the ‘sovereign debt crises’ of the early 1980s were to reveal all too clearly, much of the petrodollar loans made by banks to ‘third world’ governments had been frittered away either in fuelling local arms races or else on grand prestigious public projects that turned out to be white elephants. Nevertheless, a substantial amount of these loans had been used to promote a switch from an import substitution industrialisation strategy to an export-led strategy. Previously, any attempt to promote export-led growth had run into the problem of a lack of US dollars. Any large scale investment programme necessary to develop export industries would result in an initial surge in imports of raw materials and other commodities necessary to set up production. This would lead to a sharp rise in the outflow of US dollars to pay for them until production was up and running and the dollar revenues from export sales began to flow in. With limited dollar reserves a government attempting to promote such an investment programme would soon find itself with a serious currency crisis on its hands. However, with western banks falling over themselves to lend them petrodollars they had been able to lift this dollar constraint.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Furthermore, by borrowing from western banks ‘third world’ governments were able to finance the construction of the economic infrastructure necessary to encourage investment from western transnational corporations. This direct investment then brought with it access to both the most up to date production technology and to the transnational corporations well-established sales and distribution networks in their home markets.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Thus, the 1970s saw the beginnings of the relocation of the more labour intensive ‘Fordist’ lines of production to what were then known as the newly industrialising countries of the capitalist periphery. However, the world recession of the early 1980s saw a sharp fall in the demand for the manufactured exports from these countries. At the same time, as export revenues fell, the costs of servicing the huge debts that had built up rose with the sharp increase in interest rates. This produced the ‘third world’ sovereign debt crises of the early 1980s. With many western banks having had their fingers burnt in this crisis they became far less inclined to lend to ‘third world’ governments and the whole process of recycling petrodollars came to a halt.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Nevertheless, pressures on transnational corporations to exploit the opportunities that had been opened up to relocate production to the periphery were now to intensify. Firstly, the high exchange rate of the US dollar in the early 1980s, made many manufactured commodities produced in the USA uncompetitive. There was therefore a strong incentive for US transnationals corporations to continue to relocate production, particularly to nearby Central and South America. Then, with the sharp fall in the US dollar following the Plaza Agreement of 1985, and the corresponding sharp rise in the exchange rate of the Yen, many Japanese transnational corporations were prompted to transfer the more labour intensive stages of the production of commodities destined to be exported to the USA to neighbouring South Korea and Taiwan, whose currencies remained pegged to the US dollar and where there were plentiful supplies of cheap labour. As a result the momentum for the relocation of production was maintained through the 1980s.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As we have seen, by the late 1980s the US government had set about unwinding the huge budget deficits run up under Reagan. The demand for loanable funds to finance the deficit began to fall at the same time as the liquidation of capital in the old established Fordist industries of the US and other advanced capitalist economies continued to increase supply. As a result there was a renewed interest on the part of global banking and finance in what were to become known as the ‘newly emerging market economies’ of Asia and Latin America. Western banks began making loans not only to ‘third world’ governments and transnational corporations to facilitate the relocation of production, but also to local banks in Asia and Latin America. Using their local knowledge and business connections, these local banks were then able to make loans to a wide variety of small- and medium-sized firms crucial to developing the economic milieu of local suppliers that could then further encourage direct investment from transnational corporations and thereby hasten the accumulation of capital.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
This dynamic process was given a further twist by Western banks securitising these loans and selling them on to other financial institutions interested in buying liquid assets that had offered high returns. This gave rise to what became known as the emerging market economies securities market that served to funnel short term investment flows into financing the rapid export led growth of Latin America and, in particular, east and south-east Asia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<span style="font-size: 14px"><span style="font-weight: bold">Global finance and the emergence of the ‘The New Economy’</span></span><br />
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As we have seen, the dramatic increase in military spending under Reagan had, in part, served as a huge hidden state investment programme that had funded the rapid development of the new information, communications and computer technologies. State investment, driven by military objectives and imperatives, was central to startling advances both in the processing power and miniaturisation of hardware and the increasing sophistication of software, which was necessary in providing the foundations of what was to become the ‘new economy’. However, in the subsequent development of the commercial applications of these new technologies the role of private finance and investment was to play a far more significant role.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In the early 1990s it was still far from certain how the emerging new technologies would develop, how they would be used and how they could be made profitable. Investment in the emerging ‘new economy’ promised high returns but high risks. A situation well suited to ‘casino’ operations of high finance and banking. Banks were prepared to lavishly fund promising ‘new tech’ start ups and then float them on stock markets, selling shares to investors looking for high risk-high return investments. The flood of loanable money capital from banks and the financial markets then served to fuel the take off of the ‘new economy’ that occurred in the 1990s.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The take off of the ‘new economy’ had an important impact on the ‘old economy’, which in turn provided growing demand for ‘new tech’ products. Administration costs could be cut with the computerisation of offices, computer aided design reduced research and development costs, computerised stock control and faster and more efficient communications increased the turnover of capital and reduced amount of stocks that could be held, in these and in many other ways the commercial application of the new technologies served to increase the rate of profit in the ‘old economy’. Furthermore, the ‘new economy’ opened up a whole new range of commodities and ways of selling them from which profits could be made.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
So, as we have seen, the emergence of global finance and banking played an important, but by no means an exclusive role, in the restructuring of world capital accumulation that provided the basis for the restoration of the general rate of profit and hence what was to become the long economic upswing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
First of all, the ‘liberation of finance’ helped galvanise capital to launch a counter-offensive against the working class at the level of both the state, through the implementation of neoliberal policies, and at the level of individual capitals, through rationalisation, redundancies and the intensification of labour. Secondly, the emergence of global banking and finance served to liquidate capital fixed in low profit industries, particularly in the old Fordist industries located with the advanced capitalist economies. And thirdly, by facilitating the transfer of this liquidated capital to potentially high profit locations and industries, the emergence of global banking and finance helped to open up new spheres of profits with the emergence of the ‘new economy’ and the ‘newly emerging market economies’ in Asia and elsewhere.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
During, these early stages in the restructuring of global capital accumulation, particularly between the late 1980s and late 1990s, the demand from these new spheres of investment for free loanable money capital tended to outrun the supply. The period was characterized by a relative dearth of loanable money capital flowing through the global banking and financial system. An indication of this undersupply of money capital was the persistence of relatively high interest rates through this period. But perhaps more significantly it was reflected in the frequent specific financial crises that typify this time. As the limited amount of footloose loanable money capital swashed around from one specific area of investment to another it gave rise to booms and busts in each of these areas. Thus, for example, there was the savings & loans crisis in late 1980s, the Mexican crisis in 1994, the Asian crisis in 1997, the Russian crisis in 1998 and the dot.com crisis in the US stock market in 2001.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
However, the restructuring of capital was to be taken to an altogether higher level with the rise of China. This opened up a new phase in the economic upswing that, as we shall now see, was typified by an oversupply of loanable money capital flowing through the global banking and financial system.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify">
<span style="font-size: 16px">The Rise of China</span></h3>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In 1992 Deng announced a major shift in Chinese economic policy that was to prove to be of world historical significance. Abandoning more than forty years of autarchic economic development, China was to open its doors to large scale foreign investment. As a result foreign investment flooded in to China, rising from negligible levels in 1992 to more than $50bn (equal to 5% of China’s GDP) ten years later, driving China’s economic transformation into the new ‘workshop of the world’.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The Deng announcement certainly came at a propitious time. The economic boom of east and south-east Asia, which had begun in the late 1980s, was now in full swing. Attracted by cheap and compliant labour, foreign investment had flooded into Asia, first of all to the more developed countries such as Taiwan and South Korea and then, as labour shortages and wage rises began to take hold there, to what became known as the Asian tiger economies; the Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, and Singapore. This incessant movement of capital in search of cheap labour had brought about both a disintegration and de-nationalisation of the production process in Asia. The production process of commodities was broken up into distinct stages; the more labour intensive stages being relocated to where there were lower wages and less skilled labour, while the more capital intensive stages were retained in those countries with relatively higher wages but a more skilled and reliable workforce. China, with its vast potential reservoirs of cheap and compliant labour, and its close proximity, appeared as an obvious next step for international investors. China could easily fit into the rapidly emerging Asian economy. Component parts produced across Asia could be transported for the more labour intensive stages of assembly in China before being shipped off to the US and western markets.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
However, the Chinese state was determined not to fling open the doors for foreign investments and invite any fly by night investors or speculators in search of a quick return. Only foreign capitalists that were prepared to make long term investments directly in the development of real production were to be welcome. Typically such direct foreign investment was to take the form of joint ventures, co-owned by predominantly US transnational corporations and the Chinese state.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
For their part the transnational corporations were to provide the design of manufactured products and advanced western technology embodied in plant and equipment necessary for their production. They were to provide business connections that could open the door to the distribution networks of the US and other western markets. And particularly important in the early stages of China’s integration into the US-centred global accumulation of capital, they were to provide working capital in the form of US dollars in order import the raw materials and other inputs necessary to get the joint venture off the ground. For its part the Chinese state was to provide a plentiful supply of cheap and compliant labour, along with investment in the economic infrastructure required for the efficient production and transportation of the commodities produced by the joint ventures.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Once the joint venture was up and running, the combination of western design and production technology, and a plentiful supply of cheap and compliant Chinese labour, certainly offered a win-win situation as far as the Chinese state and its ‘First-world chauvinist’ partners in their ‘imperialist citadels’. With costs of production far below any competitors elsewhere in the world, these joint ventures could sell well below the ruling world market price and still make handsome returns. The transnational corporation’s share of the joint venture’s profits would be sufficient to provide them with a rate of profit substantially higher than the general rate of profit they could expect to earn in the US or elsewhere in the advanced capitalist economies. But, at the same time, the Chinese state could ensure that it could appropriate the lion’s share of the returns in the form of taxation and its share of the joint venture’s profits, which could then be ploughed back in furthering capital accumulation and economic development in China.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In 1997 the economic boom in east and south-east Asia was brought to an abrupt halt. The rapid expansion of manufacturing industries had by the mid-1990s begun to outstrip the development of the economic infrastructure that was necessary to support it. Land and property prices had begun to rise sharply in the industrial and commercial areas of the region. The flows of short term foreign investment drawn from the western banks and the global financial markets, which, alongside direct foreign investment by transnational corporations, had originally helped finance the accumulation of real productive capital, now began to switch into property speculation. As a result, the rate of growth in manufacturing output, and with it Asian exports had begun to slow down. At the same time the windfall gains produced by the speculative property bubble to a large extent ended up being spent on luxury consumer imports. As a consequence, by 1997 the leading Asian tigers were heading for large and persistent trade deficits.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Nevertheless, it is possible that the trade deficits could have been sustained long enough to defuse the speculative boom if the Asian economies had been able to continue to attract enough US dollars in the form of foreign investment to cover the outflow of US dollars due to the trade deficit. But for the banks and financial markets the emerging ‘new economy’ in the US was now opening up safer if not more profitable investment opportunities for foreign investors, which now began to look like a better bet than carrying on investing in the Asian tigers in the hope that their economic imbalances could be sorted out without the bursting of the speculative bubble.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Pivotal to the Asian export-led boom had been the stability provided by fixed exchange rates, and it was with an exchange rate crisis that the wheels of the boom fell off. An essential ingredient to the success of the tiger economies had been the commitment of each of their governments to maintaining a given parity at which their national currency would exchange with the currency of both the world and their biggest export market - the US dollar. At the same time, with each currency pegged to the US dollar they were in effect pegged to each other creating an Asian system of fixed exchange rates.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
During the height of the boom, when US dollars were flooding in, due to both high levels of foreign investment and rising revenues from export sales, this commitment had been easy. All the monetary authorities had to do was to buy up the surplus dollars with their own currency and deposit them in the nation’s foreign currency reserves. There was effectively no limit to preventing an appreciation of their currency against the dollar because they were always free to issue more of their own currency with which to buy dollars. Now, with a dollar drain, in order to defend a fixed exchange rate against the pressure towards the devaluation of their currency against the US dollar, they now had to be prepared to enter the foreign exchange markets and to buy up the surplus of their own currency with dollars, thereby depleting their dollar reserves. The monetary authorities were therefore limited by the amount of their reserves of dollar holdings.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Although the Asian tiger economies had together accumulated substantial reserves preventing their currencies appreciating against the US dollar during the height of the boom, it was now a depleting hoard divided up into several national reserves. It now became a plausible possibility that a well timed and sustained speculative attack on a currency of any one of the Asian tigers could be sufficient to exhaust that country’s national dollar reserves hoarded at its central bank, and force a sharp devaluation of its currency against the US dollar – thereby, of course, providing a killing for any speculator brave enough to lead the charge by betting early on such an outcome.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As it turned out, it was Thailand that proved to be the weak link and was the first to succumb to a speculative attack in July 1997. Tasting blood, the pack of currency speculators then turned on the Philipines. Within weeks the Asian system of fixed exchange rates had collapsed. Those foreign investors that could made for the exits. No longer able to borrow on the global financial market, Asian banks were no longer able to roll over their foreign debts and were forced to call in their loans to Asian businesses. Thus the exchange rate crisis rapidly developed into both a financial and economic crisis in the region, which was to see widespread bankruptcies, a sharp slow down in economic growth and tens of millions of workers plunged into abject poverty after losing their jobs.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
At the time there had been serious concerns amongst Chinese policymakers that the shock waves from the financial and economic crisis elsewhere in Asia might wreck China’s still fledgling export-led growth strategy. However, with hindsight the Asian crisis provided a timely opportunity for China to establish itself as the hub of Asian manufacturing production. As we have seen, unlike its neighbours, China had avoided being reliant on the footloose short term investments provided by the western banks and the global financial markets. With its strict controls over capital flows and the convertibility of its currency, China was sheltered from the worst of the financial storm that was wreaking havoc elsewhere in the eastern Pacific. Amidst the economic chaos besetting its Asian neighbours, China now shone forth as a haven of stability. Overcoming any surviving misgivings that, as a still nominally Communist state, it might in the future revert to type and nationalise foreign investments, transnational corporations now focused their attention on China’s vast profit potential. Whereas the rest of the east and south-east Asian regions suffered a collapse in foreign investment in the aftermath of the crisis, China suffered merely a brief pause in its growth. China could now establish itself as the principal destination for foreign investment destined for the ‘newly emerging market economies’ of east and south-east Asia.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
With foreign direct investment pouring in, and with the Chinese state ensuring approaching 50% of China’s GDP was reinvested, both in the expansion of export-manufacturing production directly, and in the state’s vast infrastructure construction programme that was necessary to sustain rapid economic development into the future, China had within less than five years established itself as the heart of the emerging Asian ‘tiger’ economy. At first this rise to prominence had at least been partly at the expense of its neighbouring ‘newly emerging market economies’ of east and south-east Asia. In the aftermath of the crisis, stages in the chain of manufacturing production, particularly the final assembly stages, previously undertaken elsewhere in Asia, were now relocated to China. Soon, most Asian manufactures destined for export to the US and other advanced capitalist economies, were at least partly produced in China. At the same time as establishing itself as the funnel through which Asian manufactures poured in the US and western markets, China began a concerted ‘move up the production chain’ to take on earlier more capital intensive stages of the production process. As a result China was able to secure a growing proportion of the value of the manufactured exports produced in the east and south-asian economy.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
This displacement of value production from its Asian competitors was increasingly offset by two factors. Firstly, the rapid and sustained growth in the volume, and hence the total value, of Asian exports being funnelled through China to the US and the West increasingly compensated for the declining proportion of this total value falling to China’s neighbours. Their slice of the cake might be diminishing relative to that of China, but this could be largely offset by the growth in the total size of the cake. Secondly, China’s ambitious infrastructure construction programme – that was to see industrial cities the size of London being brought into being in a matter of few years – required huge quantities of oil, coal, timber, steel and concrete, along with various other raw materials, necessary to build road and rail networks, power plants and other utilities, as well as to construct houses, offices and factories. Before the Asian boom, many of the Asian tiger economies had specialised in the production of such raw materials. Hence it was relatively easy for them to revert back and expand such production to meet China’s growing demand.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
By the early years of the new millennium, China had become not only the heart but the locomotive of the region. China’s economic growth was serving to pull it neighbours out of the recession that had followed the 1997 financial and economic crisis. However, China had not only established a complimentary dynamic of accumulation between itself and the ‘newly emerging market economies’ of east and south-east Asia. It had also, as we have previously mentioned, established a similar, and perhaps far more important, dynamic of accumulation with the USA.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The essential complementarity in the economic relation between the USA and China was certainly recognised and reflected in the rather sanguine view taken on the part of the US bourgeoisie to the rapid emergence of China as a major economic powerhouse in the world. Of course, there were concerns dating back to the early stages of the Asian boom in the 1980s, that the import of cheap Asian manufactured goods was displacing American industry and making American workers redundant. Now, with the rise of China, this stream of Asian imports had become a flood. But it could be countered that to the extent that imports from China were driving American industry out of business, this was for the most part only hastening the demise of those American industries that had long been in a state of decline anyway. What was more, a large proportion of the commodities now being imported from China was hardware for the information and communication technology that had not been previously produced in the USA in the first place because they had yet to be invented. Indeed, it is perhaps true that overall the displacement of American industry and jobs arising from Chinese competition has been marginal. Although, of course, the threat of outsourcing to China has proved a potent weapon in the armoury of the capitalist in keeping down the demands of the American working class in recent years.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
There were plenty of other good reasons for the American bourgeoisie to welcome the rise of China. The flood of cheap manufacturers from China had played a valiant part in the defeat of inflation. The high returns from their joint ventures in China bolstered the profits of US transnational corporations and enhanced the dividends distributed to their large American shareholders. Not only this, as we shall see in more detail shortly, the Chinese monetary authorities could be said to have played a key role in allowing the US government and the Federal Reserve to take action to mitigate the economic downturn following the dot.com crash.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
If this was not enough, it was the rise of China that had served to substantially broaden the US-centred global accumulation of capital. By the middle of the last decade, rapid Chinese economic growth had meant that world demand for fuel, raw materials and food was beginning to outrun supply. As a result, world prices for such ‘primary commodities’, which for nearly two decades had been depressed, began to rise. This was a boon for those economies that produced such commodities in the less developed world - not only in Asia, but now also in Latin America and even Africa - who could now export more at a better price. But it was not only economies on the periphery of world capitalism that benefited from the rapid economic growth in China. China’s growing demand for more sophisticated manufactures, such as machinery, machine tools and heavy vehicles, had begun to haul even Japan out of its long period of stagnation. The rise of China had served to raise the rate of accumulation across the globe, and in doing so could be seen as opening up plenty of investment opportunities.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Yet despite all this, there had certainly been worries amongst bourgeois commentators at the time concerning the sustainability of the growing ‘financial imbalances’ that had arisen along with the rise and continued expansion of China. To understand the relation of the rise of China to the financial crisis it is necessary to turn and consider these financial imbalances more closely.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<span style="font-weight: bold">The rise of China and the supply and demand of loanable money- capital</span><br />
For the neoliberal ideologist China’s great economic transformation over the last two or three decades is due to China abandoning a ‘socialist command economy’ in favour of a ‘free market capitalism’. But, as we have seen, what has been essential to the continued rise of China has been its rejection of what is usually taken as the epitome of free market capitalism - the financial markets. China’s rapid capital accumulation has been financed first and foremost through state-directed investment. The Chinese state has ensured that the most of the surplus value produced in China has been reinvested in China. To the extent that Chinese capital accumulation has been dependent on external financing this has taken the form of foreign direct investment by transnational corporations, rather than by borrowing from western banks or issuing debt on the global financial markets.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As such the rise of China has had little direct impact on the demand for loanable money-capital in the global financial system. But it can be argued that it has served to increase the demand for loanable money-capital indirectly at least in two distinct ways. Firstly, in raising capital to invest in joint ventures in China, the transnational corporations will certainly themselves have resorted to the financial system by issuing shares and corporate bonds or else taking out bank loans. The long delivery times involved in producing in China and selling in the USA also require short term credit from banks or the financial markets. However, the bulk of the investment funds will have come from retained profits; at first largely from the profits made in the US and subsequently, increasingly from ploughing back profits previously made in China.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Secondly, and more indirectly, to the extent that it has stimulated capital accumulation elsewhere in the world, the rise of China can be seen to have increased the demand for loanable money-capital. This is perhaps particularly the case for those emerging market economies that, unlike China, have been more open to allowing an inflow of investment funds from western banks and the financial markets.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Yet overall, given its scale, the emergence of China as the Asian epi-centre of the global accumulation of capital has had a relatively limited impact on the demand for money-loanable capital from the global financial system. Yet this is not so much the case when we turn to consider the supply-side. To see this we have to look more closely at the ‘financial imbalances’ that have emerged between China and the US.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<span style="font-size: 14px"><span style="font-weight: bold">Trade and financial imbalances </span></span><br />
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As we have mentioned, an essential ingredient to the success of the Asian boom had been the commitment on the part of the governments of east and south-east Asia to maintaining a fixed exchange rate between their own currencies and the US dollar. However, this policy objective had not been merely confined to these Asian economies. Across the less developed world those economies seeking to follow the Asian example of export-led growth had, with varying degrees of success, attempted to tie the value of their currencies to that of the US dollar. The financial crises that hit Asia and Latin America during the 1990s had served to disrupt this tendency towards a system of fixed exchange rates amongst the ‘emerging market economies’. However, since then this tendency has resumed, with China emerging as the keystone in this new system of fixed exchange rates. This gave rise to some bourgeois economists to declare the emergence of a new Bretton Woods system of exchange rates.<a class="see-footnote" href="#footnote11_jf34hqk" id="footnoteref11_jf34hqk" title="‘An Essay on the Revived Bretton Woods System’, NBER Working Paper Series, 2003, by M.P.Dooley, D. Folkerts-Landau and Peter Garber."><font color="#6191c5" size="2">11</font></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As China became the main portal through which cheap Asian manufactures were pouring into American markets, its trade surplus with the USA grew rapidly. But up until 2002 this had been more than offset by its trade deficit with east and south-east Asia. As such, the US dollars that came into China in the form of export revenues and foreign investment were spent on the purchase of component parts and other intermediary products necessary to produce the commodities bound for export to the USA, and the raw materials and products necessary to maintain its vast infrastructure construction programme. In 2002 China’s growing trade surplus with the USA overtook its Asian trade deficit. From then on China found itself with a growing surplus of dollars that placed upward pressure on the dollar value of the yuan. In order to maintain its fixed exchange the Chinese monetary authorities were obliged to buy up the surplus dollars. China’s foreign exchange reserves, which were largely made up of US dollars, soared. In little more than five years China’s monetary authorities had accumulated more than $2 trillion in its foreign exchange reserves.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
However, the Chinese authorities, like all other monetary authorities facing a surplus of dollars, did not simply stuff their vaults full of greenbacks. The dollars were used to buy up US treasury bills. In this way the Chinese monetary authorities were able to ‘put their reserves to work’ earning a modest interest by investing in safe security that could easily be converted back into dollars in an emergency. At the same time, the dollars were recycled back to the USA, helping the US government to finance both its own debt and the American economy’s growing trade deficit with China.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<br />
This recycling of China’s dollar surplus proved to be quite timely since it allowed the USA to pursue the expansionary fiscal and monetary policies that were necessary to mitigate the financial and economic aftershock of the dot.com crash. Between 2002 and 2004 the US government had moved from a budget surplus amounting to more than 2% of US GDP to a 4% deficit as it cut taxes for the rich and increased spending to ward off a severe economic recession. With China’s growing appetite for US treasury bills, the US government found it relatively easy to finance this sharp increase in the government deficit without pushing up interest rates. Indeed, with the short term money markets swollen by the recycling of China’s dollar surplus, the US monetary authorities had been able to drastically cut interest rates.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Of course, by allowing the US to reflate its way out of recession, China was able to sustain its growing exports to the USA, and hence its export-led growth. This recycling of China’s dollar surplus certainly seemed to have ensured a mutually beneficial economic dynamic between the USA and China. However, there were certainly concerns expressed amongst bourgeois economists at the time over the sustainability of this dynamic, most of which focused on the problem of mounting US debt that this involved.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The US had been running a substantial trade deficit with the rest of the world for more than two decades. In order to cover this trade deficit it had been necessary that financial inflows into the US had grown faster than outflows. Indeed, as long ago as the late 1980s the US had turned from being the world’s largest creditor nation to being its largest debtor nation. As a result, by 2005 US debt accumulated by foreign corporations and governments amounted to more than 75% of the annual GDP of the USA. The issue was how much longer the USA could continue to borrow, particularly now that much of this borrowing was being used to finance unproductive government expenditure and a debt fuelled consumer boom. Or as it was more prosaically put: how much more could Americans continue to spend more than they earned? Would not the interest and other payments on these debts sooner or later reach unsustainable levels?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Now, it could be pointed out that although American debt accumulated by foreigners had reached 75% of US GDP, American investments abroad had grown to 50% of GDP. Net debt was therefore a far more comfortable 25% of GDP. Furthermore, US investments abroad tended to bring significantly larger returns than investments in the US. This was even more so given that much of the debt was now being accumulated by China along with other emerging market economies in the form of low interest US treasury bills, as a result of them seeking to maintain fixed exchange rates. This differential in the rate of returns between US investments abroad and foreign investments in the USA meant that the US economy taken as a whole could run up a substantial net debt before it reached the slippery slope of ‘Ponzi’ financing where it would in effect be borrowing more money in order to pay off the interest on existing loans. Even when it had reached this point of moving into ‘Ponzi financing’, it would still take a number of years before the burden of debt would become a serious problem.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
By 2007 there were strong indications that the ‘financial imbalances’ were being unwound. Capital accumulation in the US had begun to pick up speed, taking up the strain of maintaining economic growth. Rising tax revenues from the expanding economy had reduced the government budget deficit, while rising exports was reducing the US trade deficit with the rest of the world.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Nevertheless there remained concerns amongst more conservative bourgeois commentators, who viewed China more in terms of a future threat rather than as a probationary member of the ‘international community’ that was offering lucrative profit opportunities. For them the issue was not so much the size of the mounting debts of either the US government or the US economy as a whole – and hence the problem of paying them back at some point in the future - but rather the issue was the danger posed by the fact that a large and growing proportion of these debts were held by the Chinese state. In 2000 China accounted for half the trade surplus of the ‘newly emerging market economies’ of east and south-east Asia with the rest of the world. By 2005, with most of east and south-east Asian exports being funnelled through China, it accounted for virtually all the region’s trade surplus. As a result, the Asian dollar surplus had become increasingly concentrated in China. In recycling this dollar surplus, the Chinese monetary authorities had become by far the largest purchaser of US government treasury bills. Thus the day to day financing of the US government had become dependent on the continuing goodwill of the Chinese state.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In the event of a political confrontation between the USA and China – say for example due to a flare up over the security of Taiwan – it was argued that the Chinese could exercise considerable leverage over the USA by threatening to stop buying its treasury bills. Alternatively the Chinese monetary authorities may, for purely economic reasons, decide that they had accumulated more than enough dollar holdings to insure themselves against some unforeseen economic crisis and they would be better off buying securities issued by Japanese and European governments that offered a superior rate of return.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
For whatever reason, whether political or economic, a decision by the Chinese state to substantially reduce its dollar holdings would cause a sharp fall in the US dollar. The Federal Reserve Board would be obliged to raise interest rates to exorbitant levels, both in order to attract the money necessary to keep the US government functioning and to defend the value of dollar. A hike in rates would then bring the US economy shuddering to a halt.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
But it could be countered that such scenarios were unlikely because it was not in the interest of China to cause an economic crisis in the US, since this would bring its own export-led growth to an abrupt halt. As a political weapon, a sudden reduction in China’s dollar holdings was something of a nuclear option that could ensure the mutually assured economic destruction of all parties. Furthermore, it could be pointed out that from about 2005 China had already begun to rebalance its foreign exchange reserves by reducing the proportion held in the form of dollar denominated assets.<a class="see-footnote" href="#footnote12_au1eiey" id="footnoteref12_au1eiey" title="Chinese monetary authorities were able to begin a gradual rebalancing of its foreign currency reserves for two reasons. Firstly, the opening up of other markets, particularly those in Europe, to Chinese exports meant that a larger proportion of export earnings in to China took the form of currencies other than the US dollar. Secondly, China allowed the a gradual but controlled appreciation of the Yuan against the US dollar."><font color="#6191c5" size="2">12</font></a> But this rebalancing had necessarily been very gradual for fear of sparking a financial panic. If the market became convinced that the Chinese monetary authorities were to substantially reduce their dollar holdings, rather than merely accumulate them at a slightly slower rate, then speculators would rush to sell US government assets and US dollars triggering an economic crisis. Indeed, for the time being, it could be argued that the Chinese state was for all intents and purposes locked into the continued financing of US debts.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The mainstream view of bourgeois commentators and economists therefore considered such scenarios as being unlikely. However, if the mutually reinforcing dynamic of growth between China and the US was to break down it was generally accepted that this would be due the ‘financial imbalances’ arising from this dynamic causing a crisis in the foreign exchange markets resulting from a collapse in the exchange rate of the US dollar. But as we now know the crisis broke out in the global banking system not in the foreign exchange markets, or the market for US treasury bills - both of which remained remarkably stable given the scale of the financial crisis. The reason for this is that too much focus was placed on the accumulation of debt rather than on the wider impact of the financial flows that was giving rise to this stock of debt.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As we have seen, the demand for loanable capital from the global banking and financial markets to finance the rise of China had been limited. Yet, as we have now seen, China has provided a plentiful supply of short term loanable capital in the form of its purchase of US treasury bills. Short term money-capital that would have previously been invested in US treasury bills have been displaced into other financial markets. The supply of Chinese funds into the US Treasury Bill market has thereby served to swell the pool of loanable money-capital across all the global financial markets.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Yet this is not all. As we have seen, China’s rapid growth has pushed up world demand for primary commodities. This has meant the producers of such commodities have made major gains in trade and, as a result many have built up substantial trade surpluses. This is particularly the case for the oil exporting economies of the Middle East. The growing world demand for oil, largely driven by China, coupled with the decline of the old oil fields of the North Sea and Alaska, has led to the price of oil tripling in price between 2001 and 2007. With the lack of internal investment opportunities, other than the construction of super-luxury island resorts, and with much of the oil revenues flowing to the state, these windfall gains have taken the form of ‘sovereign wealth funds’. These funds have been set up to make investments abroad so as to secure future income for the Middle Eastern states when their oil eventually runs out. To a large but by no means exclusive part, these sovereign wealth funds have been used to buy up US and other government bonds, corporate bonds and equities and other financial assets traded on the global markets, as well as being deposited in western banks.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Thus the rise of China has both directly and indirectly contributed to the oversupply of loanable money-capital in the global financial system that can be seen to be the cause of the growing fragility and overexpansion of global banking and finance capital. Indeed, as Ben Bernanke, the current Chairman of the US Federal Reserve Board, has now with hindsight concluded:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In my view…it is impossible to understand this crisis without reference to the global imbalances in trade and capital flows that began in the latter half of the 1990s.<a class="see-footnote" href="#footnote13_q89z1lu" id="footnoteref13_q89z1lu" title="‘Financial Reform to Address Systemic Risk’. Speech given by Ben Bernanke at the Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C. March 2009. http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20090310a.htm "><font color="#6191c5" size="2">13</font></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify">
But it was perhaps not only the sheer volume of loanable money-capital supplied by both China and the sovereign wealth funds that was important in contributing to the fragility of the financial system but also their nature. China’s purchase of foreign assets on the global financial markets was determined by the policy objective of controlling the rate of exchange of the Yuan to the US dollar; while the sovereign wealth fund’s was to make long term investments. Neither China nor the Middle Eastern governments were interested in making short term speculative profits. As such their investment flows were immune from the day to day shifts in market sentiment. They thereby provided financial markets with an important ballast against speculative volatility that contributed to the ‘great moderation’ and the complacency that it bred.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
However, although Ben Bernanke may blame the Chinese, the international financial imbalances caused by the rise of China are only part of the story. We must now turn our attention back to the financial imbalances at the heart of the global accumulation of capital - that is the USA.</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify">
</h3>
<p>
<span style="font-size: 16px"><strong>The over expansion of finance and the US economy – old and new</strong></span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<span style="font-size: 14px"><span style="font-weight: bold">The US corporate ‘savings glut’</span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<br />
The dot.com crash brought the surge in investment in the US that had accompanied the emergence of the ‘new economy’ to an abrupt halt. As in any recession, companies realised that the growth projections in sales and profits which had justified high levels of investment during the heady days of the boom now looked decidedly shaky. If they were to avoid bankruptcy or hostile take-over bids, they had to abandon investment plans aimed at expanding their operations and instead set about cutting costs. Given that a substantial part of the surge in investment which had fuelled the boom had been financed by bank loans or the issue of shares or bonds on the financial markets, many companies found themselves in a precarious financial position. The first call on any profits they made had to be the paying down of debt and maintaining high dividend payouts to sustain shareholder value.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As we have previously pointed out, the recession that followed the dot.com crash proved to be particularly mild. After a brief period of retrenchment profit rates were soon restored. However, while profits made a quick recovery, investment in the real accumulation of capital proved to be far more protracted. Rather than re-investing the increase in their profits in expanding their business, companies continued to use it to pay down their debt, or in other ways improve their financial position.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
This gave rise to a rather peculiar situation. Except for brief periods during an economic recession, the corporate sector as a whole would expect to be a net borrower. However, since the dot.com crash the US non-financial corporate sector has become a substantial net saver (see FT diagram). Indeed, it was a result of such prolonged net saving that much of corporate America found itself in an exceptionally strong financial position that allowed it to weather the credit crunch and the subsequent near meltdown of the global banking system so well. However, although they played an important part in insulating the ‘real economy’ from the impact of the financial crisis, the accumulated financial surpluses of the non-financial corporate sector can be seen to have played a significant role in causing the financial crisis in the first place. To understand this we must take a closer and disaggregated look at the net savings of the US corporate sector.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As we have seen, the global banking and financial system had played a major role in the take off of the ‘new economy’ in the 1990s. Most of the myriad of start up dot.coms had been financed by generous bank loans and share issues. No one, least of all bankers and investors, could predict which band of the computer geeks that turned up at the banks’ doors with a seemingly plausible business plan would prove to be the next Mircosoft. Many would never even break even. However, it was enough for just one to prove commercially viable and the returns could be astronomical. However, following the dot.com crash the structure and direction of development of the ‘new economy’ had begun to settle down. Mircrosoft, Google and Apple had become well-established major corporations, and the dot.coms that had survived the cull following the crash could stake out most of the available niches in the ‘new economy’. There was clearly less room for new entrants, and thus less need for starting capital. Those dot.coms that had survived the cull, were now up and running and making real, as opposed to prospective, profits. With the high rates of profit now being earned in the ‘new economy’, companies could fund most of their investment out of their own profits and had little need for external financing. The capital accumulation in the ‘new economy’ had taken off and its expansion had become more or less self-sustaining.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Thus, although the rate of investment in the ‘new economy’, unlike other parts of the economy, recovered rapidly after the dot.com boom, its demand for loanable money capital from the banks and the financial markets declined. However, in the ‘old economy’ the relation to the global banking and financial system was the reverse of that of the ‘new economy’. Whereas the ‘new economy’ had been a source of demand, the ‘old economy’ had been a source of supply of loanable funds.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As we have seen, the release of finance had imposed on the management of even the largest publicly quoted corporation, the overriding imperative to ‘maximise shareholder value’. To do this it was necessary to regularly distribute a large amount of profit the company made in the form of dividends to its shareholders. This meant that mangers were under pressure to increase profits or squeeze the amount of profit retained for re-investment into expanding the business. Failure to ensure high and regular returns on its shares would soon lead to investors selling their shares in order to buy other company’s shares that offered better returns. This would then soon lead to a sharp drop in the company’s share price, and hence to a fall in its stock market valuation. With its shares so cheap, the company would then be ripe for a hostile takeover bid and the old management would then face being replaced by a new management team willing to either force through the changes necessary to restore shareholder value, or else to oversee the whole or partial liquidation of the company through the sale of its assets. To the extent that they were not simply spent on consumption but reinvested on the financial markets, or deposited with banks, the increased dividends served to swell the supply of loanable money-capital flowing into the global banking and financial system.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
However, from the late 1990s the imperative to ‘maximise shareholder value’, under the peril of hostile takeover bids, was intensified. In a period when loanable capital had been in relatively short supply, and when interest rates had been high, the main threat of a hostile takeover bid was from rival companies of at least a similar size, and operating in the same or a closely related industry. With loanable funds limited, any large scale takeover bid would find it difficult to raise enough funds to buy up sufficient shares to give overall control simply in cash. Instead any potential predator would have to offer to pay for shares, all or in part, with their own shares. This meant that any predator had to a corporation with a stock market valuation sufficiently large to swallow its prey. Furthermore, high interest rates meant that any takeover had to offer the prospects of substantial gains to make it worthwhile. The prospective gains from a takeover had to at least cover the interest on the funds borrowed, and be sufficient to offset any downward pressure in market valuation of the predator company due to the issuing of new shares to make the offer. Only rival firms could usually hope to make sufficient gains from any takeover through any synergies that could be obtained between the operations of the two firms, through the economies of scale that could be gained from merging the operations of two firms or by simply eliminating a close competitor. Simply appointing a more ruthless management team was, by itself, unlikely to be sufficient.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In a period of increasing abundance of loanable funds and low interest rates the number of potential predators is greatly increased by the feasibility of ‘leveraged buy outs’. Any consortium of well connected and wealthy businessmen could now launch a successful takeover of a large corporation through a ‘leveraged buy-out’. With an abundance of loanable funds, such a consortium need only advance a tenth, a twentieth or even as little as a thirtieth of the sum required to make a successful takeover bid of their own money, since they can easily borrow the rest. Furthermore, with interest rates so low, the new management team they hire to run the business need only make a marginal gain in the company’s stock market valuation before the consortium can sell the firm on, and with the proceeds pay off the loans they borrowed with interest and make a handsome return on the capital they themselves advanced.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In the rapidly expanding industries of the ‘new economy’ the best defence against hostile takeovers has been to reinvest rising profits in expanding the business to ensure the continued growth of profits in the near future. The prospect that investment in expanding the business now will soon lead to higher profits and thus higher dividend payments in the future should be sufficient to keep the stock market valuations high. However, in the ‘old economy’, which by any reasonable definition still comprises the bulk of the US economy, such a strategy is far less viable. Particularly for the old Fordist industries that have long since reached maturity, any investment in the real accumulation of capital is unlikely to bring quick returns. As such, any prospective profits from such investment are likely to be beyond the time horizon of most participants in the financial markets. They are therefore unlikely to carry much weight, however large they may be, on the stock market valuations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As a result the primary response of companies and corporations in the ‘old economy’ to the threat of hostile takeovers has been to use the proceeds of rising profits to buy off the threat of hostile takeovers. Firstly, increased profits have been distributed in the form of higher dividend payments. Secondly increased profits have been used to pay down debt. Thirdly, in what has been a relatively novel defensive strategy that has been developed over the past decade, increased profits have been used to buy back the company’s own shares. As a result, a large part of the rising profits in the ‘old economy’ have flowed into the global banking and financial system in the form of free loanable money capital.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
But like danegeld,<a class="see-footnote" href="#footnote14_clkj176" id="footnoteref14_clkj176" title="Danegeld (‘Dane's gold’ or Danish Tax) was a tax raised to pay tribute to Viking raiders to save a kingdom from being ravaged from 991 AD. However, once paid, it marked out those willing to pay as ‘easy marks’ – and the raiders would keep coming back demanding more."><font color="#6191c5" size="2">14</font></a> buying off hostile attacks only serves to encourage the attackers to come back for more. By paying higher dividends, by paying down debt or by buying back shares, in order to ward off the danger that they themselves might face a hostile takeover, individual companies only serve to swell the supply of loanable money-capital that in general makes such attacks more likely. There has therefore been a degree of self perpetuation in the process that has seen both a growing supply of loanable money capital flowing into the banking and financial system and the slow recovery of investment into the real accumulation of capital in the US.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As we have seen, international financial imbalances, the take off of the ‘new economy’ and the continued liquidation of capital within the ‘old economy’ in the USA and other advanced capitalist economies, has resulted in an over-supply of free loanable money-capital. But before we can see how this oversupply of investable funds produced the recent financial crisis we must consider its impact in bringing about an over-accumulation of banking and finance, particularly in the USA.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<span style="font-size: 14px"><span style="font-weight: bold">The over accumulation of finance and banking</span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<br />
What has struck most observers of the emergence of the global finance and banking system over the past three decades has been the sheer speed of its expansion. This rapid growth has meant the growing relative importance of the financial sector. In the USA, where of course the heart of global finance and banking is located, the financial sector now accounts for around 20% of GDP. But, perhaps far more significantly, the financial sector accounts for around 40% of the profits made by US corporations. This means that the financial sector has been able to capture more than its fair share of profits, and this has been reflected in the above average rates of profits made by most banks and other financial institutions. How has the financial sector been able to sustain such rapid expansion and high levels of profitability?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Banking and finance as such does not produce surplus value directly. Financial profits arise from the appropriation of surplus value produced and realised in the production and circulation of commodities in the ‘real economy’. To this extent finance could be said to be parasitical on the real accumulation of capital. However, although the financial sector does not directly produce surplus value, it does play an important role in facilitating the process of capital accumulation. Thus, for example, the financial system is able to bring about substantial reductions in the costs of making monetary transaction. The provision of bank credit and overdraft facilities greatly reduces the need for capital to be held idle in the form of money reserves. And perhaps most importantly, the financial system serves to convert the small short term savings of the population into loanable money capital that can be used to support long term investment. By providing such savings and services to ‘real capitals’ banks and financial companies are able to extract a share of the surplus value they have produced in the form of commissions, fees and interest. However, while this may explain the basis on which banks and other financial companies derive their profits, it does not explain how the financial sector has been able to sustain such an exceptionally high profitability over the past few decades.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Now it is true as many critics of high finance maintain that the profitability of the financial sector has been boosted by its rather privileged position. Repeatedly over the past three decades the banks and other financial companies have been bailed out by governments after the bursting of speculative bubbles. From the ‘third world’ debt crisis of the early 1980s to the recent near meltdown of the global financial system following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, governments and monetary authorities have time after time been obliged to in effect ‘nationalise’ the losses of the financial system. What is more, the political power of the financial sector has led to the steady reduction in banking regulations that serve to limit the over expansion of finance and excessive risk taking that lead to speculative bubbles. As a result financial companies have been able to make more risky investments that promise big profits knowing that if things turn bad a large slice of the losses will be mopped up by the authorities. Furthermore, the financial sector can be seen to be under-taxed. Thus, for example, while companies involved the production and sale of commodities are usually subject to some form of sales tax such as VAT, financial transactions and services are usually exempt. More importantly the very mobility of finance allows the financial sector to avoid or evade tax, or make profits from helping corporations and individuals to do likewise.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
It is no doubt true that bailouts and low taxes have contributed greatly to both the rapid expansion and the high profitability of the financial sector. However, we would argue the basis for such a sustained expansion and high profitability over the last thirty or so years has been the role the global financial system has played in bringing about the restructuring of global capital accumulation and the consequent restoration of profit rates. As we have seen, the development of global banking and finance has played an important role in the translocation of capital from industries and regions where profits are low and capital is over accumulated to new industries and regions where there is at least the prospect of high rates of profit. By mobilising loanable money capital to support the opening up of new areas of capital accumulation, by handling the vast increase in international money transactions this has entailed and by spreading and managing the risks of such speculative investments, the global banking and financial system has been able to take a significant cut in the increased profits that have resulted.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
However we explain the rapid expansion and high profitability of the financial sector one further question remains: why has the rate of profit in the financial sector remained so high? Why hasn’t capital rushed into the financial sector to take advantage of the high profits that can be made there and thereby bring about a reduction in its rate of profit? There are formidable barriers to entry into large areas of the financial sector, particularly banking. To prevent any mountebank running away with other peoples’ money, there are strict legal requirements and restrictions on setting up banks and other similar institutions. The success of banks and other major financial companies depends on having specialist financial expertise, business connections and a long established reputation that cannot easily be reproduced by new entrants into the sector. As a result of such barriers most capital accumulation in the financial sector has been carried out by long-established banks and financial companies that have been able to sustain higher than average rates of profit.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Nevertheless there has been a rapid growth in small companies, such as hedge funds, that have been able to carve out distinct niches for themselves in the less regulated and more exotic parts of the financial system. But perhaps more importantly there has been, particularly over the past decade, a growing encroachment into the financial sector by large industrial and commercial corporations.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
With the pressure exerted by financial markets to maximise shareholder value there has come what we term the ‘financialisation’ of industrial and commercial corporations. Such corporations are not so much in the business of producing or selling specific commodities but in making money. Under pressure to make quick returns the prospect of moving into aspects of finance has been attractive to many corporations that have large financial flows. Thus, for example, over the last ten years or so, many corporations have moved away from relying on overdrafts on their bank accounts to cover fluctuations in their cash flows. Instead they have issued ‘commercial paper’ – that is short term IOUs – that can be bought and sold on the financial markets. Although they may have to employ the services of an investment bank to manage the issue and redemption of such ‘commercial paper’, they save by being able to borrow at far lower interest rates than they would on an overdraft. They thereby take a cut of profits that would otherwise be made by their bank. However, some corporations have gone far further and opened up their own financial operations. General Motors for example moved from providing car loans to setting up its own mortgage company – GMAC – which ended up being bailed out after the bursting of the sub-prime mortgage bubble.<a class="see-footnote" href="#footnote15_drpmyhg" id="footnoteref15_drpmyhg" title="It can be argued that it was in part the decline in corporate deposits that obliged banks to increasingly fund mortgage lending by selling mortgage backed securities on the financial markets."><font color="#6191c5" size="2">15</font></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Thus there has been a slow but significant encroachment of commercial and industrial corporations into the financial sector. By taking a slice of financial profits this encroachment has contributed to the downward pressure on profit margins in finance and banking. But this move into finance has not been due to a fall in the general rate of profit ruling in the industrial and commercial sectors of the economy, as orthodox Marxists might insist, which if anything have risen. On the contrary it has been due to the exceptionally high rates of profit that have arisen in the financial sector. Indeed, as we shall see, we might well conclude that it was not a low or falling rate of profit, but high though uneven rates of profits that have been the ‘ultimate cause’ of the crisis.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<span style="font-size: 14px"><span style="font-weight: bold">The over-supply of loanable money-capital and the causes of the recent crisis concluded</span></span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<br />
As we have argued, the emergence of global finance and banking has played a vital role in what Schumpeter would call the process of ‘creative destruction’ that resulted in the long economic upswing. In what may be described as the first phase of neoliberalism – that is from the late 1970s to the late 1980s – it had been the destructive side of this process that had been to the fore. The rise of global banking and finance played an important role in facilitating the neoliberal counter-offensive against the working class - providing the ‘economic imperatives’ necessary to roll back the gains of the post-war settlements. At the same time it liquidated capital fixed in the old Fordist industries in the advanced capitalist economies.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In what we may term the second phase – from the late 1980s to the late 1990s – the ‘creative’ side of this process from the point of view of capital became more prominent. Global banking and finance played an important role in facilitating the transfer of capital necessary for the take off of the ‘new economy’ and the ‘newly emerging market economies’ of Asia and elsewhere, which were to provide the basis for the long upswing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
However, in what we consider as the third phase – from the late 1990s up until the credit crunch of 2007 - the further development in the upswing was to have important implications for the character of global banking and finance. As we have seen, the rise of China, the take off of sustained capital accumulation of capital in the ‘new economy’ together with the continued liquidation of capital in the less profitable parts of the ‘old economy’ resulted in a situation where there was an increasing oversupply of loanable money capital.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The increasing abundance of loanable money-capital flowing through the global banking and financial system can be seen to have had two distinct consequences. Firstly, it produced a decline in financial volatility compared with the turbulence of the previous decade, since there was now plenty of loanable money-capital to go round the various spheres and areas of investment. This provided the basis of what was to be known as the ‘great moderation’ in financial markets following the dot.com crash.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Secondly, the abundance of loanable money-capital placed downward pressure on interest rates. This, together with increased competition due to overaccumulation of capital in the financial sector, depressed the profit margins of banks and other financial institutions.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In order to offset declining profit margins on their rate of profits, banks and other financial institutions sought to maximise the volume of their loans and other financial transactions. Encouraged by the complacency engendered by the ‘great moderation’, there was as a result a pressure to take on more risky loans and investments, as well as to reduce financial reserves to an absolute minimum. As a consequence, the global banking and financial system became increasingly overextended and fragile.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
At first much of this oversupply of loanable money capital had been mitigated by the sharp increase in US government borrowing that had served to alleviate the impact of the dot.com crash. This had seen the US budget move from a surplus of 2% to a deficit of 4% of GDP in the first four years of Bush (jnr’s) term of office. However, after the re-election of Bush the US government budget deficit had stabilised and had begun to fall. Thus in the three years before the credit crunch there had been a rapid growth in the relative oversupply of loanable capital in the global banking and financial system. This was then further exacerbated by the attempt by the monetary authorities to raise interest rates which only served to invert the ‘yield curve’ and squeeze financial profit margins.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As a consequence, there was a frantic effort on the part of banks to expand loans and other financial transactions and ‘a search for yield’. The tendency towards the increasing fragility of the global banking and financial system was thereby greatly accelerated creating the conditions for the financial crisis of 2007-8 that we considered in detail in Part I of this article.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<h3 style="text-align: justify">
<span style="font-size: 16px">Conclusion</span></h3>
<p>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The financial crisis came to the rescue of ‘stagnationist’ radical and Marxist theorists, who up until then had been finding it increasingly difficult to explain away the continuation of the long economic upswing of the past two decades. Certainly it could be admitted that the almighty financial crash at the very heart of the system had finally happened. For the ‘upswingers’ the option seemed either to concur with most bourgeois commentators and conclude that the financial crisis was merely the result of some horrendous accident due to misguided monetary and regulatory policy, or rejoin the ‘stagnationist’ camp by claiming that the crisis marked the beginning of a long economic downswing.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Yet, as we have argued, there seems little to suggest we have entered a long downswing, or that capitalism is now mired in stagnation other than the financial crisis itself. Indeed the rapid recovery in profits, and the confidence of much of the bourgeoisie in the long term prospects of renewed capital accumulation, would seem to suggest otherwise.<a class="see-footnote" href="#footnote16_6zq7jgb" id="footnoteref16_6zq7jgb" title="Of course, the rapid recovery in profits following the crisis has yet to result in a surge in investment and thus real capital accumulation. Even if capital accumulation does take off the austerity measures imposed by governments across Europe is likely to mean economic recovery will be slow for several years."><font color="#6191c5" size="2">16</font></a> But if global capitalism is still in the middle of a long upswing, with historically high rates of profits, how are we to explain the unforeseen financial crisis of 2007-08?</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As we have long argued, against the ‘stagnationist’ orthodoxy, ‘upswing’ theory has been correct in grasping that the restructuring of the global accumulation of capital that has occurred in the past decade, particularly the integration into the world economy of China and Asia, has led to the restoration of profit rates and, as a consequence, a sustained economic upswing. But as we now recognise, the problem is that the upswing theory has failed to adequately grasp the importance of the emergence of global banking and finance, and the role this has played in bringing about this restructuring.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Thus, in order to overcome the limitations of both the ‘stagnationist’ and ‘upswinger’ theories of the crisis it was necessary to examine the relation between the emergence and development of global banking and finance and the global restructuring of real capital accumulation that has occurred over the past thirty years. On the basis of this examination we have been able to conclude that the financial crisis of 2007-8 was caused neither by an accident due to misguided policy, nor a crisis in the financial system that simply reflected an underlying crisis of stagnation of the real accumulation of capital. But instead, the underlying cause of the financial crisis was an oversupply of loanable money-capital within the global banking and financial system that has arisen since the late 1990s. This in turn has been the result of developments in the real accumulation of capital - such as the rise of China, the take off of the ‘new economy’ and the continued liquidation of the ‘old economy’ - that have been central to sustaining the long upturn.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Hence, we might tentatively conclude that the nature and significance of the financial crisis is not that of a decisive turning point leading to an economic downturn or the end of neoliberalism as many have supposed, but more of a point of inflection pointing to a new phase in the long upturn.<a class="see-footnote" href="#footnote17_rkz9iyy" id="footnoteref17_rkz9iyy" title="The crisis could be seen as an earthquake caused by the shifting tectonic plates of global capital accumulation as the centre of accumulation gradually shifts away from the USA and the old advanced capitalist economies towards China and Asia."><font color="#6191c5" size="2">17</font></a> The significance of this new phase and the implications it has for the future development of global capitalism and the struggle against it is a question that we have no space to take up here.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<ul class="footnotes">
<li class="footnote" id="footnote1_gj3cutb" style="text-align: justify">
<a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref1_gj3cutb">1.</a> Originally we intended to begin Part II of this article with a critical review of the more salient Marxist and radical Keynesian theories of the current crisis. However, lack of space and time has meant that we decided to omit what could have easily become a rather lengthy academic exercise.</li>
<li class="footnote" style="text-align: justify">
</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote2_t7wiyqp" style="text-align: justify">
<a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref2_t7wiyqp">2.</a> Of course, the notion that capitalism is in decline has been a central tenet of traditional Marxism for the past hundred years (see ‘Theory of decline or the decline of theory’ in Aufheben #2, 3 and 4. But also see our self-critique of this article at <a href="http://libcom.org/aufheben/decadence"><font color="#6191c5">http://libcom.org/aufheben/decadence</font></a> ). As a result of the Great Depression, in the 1930s and 1940s such a notion was also shared by many bourgeois economic thinkers. Schumpeter, for example, in his Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy lamented the passing of the entrepreneurial spirit of nineteenth century capitalism and saw the evolution of capitalism towards a bureaucratic state socialism as almost inevitable. Keynes accepted Schumpeter’s prognosis, but, following John Stuart Mill, took a more sanguine view. Keynes looked forward to the time when capitalism would slow down and eventually reach a steady state in which vulgar money grabbing would no longer be necessary. His only concern was that capitalism would run out of steam before material scarcity could be abolished and wage-labour could be reduced to a minimum.</li>
<li class="footnote" style="text-align: justify">
</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote3_82p9kt9" style="text-align: justify">
<a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref3_82p9kt9">3.</a> Permanent Revolution are perhaps the most consistent vociferous proponents of the ‘upswing’ thesis. Also see our article on China in Aufheben #14.</li>
<li class="footnote" style="text-align: justify">
</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote4_oto3a0b" style="text-align: justify">
<a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref4_oto3a0b">4.</a> This failure to develop an adequate theory of the development of global banking and finance can also be traced back to the inadequacies of both Marx’s and Keynes’s theories of finance. Marx’s theory of money and finance is largely contained in Part V of Volume III of Capital. But this was cobbled together by Engels from various notebooks left by Marx after his death and remains very far from constituting a finished worked-out theory. It is true that Hilferding in his celebrated book Finance Capital attempted to develop and update Marx’s theory of money and finance. However, Hilferding’s theory is based on the particular concrete circumstance of Germany at the beginning of the twentieth century and hence its applicability to the analysis of modern global banking and finance is limited. More recently there has been some important work in attempting to develop systematically a Marxian theory of money and finance. See for example, The Political Economy of Money and Finance by Makoto Itoh and Costas Lapavitsas. However, this remains at too high a level of abstraction to be of much use in analysing the concrete circumstance of the recent financial crisis. Keynes was first and foremost a ‘monetary economist’. However, his primary aim, particularly in his seminal work The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money, had been to persuade politicians and policymakers, who had been educated in neoclassical economic theory, to save capitalism through state intervention. To do this Keynes presented his theory as merely a generalisation of neoclassical monetary theory, which saw banks and financial markets as passive intermediaries between individual savers and individual entrepreneurs. Thus, although he made a number of observations and asides that go beyond the abstract conceptions of neoclassical monetary economics that have been taken up by his more radical disciples, the core of Keynes’s theory remains confined within bourgeois economic orthodoxy. As a result it has been relatively easy for mainstream bourgeois economic theory to re-assimilate Keynes’s theory as a special case that applies to the exceptional circumstances when the economy becomes stuck in a ‘sub-optimal equilibrium’.</li>
<li class="footnote" style="text-align: justify">
</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote5_xtw55o7" style="text-align: justify">
<a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref5_xtw55o7">5.</a> The crisis has certainly brought to the fore the writings of the rather idiosyncratic and neglected Keynesian economists H. Minsky. In short, Minsky argued that during a period of financial stability what he termed the financial structure of a capitalist economy would tend to become increasingly fragile. Continued financial stability encouraged the growth in confidence that loans would paid back. Reserves against bad loans would be reduced, financial innovations would be devised to get round existing regulations that aimed to ensure financial prudence and regulators would become complacent. Short term loans would be rolled over to finance long term investments and the as a result the financial structure would become increasingly speculative. As a result, eventually even a minor shock to the financial structure of the economy could cause a serious financial crisis. The crisis would then lead to renewed efforts at financial regulator and a return to financial prudence. This Minskyian financial cycle, in which financial stability produces financial instability, has been seized on by both mainstream and radical theorists to explain the recent financial crisis. Certainly at first sight it would appear to provide a neat explanation of how the sub-prime mortgage crisis served as a ‘Minsky moment’ that ended the ‘great moderation’. But on closer inspection the Minskyian explanation is not so neat after all. Firstly, Minsky’s notion of the ‘financial structure’ does not merely include banks and financial institutions but all economic actors such as businesses and individual households. Indeed this had been central for Minsky in order to show how a financial crisis such as the Wall Street crash could have such an impact on the real economy to create the Great Depression of the 1930s. But, as we shall, the great moderation which had preceded the credit crunch had seen non-financial corporate sector become more financially sound not less. Secondly, to the extent that it is taken to explain the recent financial crisis, the less it is able to explain the financial turbulence of the 1980s and 1990s when financial crises were far more frequent.</li>
<li class="footnote" style="text-align: justify">
</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote6_o0996uh" style="text-align: justify">
<a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref6_o0996uh">6.</a> From this perspective the crisis might be viewed like a tyre blow out in a Formula One race. But for the adept steering of the driver the crash could have been far more serious. Nevertheless the car as whole remains a functioning high performance vehicle. All that needs to be done is to fit a more suitable tyre and to remind the driver not to accelerate so fast out of a tight corner and all will be ok except for the minutes lost during the pit stop.</li>
<li class="footnote" style="text-align: justify">
</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote7_tbyq4dp" style="text-align: justify">
<a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref7_tbyq4dp">7.</a> See for example Fixing Global Finance by Martin Wolf and ‘Global Imbalances and the Financial Crisis’, Paper presented to the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Asia Economic Policy Conference, October 2009, by M. Obstfeld and K. Rogoff.</li>
<li class="footnote" style="text-align: justify">
</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote8_eynsh3k" style="text-align: justify">
<a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref8_eynsh3k">8.</a> For an attempt to quantify the impact of international imbalances on US interest rates see ‘International capital Flows and U.S. Interest Rates’ F.E.Warnock & V.C. Warnock in Journal of International Money and Finance, 28 (6).</li>
<li class="footnote" style="text-align: justify">
</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote9_i3m6m0z" style="text-align: justify">
<a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref9_i3m6m0z">9.</a> The ‘yield curve’ relates the interest rates on government securities of increasing maturities. Given that the risk of governments major economies like the US, the US or Germany is considered negligible, the ‘yield curve’ indicates the relation between long and short term loans independent of variations in risk. Usually the yield curve is upward sloping: that is the longer the loan the higher the interest.</li>
<li class="footnote" style="text-align: justify">
</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote10_gowunut" style="text-align: justify">
<a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref10_gowunut">10.</a> Capital I p.236 Penguin edition. But as Engels notes on the same page ‘The monetary crisis, defined in the text as a particular phase of every general industrial and commercial crisis, must be clearly distinguished from the special sort of crisis, also called a monetary crisis, which may appear independently of the rest, and only affects industry and commerce by its backwash. The pivot of these crises is to be found in money capital, and their immediate sphere of impact is therefore banking, the stock exchange and finance’. Thus as Itoh and Lapavitsas have pointed out, there are two quite distinct types of financial crises. The first arising from the contradictions of real capital accumulation, the second arising from with the financial system itself. The financial crisis of 2007-8 would seem closer to the second type.</li>
<li class="footnote" style="text-align: justify">
</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote11_jf34hqk" style="text-align: justify">
<a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref11_jf34hqk">11.</a> ‘An Essay on the Revived Bretton Woods System’, NBER Working Paper Series, 2003, by M.P.Dooley, D. Folkerts-Landau and Peter Garber.</li>
<li class="footnote" style="text-align: justify">
</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote12_au1eiey" style="text-align: justify">
<a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref12_au1eiey">12.</a> Chinese monetary authorities were able to begin a gradual rebalancing of its foreign currency reserves for two reasons. Firstly, the opening up of other markets, particularly those in Europe, to Chinese exports meant that a larger proportion of export earnings in to China took the form of currencies other than the US dollar. Secondly, China allowed the a gradual but controlled appreciation of the Yuan against the US dollar.</li>
<li class="footnote" style="text-align: justify">
</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote13_q89z1lu" style="text-align: justify">
<a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref13_q89z1lu">13.</a> ‘Financial Reform to Address Systemic Risk’. Speech given by Ben Bernanke at the Council on Foreign Relations, Washington, D.C. March 2009.<br />
<a href="http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20090310a.htm"><font color="#6191c5">http://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/bernanke20090310a.htm</font></a></li>
<li class="footnote" style="text-align: justify">
</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote14_clkj176" style="text-align: justify">
<a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref14_clkj176">14.</a> Danegeld (‘Dane's gold’ or Danish Tax) was a tax raised to pay tribute to Viking raiders to save a kingdom from being ravaged from 991 AD. However, once paid, it marked out those willing to pay as ‘easy marks’ – and the raiders would keep coming back demanding more.</li>
<li class="footnote" style="text-align: justify">
</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote15_drpmyhg" style="text-align: justify">
<a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref15_drpmyhg">15.</a> It can be argued that it was in part the decline in corporate deposits that obliged banks to increasingly fund mortgage lending by selling mortgage backed securities on the financial markets.</li>
<li class="footnote" style="text-align: justify">
</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote16_6zq7jgb" style="text-align: justify">
<a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref16_6zq7jgb">16.</a> Of course, the rapid recovery in profits following the crisis has yet to result in a surge in investment and thus real capital accumulation. Even if capital accumulation does take off the austerity measures imposed by governments across Europe is likely to mean economic recovery will be slow for several years.</li>
<li class="footnote" style="text-align: justify">
</li>
<li class="footnote" id="footnote17_rkz9iyy" style="text-align: justify">
<a class="footnote-label" href="#footnoteref17_rkz9iyy">17.</a> The crisis could be seen as an earthquake caused by the shifting tectonic plates of global capital accumulation as the centre of accumulation gradually shifts away from the USA and the old advanced capitalist economies towards China and Asia.</li>
</ul>
<div class="buttons-bottom center jinboblog-i-like-this-buttons"><a class="button-jinboblog" href="javascript:void(0);" title="스크랩으로 글 링크를 저장하세요" onclick="recommend('4942',100,'/iscralee','');"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/mini_chuchon.png" alt="진보블로그 공감 버튼" /></a><a class="button-twitter" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F100+%22Return%20of%20the%20crisis%3A%20Part%202%20-%20the%20nature%20and%20significance%20of%20the%20crisis%22" target="_blank" title="트위터로 리트윗합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/twitter.png" alt="트위터로 리트윗하기" /></a><a class="button-facebook" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F100&t=Return%20of%20the%20crisis%3A%20Part%202%20-%20the%20nature%20and%20significance%20of%20the%20crisis" target="_blank" title="페이스북에 공유합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/facebook.png" alt="페이스북에 공유하기" /></a><a class="button-delicious" href="http://delicious.com/save" onclick="window.open('http://delicious.com/save?v=5&noui&jump=close&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F100&title=Return%20of%20the%20crisis%3A%20Part%202%20-%20the%20nature%20and%20significance%20of%20the%20crisis','delicious','toolbar=no,width=550,height=550'); return false;" title="딜리셔스에 북마크합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/delicious.png" alt="딜리셔스에 북마크" /></a></div><p><strong><a href="http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/100?commentInput=true#entry100WriteComment">댓글 쓰기</a></strong></p>‘노조 무력화’ 악명 높은 ‘창조컨설팅’ 개입 의혹자유로운 영혼http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/562011-11-02T10:05:23+09:002011-05-25T10:12:35+09:00<div id="espresso_editor_view" style="font-size: 9pt">
<p>
</p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: 16px"><font color="#c31a1b"><strong>‘노조 무력화’ 악명 높은 ‘창조컨설팅’ 개입 의혹</strong></font></span></p>
<p>
</p>
<table align="center" border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="290">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td align="middle">
<img border="0" src="http://img.hani.co.kr/imgdb/resize/2011/0525/00392748001_20110525.JPG" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td height="3">
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<!-- 사진 --><!-- 사진설명 --> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td bgcolor="#8f8f8f" class="movie_text">
» 24일 오후 경찰이 투입된 유성기업의 경영 컨설팅을 맡고 있는 노무법인 ‘창조컨설팅’의 서울 영등포구 문래동 사무실 들머리 모습. 김봉규 기자 bong9@hani.co.kr</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td height="3" nowrap="nowrap">
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<!--사진설명 --> </td>
<td width="15">
<!-- Padding - Width --> </td>
</tr>
<tr height="15">
<td colspan="3" nowrap="nowrap">
<!-- Padding - Height --> </td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<!-- ### news option END ### --> <p>
</p>
<div class="kwdlink1">
지난 23일 공개된 현대자동차 부품 납품업체 유성기업의 ‘쟁의행위 대응요령’(2011년 5월11일 작성) 문건에는 <a -nmouseout="KLmouseOut();" -nmouseover="KLmouseOver(this,'%uB178%uBB34%uBC95%uC778',event, 'KL_POP_ID6');" id="KL_POP_ID6" style="font-family: gulim; letter-spacing: normal; color: #173f8d; font-size: 15px; cursor: pointer; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline" target="_blank">노무법인</a> ‘창조컨설팅’과 ‘경주 발레오전장’이 언급돼 눈길을 끌고 있다. 노동현장에서는 “창조컨설팅이 노사관계에 개입하면 <a -nmouseout="KLmouseOut();" -nmouseover="KLmouseOver(this,'%uB178%uC870',event, 'KL_POP_ID8');" id="KL_POP_ID8" style="font-family: gulim; letter-spacing: normal; color: #173f8d; font-size: 15px; cursor: pointer; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline" target="_blank">노조</a>가 무너진다”는 인식이 팽배하다.</div>
<div class="kwdlink1">
</div>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
지난해 민주노총 산하 <a -nmouseout="KLmouseOut();" -nmouseover="KLmouseOver(this,'%uAE08%uC18D%uB178%uC870',event, 'KL_POP_ID4');" id="KL_POP_ID4" style="font-family: gulim; letter-spacing: normal; color: #173f8d; font-size: 15px; cursor: pointer; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline" target="_blank">금속노조</a> 핵심 사업장이었던 <a -nmouseout="KLmouseOut();" -nmouseover="KLmouseOver(this,'%uACBD%uC8FC',event, 'KL_POP_ID2');" id="KL_POP_ID2" style="font-family: gulim; letter-spacing: normal; color: #173f8d; font-size: 15px; cursor: pointer; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline" target="_blank">경주</a> 발레오전장과 2006~2007년 민주노총 보건의료노조 사업장인 대구 영남대의료원도 창조컨설팅이 개입하면서 노조가 사실상 무력화됐다. 주간 2교대제 도입을 둘러싼 노사 갈등 끝에 24일 경찰 병력이 투입된 유성기업 노조도 위기를 맞고 있다.</p>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
</p>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
창조컨설팅의 대표는 심종두 노무사다. 심 노무사는 한국<a -nmouseout="KLmouseOut();" -nmouseover="KLmouseOver(this,'%uACBD%uC601',event, 'KL_POP_ID1');" id="KL_POP_ID1" style="font-family: gulim; letter-spacing: normal; color: #173f8d; font-size: 15px; cursor: pointer; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline" target="_blank">경영</a>자총협회(경총)에서 <a -nmouseout="KLmouseOut();" -nmouseover="KLmouseOver(this,'%uB178%uC0AC%uB300%uCC45',event, 'KL_POP_ID7');" id="KL_POP_ID7" style="font-family: gulim; letter-spacing: normal; color: #173f8d; font-size: 15px; cursor: pointer; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline" target="_blank">노사대책</a>팀장 등으로 13년 동안 근무했다. 그 뒤 노무사로 활동하며 금속노조의 대화 상대인 금속사용자협의회(2004년)와 병원사용자협의회 교섭 대표(2005~2006년)를 맡는 등 노사관계 전문가로 꼽힌다.</p>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
</p>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
창조컨설팅은 지난해 현대차 납품업체인 발레오전장 사쪽의 자문을 맡았다. 발레오전장 노사는 그동안 일부 마찰은 있었지만 대체로 원만한 노사관계를 유지해왔다. 하지만 2009년 대표이사가 바뀌면서 분위기가 달라졌다. 지난해 2월 초 회사가 일방적으로 <a -nmouseout="KLmouseOut();" -nmouseover="KLmouseOver(this,'%uACBD%uBE44',event, 'KL_POP_ID0');" id="KL_POP_ID0" style="font-family: gulim; letter-spacing: normal; color: #173f8d; font-size: 15px; cursor: pointer; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline" target="_blank">경비</a>업무를 외주 용역화하자 노조는 부분 태업을 했고, 사쪽은 같은 달 16일 전격적으로 직장 폐쇄를 하고 용역경비를 배치해 노조의 출입을 막았다. 이 과정에서 15명이 해고됐고, 30억원의 손해배상이 청구됐다. ‘노조 집단행동→회사 직장 폐쇄 및 용역경비 배쾀대량 징계와 손해배상 청구’의 과정을 거쳐 노조가 사실상 무력화된 것이다. 당시 집행부를 맡았던 노조 관계자는 “창조컨설팅이 개입하면서 회사 쪽이 거세게 노조를 몰아붙였다”며 “노조가 대화를 요구하고 업무 복귀를 선언했는데도 노조 탄압이 계속됐다”고 말했다. 결국 발레오전장에는 또다른 노조가 만들어져 금속노조를 탈퇴했고 2년 연속 임금교섭권을 회사에 위임한 상태다.</p>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
</p>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
심 노무사가 2006년 자문 계약을 맺은 영남대의료원에서도 파업을 거치면서 노조가 급속하게 위축됐다. 영남대의료원 노조는 일방적인 조직개편 등에 반대하며 부분파업과 농성을 벌였고, 이 과정에서 노조 간부 11명 고소·고발, 10명 해고, 5억원의 손해배상 청구, 3억원의 조합비 가압류가 이뤄졌다. 보건의료노조 관계자는 “심 노무사가 영남대의료원과 또다른 대학병원 사쪽의 자문을 맡으면서 ‘파업→단체협약 일방해지→징계·손해배상·고소·고발’ 작업이 진행됐다”며 “영남대의료원은 900명이던 조합원이 100명으로 줄었다”고 말했다.</p>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
</p>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
유성기업에서도 비슷한 양상이 벌어지고 있다. 노조가 지난 18일 파업에 들어가자마자, 직장폐쇄와 함께 용역경비가 배치됐다. 사쪽이 작성한 ‘쟁의행위 대응요령’ 문건을 보면, 민형사상 책임을 묻겠다는 계획도 밝히고 있다.</p>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
이에 대해 심 노무사는 “고객 보호 차원에서 어떤 회사와 자문을 맺고 있는지는 밝힐 수 없다”며 “다만 유성의 경우 열흘 전쯤 몇 가지 조언을 했을 뿐 공식적인 자문 계약을 맺은 건 아니다”라고 말했다. 그는 사실상 ‘노조 죽이기’에 나서고 있는 것 아니냐는 지적에 대해선 “법과 원칙에서 벗어난 경우는 없었다”며 “<a -nmouseout="KLmouseOut();" -nmouseover="KLmouseOver(this,'%uB178%uB3D9%uACC4',event, 'KL_POP_ID5');" href="http://click.contentlink.co.kr/click/ovclick.php?ad_type=W_C_CL_hani2_web_10&host=www.designaone.co.kr&affiliate_id=hani2_web&type=_kl&where=text&keyword=%B3%EB%B5%BF%B0%E8&url=http%3A%2F%2Frc.asia.srv.overture.com%2Fd%2Fsr%2F%3Fxargs%3D20AXcTCAZEp4wv-sOs0U9pUBLS37WPGEWL2lEd6O4URzPa-__GIYxaAYCVKYV1CZs6uNyyZyNkMRtQiUkokdd4IQQLuclmj-ZOIglgljhcxavXXIZcFsmnwKU7WeVL3A0zWU3mNb38pubiuG9sn8YZhLMyJz51c8HRKWLRse1AFdIowqxU1skD2cIlU1j4w0dCZ4QU7r90L39JRdMDTeiaZ3QGOfpXxS1Q5LFilmOaIy5mDZJg6_0Lg6FBuXzOzJTo7DvGtotAuF45MIv9dq5PkFVESRT_-gGj63uRIwCWadiZeZEEs-Z1A1o.000000006c6ffa1d" id="KL_POP_ID5" style="font-family: gulim; letter-spacing: normal; color: #173f8d; font-size: 15px; cursor: pointer; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: underline" target="_blank">노동계</a>가 그렇게 오해하고 있어 유감”이라고 말했다. (김소연 기자 <a href="mailto:dandy@hani.co.kr" target="_blank">dandy@hani.co.kr</a>)</p>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
</p>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
</p>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
</p>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
</p>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
</p>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
<span style="font-size: 14px"><strong><span style="color: #000">그들이 자랑하는 업무실적, </span><font color="#700001"> 그 실적에는 노동자들의 피눈물이, 죽음이, 분노가.......</font></strong></span></p>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
</p>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
</p>
<p align="justify" class="kwdlink1">
</p>
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 605px; height: 624px" width="605">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td colspan="4">
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="width: 600px; height: 181px" width="600">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="196">
<img height="50" src="http://www.cjmc.co.kr/images/about/result1.gif" width="196" /></td>
<td bgcolor="#cac6c2" width="3">
</td>
<td width="25">
</td>
<td>
<p>
<strong><font face="굴림, 돋움, Seoul, 한강체">• 한국방송광고공사, 예금보험공사, M사, 무림페이퍼 등 노사관계<br />
로드맵 수립 컨설팅<br />
•(주)OOO, OOOOO대학교, OOO의료원, OO병원, OOO골프장, OO축협, D사, V사, N사, P사, S사 등 노사관계 안정 컨설팅<br />
• KT, OO은행, OOO의료원, 한국공항, 한일시멘트 등 비정규직 운영방안 컨설팅<br />
• 성남 인하병원, OOOOO공업, 깁스코리아, 동방산업 등 고용조정 컨설팅<br />
• OOOOOO공사, OO의료원, OO공업, OOOOOO병원 등 단체교섭 지원 컨설팅<br />
• 이랜드그룹, 서울문화사 등 인사노무관리 진단 컨설팅<br />
• OO 도급분야 운영진단 및 협력사 지원 컨설팅<br />
• OO 부문별 하도급 운영방안 컨설팅 </font></strong><br />
</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="4" height="70">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="4">
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="645">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td valign="top" width="196">
<img height="50" src="http://www.cjmc.co.kr/images/about/result2.gif" width="196" /></td>
<td bgcolor="#cac6c2" width="3">
</td>
<td width="25">
</td>
<td>
<strong><font face="굴림, 돋움, Seoul, 한강체">• 2004년 금속노사 중앙교섭 사측 101개사 위임 수행 및 타결<br />
• 2005년 12개 사립대병원 산별교섭 위임 수행<br />
• 2006년 118개 보건의료병원 산별교섭 지원<br />
• 2008년 104개 보건의료병원 산별교섭 지원<br />
• 2009년 101개 보건의료병원 산별교섭 지원</font></strong></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="4" height="70">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="4" height="63">
<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="645">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td height="59" valign="top" width="196">
<img alt="" height="50" src="http://www.cjmc.co.kr/images/about/result3.gif" width="196" /></td>
<td bgcolor="#cac6c2" width="3">
</td>
<td width="25">
</td>
<td>
<strong><font face="굴림, 돋움, Seoul, 한강체">풀무원, 이랜드, 대한항공, CAPS, KT계약직, 서울레이크사이드, 스포츠조선, 매일경제TV, 기독교방송(CBS), 스위스그랜드호텔, 광명성애병원, 신한 등 100여개 사 </font></strong></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td colspan="4" height="70">
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td height="65" width="196">
<img alt="" height="50" src="http://www.cjmc.co.kr/images/about/result4.gif" width="196" /></td>
<td bgcolor="#cac6c2" width="4">
</td>
<td width="24">
</td>
<td width="421">
<p>
<strong><font face="굴림, 돋움, Seoul, 한강체">KT, KBS, 서울메트로, 현대중공업, 하나은행, 신한은행, 연세대의료원, 대한항공, 삼성테스코, 코오롱, 이랜드, GS건설, 현대카드, GS칼텍스, 풀무원, 한국자산관리공사, 대림자동차, 서울대치과병원, 흥국생명, 그랜드하얏트서울, 코카콜라음료, 매일경제TV, 한국외국어대학교 등 700여 사건</font></strong></p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
(창조 컨설팅) <a href="http://www.cjmc.co.kr/about/result.html" target="_blank">http://www.cjmc.co.kr/about/result.html</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
<span style="font-size: 12px"><font color="#c31a1b"><font color="#000000">이제 우리에게는 너희들과의 <strong>'교섭, 타결'</strong> 이런 자본가 용어, 자본의 규칙이 아닌,</font> <strong>'투쟁, 쟁취' '단결, 계급투쟁, 혁명'</strong> 이라는 노동자계급의 <strong>직접행동</strong>으로 응징하는 수밖에 다른길은 없다.</font></span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
<span style="color: #000"><span style="font-size: 12px">일단 <strong>현자 깡패자본과 그 주구들은</strong> 이거 한방 먹고, 다음을 기다려라!!! </span></span></p>
<p>
<font color="#c31a1b"><span style="font-size: 12pt"><strong><a href="http://c2down.cyworld.co.kr/download?fid=64222eff01eee59831ce3024c5c20d85&name=hd-fire.jpg" target="_blank"><img id="3110525787" name="image" src="http://c2down.cyworld.co.kr/download?fid=64222eff01eee59831ce3024c5c20d85&name=hd-fire.jpg" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-top: medium none; border-right: medium none" swaf:cywrite:file_seq="" swaf:cywrite:info="image|hd-fire.jpg|/download?fid=64222eff01eee59831ce3024c5c20d85&name=hd-fire.jpg|35808|64222eff01eee59831ce3024c5c20d85@10.20.100.132" swaf:cywrite:object_id="3110525787" /></a></strong></span></font></p>
<p>
<font color="#c31a1b"><span style="font-size: 12pt"><strong> </strong></span></font></p>
</div>
<p>
<!--espresso editor content end--></p>
<div class="buttons-bottom center jinboblog-i-like-this-buttons"><a class="button-jinboblog" href="javascript:void(0);" title="스크랩으로 글 링크를 저장하세요" onclick="recommend('4942',56,'/iscralee','');"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/mini_chuchon.png" alt="진보블로그 공감 버튼" /></a><a class="button-twitter" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F56+%22%E2%80%98%EB%85%B8%EC%A1%B0%20%EB%AC%B4%EB%A0%A5%ED%99%94%E2%80%99%20%EC%95%85%EB%AA%85%20%EB%86%92%EC%9D%80%20%E2%80%98%EC%B0%BD%EC%A1%B0%EC%BB%A8%EC%84%A4%ED%8C%85%E2%80%99%20%EA%B0%9C%EC%9E%85%20%EC%9D%98%ED%98%B9%22" target="_blank" title="트위터로 리트윗합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/twitter.png" alt="트위터로 리트윗하기" /></a><a class="button-facebook" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F56&t=%E2%80%98%EB%85%B8%EC%A1%B0%20%EB%AC%B4%EB%A0%A5%ED%99%94%E2%80%99%20%EC%95%85%EB%AA%85%20%EB%86%92%EC%9D%80%20%E2%80%98%EC%B0%BD%EC%A1%B0%EC%BB%A8%EC%84%A4%ED%8C%85%E2%80%99%20%EA%B0%9C%EC%9E%85%20%EC%9D%98%ED%98%B9" target="_blank" title="페이스북에 공유합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/facebook.png" alt="페이스북에 공유하기" /></a><a class="button-delicious" href="http://delicious.com/save" onclick="window.open('http://delicious.com/save?v=5&noui&jump=close&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F56&title=%E2%80%98%EB%85%B8%EC%A1%B0%20%EB%AC%B4%EB%A0%A5%ED%99%94%E2%80%99%20%EC%95%85%EB%AA%85%20%EB%86%92%EC%9D%80%20%E2%80%98%EC%B0%BD%EC%A1%B0%EC%BB%A8%EC%84%A4%ED%8C%85%E2%80%99%20%EA%B0%9C%EC%9E%85%20%EC%9D%98%ED%98%B9','delicious','toolbar=no,width=550,height=550'); return false;" title="딜리셔스에 북마크합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/delicious.png" alt="딜리셔스에 북마크" /></a></div><p><strong><a href="http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/56?commentInput=true#entry56WriteComment">댓글 쓰기</a></strong></p>the truth about julian assange and wikileaks자유로운 영혼http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/252011-11-02T10:06:25+09:002011-01-10T22:53:34+09:00<p>
<span style="font-size: 18px"><strong><a href="http://thecommune.co.uk/2011/01/07/assange-and-wikileaks/" rel="bookmark" title="Read the truth about julian assange and wikileaks">the truth about julian assange and wikileaks</a></strong></span></p>
<p>
</p>
<p style="text-align: right">
<strong>by Adam Ford</strong></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Okay, beyond the provocative title, I’m as much in the dark as you are on this one. But I would like to start the article by listing the only things I hold to be self-evident in regards to the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange"><font color="#515151">Julian Assange</font></a> story.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
<a href="http://thecommune.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/julian-assange.jpg"><img alt="" class="size-medium wp-image-6332 aligncenter" height="200" src="http://thecommune.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/julian-assange.jpg?w=300&h=200" title="julian-assange" width="300" /></a></p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
One: <a href="http://213.251.145.96/"><font color="#515151">WikiLeaks</font></a> is a great thing, providing us with documentary proof of government collusion against the interests of the general public, in favour of the super-rich. Two: we cannot be sure that Julian Assange did not sexually assault either or both of the women at the centre of the allegations against him, because we were not there. Three: the criminal action against Assange is politically motivated, whether he assaulted the women or not. Four: WikiLeaks must be defended from those in positions of power who wish to shut it down and intimidate would-be whistleblowers.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
The first statement should be non-controversial amongst likely readers of this article, even though we may not have been surprised by many of the revelations. For those of us with a radical perspective on the relationship between the capitalist class, the state, and the working class, it can’t have been a shock to learn – as we did this week from WikiLeaks – that US ambassador April Glaspie gave then ally Saddam Hussein to understand that the <a href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jan2011/iraq-j04.shtml"><font color="#515151">US would stand aside if Iraq</font></a> attacked Kuwait in 1990. As we already knew, Iraq did attack Kuwait, the first Gulf War began, and Hussein’s grip on Iraq’s oil resources was loosened. Neither should we be stunned that<a href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2011/jan2011/bang-j07.shtml"><font color="#515151">British police forces have been training Bangladeshi death squads</font></a> since the days of Tony Blair and Robin Cook’s ‘ethical foreign policy’ in the late 1990s. Still, if the international working class ever brings the Bushes and Blairs of this world to trial, we now have lots of evidence to back up a prosecution case. The service that WikiLeaks provides is therefore invaluable, and <a href="http://infantile-disorder.blogspot.com/2010/12/war-you-dont-see.html"><font color="#515151">John Pilger is clearly correct</font></a>, it does represent a “landmark in journalism”.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Statement two should be very obvious. As with any rape or sexual assault case, the only people who can be certain of the truth are those who were present. No matter how much we don’t want the founder and public face of WikiLeaks to have committed sexual assault, we don’t know either way. And yet many on what might be called ‘the left’ say they are certain that Assange is innocent, that he’s been framed, and is in fact the victim of a smear campaign. Pilger, Ken Loach and Michael Moore <a href="http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/why-im-posting-bail-money"><font color="#515151">all stood bail for Assange</font></a>, as they had every right to do, but the internet has also been abuzz with proclamations of Assange’s definite purity, and therefore the horrible corollary in all rape cases – the guilt of the accusers. If Pilger, Loach, Moore and thousands of people on the internet were in those rooms on the nights in question, then it must have got very crowded. When <a href="http://www.cer.truthaboutrape.co.uk/3.html"><font color="#515151">one in four surveyed women</font></a> report being a victim of rape or attempted rape, it follows that some ‘good guys’ rape too. Such is the uncomfortable reality of life in a patriarchal society. As <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/blogs/laurie-penny/2010/12/julian-assange-rape-women"><font color="#515151">Laurie Penny put it</font></a>, “If global justice movements had to rely solely on people of impeccable character to further their cause, we would probably still be trying to end slavery.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Having said all that, it might seem strange to argue that the case against Assange is definitely political in nature. After all, it could be argued that if such accusations have been made, then the accused person has a case to answer. I would agree with that. But extradition for rape is very rare in ‘normal circumstances’. Even more importantly than this, <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CEkQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.fawcettsociety.org.uk%2Fdocuments%2FRape%2520-%2520The%2520Facts.doc&rct=j&q=rape%20statistics&ei=0j0nTbzpH4y2hAeUwdiOAg&usg=AFQjCNET8JDUWktQQkGxByCSv2q1ASZ_HQ&sig2=s_fzri7drOAK3A10zMG50g&cad=rja"><font color="#515151">rape statistics</font></a> show that it is extremely unusual for prosecutors to take such an active interest in a case. Research indicates that an overwhelming majority of rapes are never even reported to police, but when they are, two-thirds are dropped by the cops before a single court date, and only around 5% of reported rapes end in a conviction. We need a new way of dealing with rapes and sexual assaults, but that is a big topic in of itself, and beyond the scope of this article.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
In the Assange case, with the extradition hearing less than a week away at the time of going to press, it is understood that he is yet to be questioned by Swedish prosecutors, despite his claims that he offered to meet them during his bail period, and even checked with them before he left Sweden in September. The Swedish prosecutors initially dropped the case, and it was only resurrected when a politician picked it up as part of his re-election campaign. There are many other apparent irregularities and inconsistencies. For example, the day after a magistrate initially denied bail to the as yet uncharged Julian Assange, he <a href="http://www.silobreaker.com/british-millionaire-in-bail-battle-over-honeymoon-murder-5_2263925821695590449"><font color="#515151">granted it to a businessman charged with conspiracy to murder his wife</font></a>. Considering the type of enemies that Assange has made through his work, it seems highly likely that US officials have pressured their Swedish and British ‘war on terror’ allies to make more of the Assange allegations than they otherwise would have. If that is true, then mud has undoubtedly stuck, whether Assange is actually guilty or not. A Google search shows that 38,400,000 web pages refer to rape, while nearly a quarter (7,900,000) also mention Assange.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
On to statement four, and of course communists should stand for free speech – that is, the freedom to say or write anything without fear of what the state will do in response. It is essential that we defend whistleblowing on the pernicious role of corporations and governments in our society. We must do whatever we can to act in solidarity with those under threat from the imperialist war machine that is the US government. While Assange is facing court dates in connection with the sexual assault allegations, his lawyer Mark Stephens has claimed that a <a href="http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/dec2010/wiki-d14.shtml"><font color="#515151">secret grand jury is being set up</font></a> in Alexandria, Virginia, near to the Pentagon. Stephens told al-Jazeera that:</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify">
“[T]he Swedes, we understand, have said that if he comes to Sweden, they will defer their interest in him to the Americans. Now that shows some level of collusion and embarrassment, so it does seem to me what we have here is nothing more than holding charges…so ultimately they can get their mitts on him.”</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
</blockquote>
<p style="text-align: justify">
Assange could therefore even face terrorism charges, like Zacarias Moussaoui, an Al Qaeda member who was prosecuted a few years ago in the Virginia East District. Such charges against Assange would be the most direct American attack on freedom of speech since the McCarthy era. He could face imprisonment or indefinite detention, like <a href="http://www.disinfo.com/2010/12/wikileaker-bradley-mannings-brutal-detention/"><font color="#515151">Private Bradley Manning</font></a> – who passed the ‘Collateral Murder’ tapes to WikiLeaks – is currently enduring.</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify">
As the ruling classes of all nations try to impose the burden of the economic crisis on the rest of us, even ‘liberals’ within the political elites can no longer tolerate any open dissent. The supposed commitment of Western politicians to freedom and democracy is increasingly being exposed for the sham that it always was. We now live in a world where governments can commit terrorist acts on a daily basis, but if journalists tell us about it then they are the ones labelled terrorists. The same label will soon be applied to working class people standing up for their living conditions. It is perfectly possible – indeed under the circumstances it is necessary – to value Julian Assange’s work with WikiLeaks, and keep an open mind on what he did in private.</p>
<div class="buttons-bottom center jinboblog-i-like-this-buttons"><a class="button-jinboblog" href="javascript:void(0);" title="스크랩으로 글 링크를 저장하세요" onclick="recommend('4942',25,'/iscralee','');"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/mini_chuchon.png" alt="진보블로그 공감 버튼" /></a><a class="button-twitter" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F25+%22the%20truth%20about%20julian%20assange%20and%20wikileaks%22" target="_blank" title="트위터로 리트윗합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/twitter.png" alt="트위터로 리트윗하기" /></a><a class="button-facebook" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F25&t=the%20truth%20about%20julian%20assange%20and%20wikileaks" target="_blank" title="페이스북에 공유합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/facebook.png" alt="페이스북에 공유하기" /></a><a class="button-delicious" href="http://delicious.com/save" onclick="window.open('http://delicious.com/save?v=5&noui&jump=close&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F25&title=the%20truth%20about%20julian%20assange%20and%20wikileaks','delicious','toolbar=no,width=550,height=550'); return false;" title="딜리셔스에 북마크합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/delicious.png" alt="딜리셔스에 북마크" /></a></div><p><strong><a href="http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/25?commentInput=true#entry25WriteComment">댓글 쓰기</a></strong></p>환율전쟁과 노동자계급자유로운 영혼http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/202011-11-02T10:08:46+09:002010-10-25T22:30:14+09:00<p style="text-align: center; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 16pt">
<span style="text-align: center; line-height: 34px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 16pt; font-weight: bold">환율전쟁과 노동자계급 </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 14pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: right; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: right; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">by 이형로</span></p>
<p style="text-align: right; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: right; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 11pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 23px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold">1. 환율전쟁의 역사</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 11pt">
<img alt="사용자 삽입 이미지" height="192" src="/attach/4942/1247280251.jpg" style="width: 240px; float: right; height: 233px" width="240" /></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">2차 대전 이후 지금까지 세계적 규모로 격렬하게 벌어진 환율갈등은 모두 두 차례다. 첫 번째 갈등의 정점은 1971년 8월의 ‘닉슨쇼크’였다. 미국의 닉슨 대통령은 달러를 금과 바꿔주는 금태환의 정지를 전격 선언해, 전후 새로운 국제통화 질서로 자리 잡았던 ‘브레턴우즈 체제를 무너뜨렸다. 제2차 갈등의 산물은 1985년 9월의 ‘플라자 합의’였다. 주요 선진 5개국(G5) 재무장관과 중앙은행 총재들은 뉴욕의 플라자 호텔에 모여 달러화 약세 유도를 결정했다. 두 번의 환율전쟁 직후 달러화는 일본의 엔화와 독일 마르크화 등 주요 통화에 대해 공통적으로 큰 폭의 약세를 보였다.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">그리고 2003년 7월의 ‘G7 두바이 합의’는 앞의 두 차례에 비해 충격 강도가 약해 환율전쟁에 비유하기는 적절치 않지만, 달러화가 엔화와 유로화에 대해 장기간 약세를 보였다는 점에서 2002년 1월부터 2008년 2월까지 6년2개월간을 ‘제3차 달러약세기’로 부르기도 한다. 2008년 세계 자본주의 체제적 위기가 최악의 국면을 일시적으로 벗어난 직후인 2009년 3월부터 시작된 달러 약세가 앞으로 더욱 본격화해서 장기간 지속된다면 ‘제4차 달러약세기’가 되는 셈이다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 11pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 23px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold">2. 환율전쟁의 배경 </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 11pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">이번 환율갈등도 마찬가지로 미국이 갈등을 주도하고 있다. 갈등의 주요 배경은 2008년 금융위기를 촉발시켰고 지금까지 그 늪에서 헤어나지 못하는 취약한 미국경제다. 미국이 자국의 경제위기를 회피하기 위해 기축 통화 국으로서 가장 손쉽게 쓸 수 있는 방법인 ‘달러 가치 떨어뜨리기’라는 충격요법을 제 입맛대로 동원해온 것이, 1970년대 이후 40년간 되풀이되고 있는 세계자본주의 환율갈등 역사의 본질이다.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">저 성장률, 고 실업률, 주택가격 하락, 은행도산, 재정적자 확대, 대 중국 무역마찰 확대 등 미국경제는 이미 실질적인 경기침체 국면에 빠졌고, 일본을 비롯한 스페인, 아일랜드, 그리스, 포르투갈, 이태리 등 유로 존 역시 성장률이 정체되거나 역성장 하는 등 세계자본주의는 다시 한 번 깊은 침체로 접어들기 시작한 것이다.</span> <span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">그런데 2007년 시작된 최근의 세계자본주의 위기는 이전과는 다른, 자본주의 쇠퇴기의 마지막 국면에 접어들었음을 나타내주고 있는데 환율전쟁은 바로 그 초입부터 시작되었다. 결국 환율전쟁은 이러한 새로운 국면의 진입이라는 근본적문제가 해결되지 않는 한 멈출 수 없는 상황인 것이다.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 11pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 23px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold">3. 환율전쟁이 장기화 가능성과 또 다른 결과</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 11pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">2008년 위기국면을 벗어나기 위해 이미 각국의 부르주아 정부들은 쓸 수 있는 사실상의 모든 수단 ‘재정적자와 경기부양 등’ 을 다 사용했다. 하지만 이번에는 침체를 막기 위해 남아있는 수단이 거의 없다. 따라서 ‘양적완화와 환율전쟁’은 부르주아 정부가 사용할 수 있는 거의 마지막 카드이기 때문에 이를 쉽게 포기할 수 없다. 자본은 2008년 세계 경제위기를 맞아 국제공조를 통해 최악의 상황을 잠시 모면했다. 하지만 경제회복세가 지지부진하면서 인내심도 바닥을 보이고 있다. 경기부양을 위한 뾰족한 수단이 없는 상황에서, 기약 없는 국제공조를 지속하기보다 수출 확대를 위해 자국 통화를 평가 절하려는 ‘나부터 살고 보자’식 전략을 동원하기 시작한 것이다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">게다가 이번 환율전쟁의 주도세력이 바로 핵심 자본주의 국가(미국 중국, 일본, 대만, EU) 이기 때문에 중재가 쉽지 않고, 이미 국제공조가 깨지기 시작했다. 80년대 일본처럼 일부국가의 경기침체를 환율절상으로 ‘충격 흡수’해줄 여유가 있는 나라가 없고, 특히 중국도 미국의 충격을 흡수해 줄 여력이 없기 때문이다. 이모든 사실이 환율전쟁을 장기화로 몰고 가는 요소이다.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">그렇다면 미국은 중국과의 이기기 힘든 싸움을 왜 시작하고 나섰을까. 11월2일 중간선거라는 정치적 이슈가 이유 중의 하나인데, 경기침체와 고실업에 대한 미국 국민들의 불만이 팽배한 상황에서 '중국 때문에 경제가 이렇게 어렵다'는 식의 선거 전략이 필요하다. 하지만 최근 국제적인 환율동향을 보면 이 같은 선거전략 이외에 또 다른 이유의 일단을 찾을 수 있다. 13일 뉴욕시장 기준으로 위안화는 달러화와 비교해 올 들어 연 저점 대비 2.47% 절상됐다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">반면 일본 엔화는 연 저점 대비 13.77%, 한국 원화는 10.68%, 태국 바트화는 10.17% 절상됐다. 미국은 중국을 상대로 당초 내걸었던 대폭적인 위안화 절상이라는 목표는 달성하지 못했지만 사실상 '글로벌 달러화 약세'라는 전략목표는 달성한 셈이다. 따라서 미국은 대폭적인 위안화 절상이라는 것이 아예 전략적인 목표가 아니었는지도 모른다. 최근 중국 시장의 성장속도를 볼 때 위안화가 대폭적으로 절상되고 이 때문에 중국 경제가 타격을 받는다면 미국에도 도움이 안 되기 때문이다. 결국 미국 입장에서 중국 경제를 흔들 만한 대폭적인 위안화 절상 대신 완만한 절상이 애초에 숨겨둔 전략목표였는지 모른다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">중국으로서도 최근의 환율전쟁이 불리하기만 한 것은 아니다. 완만한, 점진적인 위안화 절상은 중국 경제에 독이 아니라 약이 될 수 있다. 가뜩이나 경기과열과 물가가 우려되는 상황에서 완만한 위안화 절상은 중국 경제의 연착륙과 경쟁력 강화에 도움을 줄 수 있다. 최근의 국제적인 환율동향 역시 중국이 내심 미소 지을 수 있는 요소다. 미 달러화 대비로는 위안화가 소폭 절상됐지만 미ㆍ중이 싸우는 와중에 다른 나라 통화들이 훨씬 더 많이 절상돼 이들 국가 통화 대비로는 오히려 중국 위안화가 절하됐기 때문이다. </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">결국 미ㆍ중의 이번 환율전쟁은 계산된 수위 안에서 다투는 '제한 전' 일 가능성이 높다. 오히려 실제로는 신흥국 치기가 노림수라고 볼 수 있다. 즉 미ㆍ중이 싸우는 소리는 요란하지만 실제로는 신흥국을 치는 전략이다. 결론적으로 환율전쟁의 최대 피해자는 한국 등 신흥국이며, 이는 이들 국가의 노동자들에게 실업과 고용불안 그리고, 환율로 인해 떨어진 수출경쟁력을 회복하기 위해 고강도의 노동착취, 임금하락의 압력을 가해올 것이다.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 11pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 23px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 11pt; font-weight: bold">4. 환율전쟁의 진짜 주역과 노동자계급 </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 11pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">환율전쟁은 정부가 앞장서서 전투를 벌이고, 전쟁의 명분은 언제나처럼 자국 제조업체(수출)와 실업으로 고통 받는 자국 노동자들을 위한다는 것이지만, 실제로 이 과정에서 막대한 이익을 챙기는 것은 월가 등의 금융자본이다.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">현재의 환율전쟁은 정부사이의 정책적 갈등이라는 표현 형식으로 나타나고 있고, 여기서 정부는 금융자본이 아닌 제조업체들의 수출사정과 국민들의 고용사정을 배려해서 환율전쟁을 벌이는 것으로 되어 있다. 하지만 실제 막대한 자금을 움직이는 주체 입장에서 보면, 이는 대부분 월가의 금융자본이고, 이들이 양적완화로 인해 넘쳐나는 달러를 신흥국으로 유입시켜 막대한 환차익, 금리차익, 시세차익을 도모한다고 할 수 있다.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
</p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">그들은 이익이 생기면 챙기고 손실을 보면 노동자계급에게 위기를 전가하고 빚을 떠안게 하는 것이 본성이다. 환율전쟁이야 말로 자본의 위기를 다른 나라 노동자계급에게 자연스럽게 떠넘기는 자본의 생존방식일 뿐이다. 여기에는 온갖 애국주의, 노사협조주의, 포퓰리즘 등 악취가 풍기는 자본주의 쓰레기로 가득 차 있다. 이 싸움이 노동자계급에게 더욱 어려운 것은 계급투쟁의 본질은 묻히거나 왜곡되어 있고, 이런 온갖 악취들이 투쟁의 방향을 흐려놓기 때문이다. 하지만 노동자계급의 목표는 분명하다. </span><span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: bold">노동자계급에겐 부르주아 국가끼리의 환율전쟁이 아닌 노동자계급과 자본가계급의 계급전쟁이 있을 뿐이다.</span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt"> </span></p>
<p style="text-align: justify; line-height: 160%; text-indent: 0px; margin: 0px; font-family: '바탕'; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">
<span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt">현재의 소모전과 같은 환율전쟁은 자본주의 금융시스템의 근본을 다시 한 번 흔들어 엄청난 손실과 회복할 수 없는 위기로 몰아갈 가능성을 높여 주고 있다. 여기서 노동자계급이 자본의 장단에 맞춰 국가를 위해 양보하고 희생한다면, 노동자계급을 살리는 것이 아니라 오히려 자본과 함께 몰락할 것이다. </span><span style="text-align: justify; line-height: 21px; font-family: '바탕'; letter-spacing: 0px; color: #000000; font-size: 10pt; font-weight: bold">자본을 몰락시키고 노동자계급이 사는 길, 그것은 국가와 부문을 넘는 노동자계급의 세계적인 계급투쟁과 사회주의 혁명의 길 뿐이다.</span></p>
<p>
<!-- --><!-- end clix_content --></p>
<div class="buttons-bottom center jinboblog-i-like-this-buttons"><a class="button-jinboblog" href="javascript:void(0);" title="스크랩으로 글 링크를 저장하세요" onclick="recommend('4942',20,'/iscralee','');"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/mini_chuchon.png" alt="진보블로그 공감 버튼" /></a><a class="button-twitter" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F20+%22%ED%99%98%EC%9C%A8%EC%A0%84%EC%9F%81%EA%B3%BC%20%EB%85%B8%EB%8F%99%EC%9E%90%EA%B3%84%EA%B8%89%22" target="_blank" title="트위터로 리트윗합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/twitter.png" alt="트위터로 리트윗하기" /></a><a class="button-facebook" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F20&t=%ED%99%98%EC%9C%A8%EC%A0%84%EC%9F%81%EA%B3%BC%20%EB%85%B8%EB%8F%99%EC%9E%90%EA%B3%84%EA%B8%89" target="_blank" title="페이스북에 공유합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/facebook.png" alt="페이스북에 공유하기" /></a><a class="button-delicious" href="http://delicious.com/save" onclick="window.open('http://delicious.com/save?v=5&noui&jump=close&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F20&title=%ED%99%98%EC%9C%A8%EC%A0%84%EC%9F%81%EA%B3%BC%20%EB%85%B8%EB%8F%99%EC%9E%90%EA%B3%84%EA%B8%89','delicious','toolbar=no,width=550,height=550'); return false;" title="딜리셔스에 북마크합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/delicious.png" alt="딜리셔스에 북마크" /></a></div><p><strong><a href="http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/20?commentInput=true#entry20WriteComment">댓글 쓰기</a></strong></p>폭력기구자유로운 영혼http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/122011-11-02T10:07:34+09:002010-08-02T10:13:37+09:00<!--FCKeditor-->
<p>
<strong>노동자평의회</strong>(workers council)가 권력을 갖고 있지 않는 한,</p>
<p>
그곳이 어느 곳이든</p>
<p>
자본주의 국가이든, 가짜 사회주의 국가이든, 복지국가이든, 현존하는 최고의 민주주의 국가이든...</p>
<p>
<img alt="" height="402" src="/attach/4942/021025594.jpg" width="604" /></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
<strong>경찰(</strong>police)은 권력과 자본의 상설화된 폭력기구일 뿐이다.</p>
<p>
특별히 투쟁하는 프롤레타리아트에겐 일상화 된 폭력의 가해자이며, 당장 물리쳐야 할 <strong>적</strong>(enemy)의 대리자이다.</p>
<div class="buttons-bottom center jinboblog-i-like-this-buttons"><a class="button-jinboblog" href="javascript:void(0);" title="스크랩으로 글 링크를 저장하세요" onclick="recommend('4942',12,'/iscralee','');"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/mini_chuchon.png" alt="진보블로그 공감 버튼" /></a><a class="button-twitter" href="http://twitter.com/home?status=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F12+%22%ED%8F%AD%EB%A0%A5%EA%B8%B0%EA%B5%AC%22" target="_blank" title="트위터로 리트윗합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/twitter.png" alt="트위터로 리트윗하기" /></a><a class="button-facebook" href="http://www.facebook.com/sharer.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F12&t=%ED%8F%AD%EB%A0%A5%EA%B8%B0%EA%B5%AC" target="_blank" title="페이스북에 공유합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/facebook.png" alt="페이스북에 공유하기" /></a><a class="button-delicious" href="http://delicious.com/save" onclick="window.open('http://delicious.com/save?v=5&noui&jump=close&url=http%3A%2F%2Fblog.jinbo.net%2Fiscralee%2F12&title=%ED%8F%AD%EB%A0%A5%EA%B8%B0%EA%B5%AC','delicious','toolbar=no,width=550,height=550'); return false;" title="딜리셔스에 북마크합니다"><img src="/plugins/../jplugins/ILikeThis/images/delicious.png" alt="딜리셔스에 북마크" /></a></div><p><strong><a href="http://blog.jinbo.net/iscralee/12?commentInput=true#entry12WriteComment">댓글 쓰기</a></strong></p>