Material World – Will capitalism implode?
Nothing quite so vividly demonstrated the absurdity of existing society and that it had run well past its sell-by date than the phenomenon we call a depression. By what insane topsy turvy logic could it be that the very abundance of goods that industry churned out should become the source of intense misery to those who had produced this abundance? How absurd that with technology having been developed to the point where human want could be eliminated, this very want should become magnified.
Glutted markets meant mass layoffs, the indignity of the dole queue and the desperation of trying make ends meet. Even in a boom time, needs go unmet; now in a depression the perceptible gap between what people have to put up with and what is materially possible, widened as never before.
It is facts like these that should prompt us to reconsider whether, in the kind of society we live in today, technology or technological innovation can actually deliver ‘abundance’. But delivering abundance doesn’t seem to be the real purpose behind such innovation — making our lives more secure, happy, and content. Behind the smoothly executed fakery of the advertisers, the dissimulation of the pasted-on smiles of the actors who perform in these adverts, another ulterior motive is at work —making a profit by meeting paying demand which, for most people, is limited.
Some argued that crises and depressions were becoming, if not permanent then, at least, progressively worse. Even the Communist Manifesto (1848) had contended that whatever existing measures might be undertaken to overcome such crises this simply meant, ‘paving the way for more extensive and more destructive crises, and by diminishing the means whereby crises are prevented’.
However, a quick comparison of the Great Depression of the 1930s and the 2008 global crisis should dispel any such notion. The former event was, by most standards, far more destructive and socially disruptive than the latter, thus refuting the claim that there is some built-in tendency for crises to get progressively worse. As an article in the Economist (10 December 2011) pointed out:
‘The shock that hit the world economy in 2008 was on a par with that which launched the Depression. In the 12 months following the economic peak in 2008, industrial production fell by as much as it did in the first year of the Depression. Equity prices and global trade fell more. Yet this time no depression followed. Although world industrial output dropped by 13% from peak to trough in what was definitely a deep recession, it fell by nearly 40% in the 1930s. American and European unemployment rates rose to barely more than 10% in the recent crisis; they are estimated to have topped 25% in the 1930s.’
Even when the idea was mooted that the working class would act consciously, and in a united fashion, to deliver the coup de grâce to a demonstrably dying system it was assumed that the desire to do so could only have arisen out of the intense hardship workers experienced within a capitalist society in its apparent death throes. That in itself is a highly questionable thesis. The ‘absolute immiseration’ of workers is, if anything, more likely to impede, than promote, the kind of mindset it will take to get rid of capitalism.
In any event, the very fact that capitalism is still very much alive (if not exactly well) should make us think twice about all such prognoses concerning the ‘impending collapse of capitalism’ — irrespective of the particular route by which it is supposed to reach this point. What needs to be questioned is the very notion of ‘collapse’ itself with all its unfortunate mechanistic and millenarian overtones.
In the Great Depression of the 1930s when many on the Left believed fervently in the imminent collapse of capitalism, we in the Socialist Party brought out a landmark pamphlet called Why Capitalism will not Collapse (audio version here). The pamphlet pointed out that previous crises, going back to the early 19th century, had all likewise prompted predictions of apocalyptic collapse on much the same grounds yet these had all proved unfounded. There was no compelling reason for thinking that things would be any different in the future. Capitalism would only disappear if and when workers clearly wanted that to happen and that was something that could not be imposed on them from above – or, indeed, behind their backs.
Apart from anything else there is no ‘internal’ mechanism one could identify that would mechanically cause the system to collapse. Of course, it is conceivable that capitalism could be brought to a shuddering halt as a result of some ‘external’ factor intervening — such as a global ecological catastrophe or a nuclear war — but that is a different argument and, in any case, it is not quite consistent with what the term ‘collapse’ conveys, which would suggest some kind of systemic or internal implosion.
ROBIN COX