Re: [Marxism] “Cast aside illusions!” Crisis dee =?win...

[Waistline2@xxxxxxx]

"A new system of social control over finance, production and distribution  is
already forming.  Will the new system be shaped to the benefit of  the
billionaire ruling class or to the benefit of the mass of people? "
 
If it benefits the few how will it be new?
& If the 'new" system  benefits the few how will it solve the crisis?
 
regards
 
Gary

Reply
 
1). New refers to a form of finance capital different from finance capital  
outlined in Lenin's imperialism. Lenin speaks of a finance capital -  
imperialism, that was the domination of banking capital over industrial capital 
 and 
the export of this capital to areas of productive investment; in  
contradistinction from the export of commodities that Marx writes about. 
 
During the time of Marx imperialism exported mass produced commodities that  
battered down the barriers of the local market. Financial imperialism involved 
 the buying up of land and production units and investment in raw materials  
etc.
 
No one today really speaks about finance capital as banking capital  
dominating industrial capital. Some further feel that a sector of capital that  
can be 
identified as industrial capital, no longer exists and most certainly not  in 
the industrially advanced countries. Finance capital today is dominated by a  
form of capital that is valueless; living and breathing - expanding, off of  
speculation. This is not the same kind of speculation on the price of physical 
 commodities and physical assets = production. Or gambling - speculation, 
over  paper assets expressing ownership claims over  physical commodities and  
physical assets. 
 
In its outer appearance speculation is speculation is speculation. However,  
in its internal logic what is being gambled over is mathematical equations. 
 
The money made from this new type of speculation is wealth but this wealth  
is not the result of surplus value extraction. Hence valueless wealth. 
 
2). The government "bailout" redistributes wealth from public to private.  It 
shifts trillions of dollars, in the US alone, to those institutions that have 
 been accumulating wealth off of our credit/debt, and off of speculation on  
commodity prices, currency valuations, and interest rates, or the new world of 
 financial instruments; rather than seeking areas for export of capital.into  
areas of production.  . 
 
But this is also more than a bailout. Something new is taking shape.  It is 
the reorganization of the state to protect private property under  new 
conditions. The new condition is the increasing revolution in the productive  
forces 
and the grow of valueless wealth.  Although it may seem like the  bailouts are 
throwing good money after bad, there is some method to the madness.  The 
emerging motion is toward the government and the financial sector together  
controlling and directing the whole economy, buying up the once powerful  
industrial 
corporations, and putting an end to the good standard of living that  was once 
possible for, at least, a small section of the working  
class.http://www.lrna.org/2-pt/v19ed1art1.html
 
The new form of wealth and methods of control cannot end the crisis, only  
deepen it. 
 
A new system that benefits the mass of people is the call of support for  
revolution; changing the property relations. In day to day living this means  
preparing the fight for socially necessary means of life. 
 
WL. 
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