[Marxism] World Depression: Regional Wars and the Decline of the US Empire - by James Petras

[Jerry Wells <jeremy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

FYI- 

World Depression: Regional Wars and the Decline of the US Empire
Part I
Global Research, March 30, 2009

by Prof. James Petras


http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=12955


Introduction

            All the idols of capitalism over the past three decades
crashed.  The assumptions and presumptions, paradigm and prognosis of
indefinite progress under liberal free market capitalism have been
tested and have failed.  We are living the end of an entire epoch:
Experts everywhere witness the collapse of the US and world financial
system, the absence of credit for trade and the lack of financing for
investment.  A world depression, in which upward of a quarter of the
worldâs labor force will be unemployed, is looming.  The biggest decline
in trade in recent world history â down 40% year to year â defines the
future.  The immanent bankruptcies of the biggest manufacturing
companies in the capitalist world haunt Western political leaders.  The
âmarketâ as a mechanism for allocating resources and the government of
the US as the âleaderâ of the global economy have been discredited.
(Financial Times, March 9, 2009)  All the assumptions about âself-
stabilizing marketsâ are demonstrably false and outmoded.  The rejection
of public intervention in the market and the advocacy of supply-side
economics have been discredited even in the eyes of their practitioners.
Even official circles recognize that âinequality of incomeâ contributed
to the onset of the economic crash and should be corrected.  Planning,
public ownership, nationalization are on the agenda while socialist
alternatives have become almost respectable.  




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