Re: Re: Debt crisis

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

At 10:13 12/04/00 -0400,

[Chris]
> Quite. A typical capitalist crisis of "overproduction". That is,
> overproduction relative to the limited purchasing power of the market, and
> in particular the impoverished masses of the world.
>
> _________
>
> Charles B: But what of the FROP and inability to valorize capital ?


Isn't this in part looking at the same problem from a different angle.

The rate of profit falls especially fast when the capitalists cannot sell
their goods.
As for your second phrase I have read too little to grasp if this is indeed
a problem or another statement of the same contradiction from a different
perspective.




> This is not true. Debts do not have to be repaid even from the point of
> view of the capitalists. All capitalists know that some have "bad luck".
>
> __________
>
> Charles B: They may know it, but I can't imagine the capitalists letting
> it out in general that they think that debts do not have to be paid.  Lets
> forgive the credit card debt, mortgages and the national debt. I don't
> think the capitalists would go for that.

Yes they will not say it out loud. The euphemism is "restructuring". But
capitalists do take an element of risk in order to participate in the
statistical certainty that they will get a larger slice of surplus value by
owning capital. The petty bourgeoisie have now been induced in large
numbers to try holding shares.
Approached the right way supporters of capitalism will declare bluntly that
indeed there are risks and some capitalists go to the wall. Sections of
capital may lobby hard against bail-outs


>  Small businesses fail all the time, sacrificed to the bourgeois God.


Absolutely. I have forgotten the proportion of businesses that fail in the
first year. There ought to be a hazard warning printed on the publicity for
all such enterprises. hundreds of thousands of people a year ruin their
lives, and burn up what little capital they have in a business that goes
flat despite them exploiting themselves to the point of exhaustion.



> >Unemployment worldwide nearly doubled between 1989 and 1996, and now
> >criminally afflicts over a billion people.
>
> Nothing inherently criminal about it.
>
> ________
>
> Charles B: You must not be unemployed.

I am not, but I don't get your point.



> Charles B: Capitalism is inherently capital crime.

I am a purist on this. A lot of crime is associated with capitalism but
accumulation occurs through the fair exchange of commodities. I do not
think this is pedantry. I think we sell the pass if we slip into
unscientific rhetoric about this. True that the owners of capital take
their decisions in order to maximise profits and not out of social
foresight, but that is in itself not a crime under capitalist law.


> We must find ways to help people see the world economy in a completely
> different light. To emphasise that it is living labour that is important
> not dead capital. (That is not to say however that investment in the means
> of production is not needed) We have to get the point across that an
> envigoration of the economic life of Africa, Latin America and Asia is to
> the benefit of the people of North America and Europe even if the rate of
> growth there slows temporarily. A rise in the quality of life of third
> world peoples is essential if they are to have better opportunities without
> following in the environmentally destructive path of previous
> industrialisations.
>
> _________
>
> Charles B: True


Charles do you not use software with a reply button which automatically
marks the material to which you reply, as a quote?