Terrorism as a virus that threatens capitalism

[Chris Burford <cburford@xxxxxxxxxx>]

"Terrorism ... is like a virus that can easily mutate." *

The analogy with a virus is apt.

Despite the horror of the WTC bombings, terrorism as such is not lethal to
capitalism. The system will react with shock, and then gradually with an
array of defensive mechanisms that limit the damage the virus can do, until
it mutates again. It might make it impossible to carry out capitalism in
high rise buildings. Capitalism can adapt. It might make it dangerous for
large crowds to gather in rush hours in major conurbations twice a day.
Capitalism can adapt. It may make it difficult to travel by air except at a
relative expense comparable to 3 decades ago. The market, and the
accumulation of profits will adjust to this too.

20,000 children die a day unnecessarily and the business cycle does not
stop in horror. Apart from the shocking impact of the loss of life, the
attack on the WTC can also be analysed from a systems point of view. It is
similar in some ways to the virus attacks that are so frequently unleashed
on the internet. Some of them can do great damage very fast, some are less
virulent but more pervasive in their effects, slowing down the internet, or
almost living as commensals within the system.

So why does the emergence of this terrorism virus threaten capitalism?

Not because markets and profit making cannot adapt around it.

Not because it poses directly the best political challenge to capitalism -
far from it. Just 10 days ago we were expecting that September would end
with a humiliating series of demonstrations and teach-ins against global
capitalism at a meeting of the IMF/WB that had already been cut in length
by 60%. And the global context was a world recession anyway. Now the
prospect of vast amounts of investments on ineffective armaments could
provide plenty of profits for capital.

No, the terrorism virus deeply threatens capitalism, because, despite the
mystifications inherent in capitalism, it absolutely requires the world
capitalist system to be seen, analysed, and managed *as a system* to a
degree that has never before been done. The invisible hand can no longer
safely be worshipped. The most serious capitalists, like the most radical
reformers, must look at capitalism as a system, whether they are trying to
protect it, or to transform it.

And if the capitalists start to manage it increasingly as a global economic
system (monitoring all large unauthorised money transfers, devising
Marshall Aid plans for the Middle East, or North Africa) that increasingly
undermines the existence of capital as the pure expression of the private
ownership of the means of production. Indeed production will increasingly
have to be regulated with social foresight.

The only question, which will become increasingly clear, provided the drama
of the terrorist attacks start to subside, is, "for whom?"


Chris Burford

London


* Daniel Warner,  Acting Secretary General at the Institute of
International Studies in Geneva, "War on terrorism makes no sense"
International Herald Tribune 21.9.01

http://www.iht.com/articles/33158.htm