[Pen-l] Massimo De Angelis on the financial crisis

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Next Lap in the Rat Race?
From Sub-Prime Crisis to the “Impasse” of Global Capital

Massimo De Angelis

Why is it that fuel prices are increasing, home values are falling, 
credit is squeezed and job insecurity increasing? Why is it that more 
and more of U.S. working class families are suffering the pinch of this
crisis?

My answer might sound very cynical: It’s so the system that links their
working lives to those of billions of others around the world can
continue, in new ways, to divide working people here and around the
world; to devalue their work and reward those who bet on the “right”
asset; pit one livelihood against another in condition of endless
competition; and thus reproduce scarcity in the midst of plenty. The
many current crises that are hitting the world are interlinked, and
what started in the U.S. as a sub-prime and foreclosure crisis, is now
appearing in other parts of the world as a food and energy crisis which
is now, in turn, rebounding in the U.S. To put it bluntly, the current
crises create the conditions for a planetary restructuring to allow the
planetary rat race to continue, and continue producing scarcity in the
midst of plenty. Unless, of course, people from around the world set
limits on this madness, and together restructure from below the way
they produce the world’s wealth. Let us explore some of these
linkages.

Financial crisis

The U.S. is in the midst of two interrelated crises, an economic
slowdown and a financial crisis. Recessions and slowdowns are means
to devalue wages and put pressures on the working class and lay the
basis for a profitable new upturn in the business cycle. This financial
crisis has even deeper implications, because of its international
ramifications, its links to other global crises such as food and energy,
and the fact that faith in future growth, accumulation and repayment
of past and current debt has been deeply shaken.

full: 
http://ricardo.ecn.wfu.edu/~cottrell/OPE/archive/0807/att-0185/01-deangelis_sub-prime.pdf
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