[Pen-l] Capitalism the Edge of a Vortex

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Capitalism ? the Edge of a Vortex

By Fawzi Ibrahim

[Fawzi Ibrahim, Senior lecturer (retired) and author of several books 
on electronic engineering, television and video technology and 
computers. Email: fawzi@xxxxxxxxxxxx]

 When the crisis of 1973-74 was upon us, Anthony Crosland, the then 
Labour Secretary of State for the environment, told local authority 
representatives 'the party's over'. Glossing over the fact that most 
people weren't aware of there being a party, let alone that it was 
over, Crosland was right in that the crisis of 1973-74 was an 
important watershed.  The following two decades witnessed a 
'reconfiguration of the capitalist system'[1] culminating in what is 
variously described as 'the crisis decades'[2] 'the age of 
insecurity'[3], 'the new economy[4], the 'long slowdown[5] and 'the 
long downturn'. But what was so special about that crisis? After all, 
cycles of boom and bust are normal; so normal, they are dubbed 'the 
business cycle'. What was special about the 70s? Was it the oil 
crisis, the breakdown of international monetary system (Bretton 
Woods), the onset of 'globalisation', the winter of discontent, the 
'crisis of Fordism', new management techniques, computerisation or 
was it the election of Thatcher and Reagan, the impending collapse of 
the Soviet Union or the rise of 'neo-liberalism'? All of these and 
other external factors have been sited to explain the peculiarity of 
the 70s and the period that followed. But looking at external factors 
for an explanation confuses cause and effect.

This article will show that the causes of the crisis of the 70s were 
internal to capitalism, inherent within it.  Employing new graphical 
techniques borrowed from electronic engineering, the article will 
illustrate how in the early 70s, as a result of falling rates of 
profit, capitalism was heading towards a vortex-like critical zone. 
The 'transformation' that followed was necessary to prevent 
capitalism tipping over the edge and into oblivion.

http://www.marxmail.org/vortex.htm

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