The future of capitalism
A LONG period of recession began
in 1973. Since that date, the capitalist world has seen several phases of cyclical recovery. The last (between 1983 and 1989) saw, as was the case on each previous occasion, the usual ramblings about the new expansionist virtues of capitalism. And did not the "end of communism" arrive just in time to confirm the new modernity of capitalism? But then recession struck again. It turned out that the system had not yet escaped from its long depressive period.
However, the long upturn of 1983-89 showed certain cumulative effects of the changes capitalism had undergone during the crisis. Thus it was important to consider the changes occasioned or permitted by the 19-year depressive period. It had also become necessary to discuss what political, social and economic conditions were required for contemporary capitalism to return to a long wave of expansion.
The two articles on pp. 17-26 take up this debate on the functioning of capitalism and the ways in which it could lasting. ly restore the rate of profit and an expansion of accumulation. What is the necessary role of cumulative structural changes? And what kind of events outside the strictly economic sphere - the so-called exogenous factors — could create the new social conditions needed to back up a recovery? Finally, can "late capitalism" return to the growth rates of the "thirty glorious years" or are its future nonrecessionary phases condemned to be nothing more than mere periods of convalescence?
No academic discussion
This is far from being an academic discussion. It is not just a matter of predicting conjunctures and cycles. To speak about capitalist crisis does not mean that the bosses and the ruling class have their backs to the wall, are living on expedients, managing their debts and their interest rates from day to day.
The crisis is also the occasion for profound changes insofar as the workers, principally those at the heart of the imperialist system, have been unable to use the weakness of their adversary to profoundly change the relationship of social forces.
More or less protected in the medium term from revolutionary dangers, capital has developed a number of innovations
THIS special economics issue is in part the fruit of a seminar organized in November 1991 by the Fourth International, the world-wide organization of revolutionary Marxists. One of the themes addressed by the meeting was the way in which capitalism was changing in the course of its current crisis.
We are publishing in this issue two studies relating to one of the main discussions;
they deal with capitalist reorganization and its impact on an eventual exit from the crisis (see pp. 17-26).
### CLAUDE GABRIEL some of the previously existing social gains are eaten away.
Thus we can clearly see in the setting up of the North American Free Trade Association (NAFTA), or the development of
Economic Community (EEC), a pragmatic search for a way out of the crisis for which hundreds of millions of wage workers will have to pay, both in the figurative and real senses of the term. It is also clear that capital is looking for a second wind from the new markets of the East. But at what social price? These economic questions are related to the balance of class forces and the political struggles.
This is why we are also publishing articles on the social and economic situation developments some of the main WERE ALL RIGHT. industrial countries. THE ONLY THING In order to assess the WE HAVE TO road travelled over FEAR IS... the past 20 years we have to look at what has happened to the organization of capital in the nerve centres of the world
INTRODUCTION tion and Development) countries and it is here also that most of the world's effective demand is to be found. And it is also here that most durable goods are produced and the main technological innovations made. Although, as their name indicates, the power of the multinationals extends throughout the world, it remains the case that the bulk of their employees are to be found in countries such as Japan, Europe and the USA.
Appearances deceptive
It is not then true that the socioeconomic stakes for the future are the least decisive in those countries where class confrontations seem, for the moment, particularly unclear, or at least of a less than explosive character. Appearances can be deceptive. It is in these countries that the results of all the struggles of resistance come together. And it is from there that the solidarity networks must radiate out.
Of course the image of capitalism as predator and monster is projected most clearly by the misery of the Third World or perhaps in the East in the future. Here we see most blatantly the against all" for access to the most lucrative spoils of the "market".
But it is precisely because capitalism always wants to give the impression of being other than it is, of being virtuous and redistributive, that we have to challenge this lie in the countries of the "centre". The capitalist economy, in the US, in Europe, in Japan each day produces more misery and marginalization. Here tens of millions of men and women are unable to work. The states rob and redistribute the fruits of corruption like any banana republic. In short, behind the opulent facade of imperialism, the capitalist machine continues to churn out barbarism and oppression. *
I'M BẶCK TEAR
ITSELF
§ LAYOFFS$ which amount to initial antidotes to the crisis. Reorganization of work and the enterprise, implantation of new technologies, the penetration of the market into new sectors of social life and so on. All this is, perhaps, not enough. But each time economy.
The greater part of international trade is between the OECD (Organization for Economic Coopera-
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