[p2p-research] Can Marxian Economics Explain the Crisis?

[Michel Bauwens]

Hi Andy,

reading Carlota Perez, and some other stuff from Jean Zin on kondratieff
before that, I think that 73 was the normal mid-term crisis of a
kondratieff, inevitably followed by slow growth, but also, and this is the
perez insight, as a upcycle for the innovation which should be dominant in
the next cycle, (perez upcycle = kondratieff downcycle)

what complicates matters is that these cycles coincide with a more
fundamental resource and ecological/climate crisis,

normally,  the sudden system shock should be followed by a fairly long
period of deleveraging, which has historically been characterized by social
strife and wars, and dislocation of the old cycle powers,

after this, a new upcycle based on the innovation could take place, but it
will be hugely complicated by the endgame systemic issues affecting the
infinite growth machine,

this is in my opinion, which makes it the last one, and gives us a chance to
plant the seeds of the new civilizational cycle,

of course, it won't be smooth sailing, even if a relative upturn occurs

it is because the new upcycle will be so weak and fraught with systemic
weaknesses, that the alternative peer economy will be essential as an
alternative and corrective, preparing its ascendency,

if we fail, then the post-capitalist era will be very regressive, and we'll
look back at this age with wonderment and longing,

Michel
On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 3:20 PM, Andy Robinson <ldxar1 at gmail.com> wrote:

> In Negri's 70s stuff, he argues that value is no longer relevant to
> capitalism because of the closure of the passage from formal to real
> subsumption - capitalism now sets value arbitrarily, by command.  He's
> thinking of things such as Baudrillard's 'sign-value' I think, where value
> is extracted based on something akin to rent on symbols.  Spivak has made a
> similar argument about the global South and the 'expanded form of value' -
> pure value extraction does not exist, capitalism coexists with other social
> forms.  This makes it very hard to quantify 'real' value production -
> capitalists might be making 'profits' which are only partly profits, and are
> partly rents, fictional speculative income, extraction of surplus from non-
> or quasi-capitalist economies, etc.
>
> As an analysis of the current phase I'd recommend Arrighi's 'Hegemony
> Unravelling' articles.  Basically I'd see the current crisis in terms of a
> crisis of hegemony or Kondratieff wave transition which is being dragged out
> indefinitely through various accounting tricks (use of fictional capital and
> speculation, borrowing on the dollar's strength then devaluing, etc).  In
> other words, the world never got out of the 70s recession, it just looked
> like some countries did because of retrogressive global redistributons, rent
> extraction, and speculation.  The crisis has returned periodically as credit
> crises  since then.  The Mexican crisis, the Argentine crisis, the Russian
> crisis, the big East Asian collapse, the European ERM crisis, the dotcom
> bubble, the Enron crisis, and now this big one.  I thought when it started
> that this might be the decisive one, but it looks like most places have
> pulled it together again for now.  The way out usually comes from the
> emergence of a new hegemon or superpower, but this seems to be blocked at
> the moment by the way the US is pulling in finance from emerging markets.
>
>
>
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