From Infinite War to Infinite Crisis

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size

Notes

This paper was delivered at the Eleventh Conference of ANEC (Cuba's National Association of Economists and Accountants) on “Globalization and Development,” held in Havana, Cuba, March 2–6, 2009. The text was translated by Machetera, Scott Campbell, Christine Lewis Carroll and Manuel Talens, on behalf of Tlaxcala, the Network of Translators for Linguistic Diversity (http://www.tlaxcala.es/). The translation has been edited, in consultation with the original text, for publication here.

1. See Antoine Reverchon, “Entretien avec Immanuel Wallerstein”, Le Monde (Paris), October 12, 2008. The expression “Wagnerian finale” was first used by the distinguished Chilean economist Aníbal Pinto in his analyses of the impact of the Great Depression on the Latin American economies.

2. Cf. Karen E. Dynan and Donald L. Kohn: “The Rise in US Household Indebtedness: Causes and Consequences” (Washington, DC: Federal Reserve Board of Washington, August 2007), p. 40. Other data were supplied by Eric Toussaint in a personal communication dated March 26, 2009.

3. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. I, chapter 31, note 15.

4. Mike Stathis, “America's Financial Apocalypse Heralds Decade Long Depression” (http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article6256.html).

5. Cf. “Who Would Have Thought Things Would Come To Such A Pass?” in SearchIndia.com (http://indiablogs.searchindia.com/2009/02/21/1-citigroup-share-12-garlic-naan-in-nyc/). On the Enron case, see Ignacio Ramonet: Le Krach parfait: Crise du siècle et refondation de l'avenir (Paris: Galilee, 2009), pp. 66–70. This book, by the way, offers a lucid analysis of the origins of the current crisis. On the Madoff swindle see Tomás E. Martínez, “Madoff o la telaraña de Dios,” La Nación (Buenos Aires), March 28, 2009 (http://www.lanacion.com.ar/nota.asp?nota_id=1112891&pid=6113925&toi=6269) and Tim Reid, “Wall Street Legend Bernard Madoff Arrested over $50 Billion Ponzi Scheme,” Times Online, December 12, 2008 (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5331997.ece).

6. See Ignacio Ramonet, “La explosión del desempleo,” Rebelión, March 3, 2008.

7. Jeffrey Sachs has recently explained that, “the free market ideology is an anachronism at a time of climatic change, hydric stress, shortage of food, and energy insecurity” and urged President Obama to adopt an innovative response to the crisis. “Está naciendo un nuevo modelo de capitalismo,” Clarín (Buenos Aires), February 14, 2009 (http://www.clarin.com/diario/2009/02/14/opinion/o-01858675.htm). Sachs's change of mind is quite remarkable considering that it was he who designed and applied the sadly celebrated “shock therapies” in Bolivia in 1985 and then in Poland and in Boris Yeltsin's Russia. It is regrettable that he gives up halfway, because he continues to believe in the possibility of a capitalist solution to the crisis currently oppressing us. No system whose driving force is profit can adequately respond to this challenge, hence the necessity to build a socialist alternative. For a detailed account of “shock therapies” around the world, see Naomi Klein, The Shock Doctrine (Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007).

8. Cf. Fidel Castro et al., Tanques llenos, estómagos vacíos: La amenaza de los agrocombustibles (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Luxemburg, 2007).

9. See Michael Klare, “Un planeta en el alero: ¿podrán contenerse los virulentos brotes epidémicos de la economía?,” Rebelión, March 4, 2009. Originally published in Asia Times, February 26, 2009 (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/KB26Dj02.html).

10. George Soros, interview by Nathan Gardels: “Reparar el sistema financiero no impedirá la recesión,” El País, Madrid, October 19, 2008.

11. This process has been brilliantly analyzed in Leo Panitch and Sam Gindin, Global Capitalism and the American Empire: Socialist Register 2004 (London: Merlin Press, 2003), and Finance and the American Empire! Socialist Register 2005 (London: Merlin Press, 2004).

12. Cf. Martín Granovsky, “Además de injusto el mercado absoluto es inviable” (interview with Eric Hobsbawm), Página/12, March 29, 2009, pp. 4–6.

14. Television interview with Zbigniew Brzezinski, February 17, 2009 (http://finkelblog.com/index.php/2009/02/17/brzezinski-hell-there-could-be-even-riots/).

13. “La ley de la selva,” Granma Digital Internacional, Havana, October 13, 2008

15. Ramonet, “La explosión del desempleo” (note 6).

16. Klare, “Un planeta en el alero” (note 9). Since the presentation of this paper at the ANEC Conference two other European governments have fallen: Hungary and the Czech Republic. On the case of Hungary see Charles Forelle and Edith Balazs, “Hungary At An Impasse,” Wall Street Journal, March 23, 2009, p. 32.

17. See Atilio Boron, Socialismo Siglo XXI (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Luxemburg, 2007, soon to be published in Cuba) for a discussion of the main characteristics necessary to any project of socialist construction adapted to current conditions.

18. It is worth remembering that the response from any decadent empire or political order suffering a similar situation is usually more aggressive and murderous than that of others whose foundations are more solid. Michael Klare demonstrates this very well in “Beware Empires in Decline,” Asia Times, October 19, 2006 (http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HJ19Ak01.html) where he analyzes the behavior of both English and French decadent imperialism after the Second World War, and their last rash attempt to reconstruct their imperial hegemony in the Suez Channel in 1956.

19. See Atilio A. Boron Socialismo Siglo XXI. An excellent dossier on the crisis appeared in the March 2009 issue of Le Monde Diplomatique (in several languages).