Capitalism’s Crises

Mark Heywood, Niall Reddy, Sumsngala Damodaran, Alfredo Saad-Filho, Hilary Wainwright, Jamie Jordan, Andreas Bieler, Isham Christie, Leah Hunt-Hendrix, William K. Carroll, Vishwas Satgar

Description

The contributors to this volume draw on a non-dogmatic Marxist approach to explain the systemic and conjunctural dynamics of crisis inherent in global capitalism. Their analysis asks what is historically specific to capitalism's crises while avoiding catastrophic or defeatist claims. At the same time the volume situates left agency within actual patterns of resistance and class struggle to clarify the potential for transformative change.

The cycle of resistance strengthened by the World Socal Forum and transnational activism is now punctuated by the experience of the Arab Spring, the agency of anti-systemic movements, left think tanks, the Occupy Wall Street Movement, labour unions, left parties in Europe such as Syrizia and Podemos and peoples' budgeting in Kerala, India. On the down side, we are witnessing the waning of the Workers Party in Brazil and serious challenges for South Africa's once powerful labour movement and still formative social justice activism. All these developments are assessed in this volume.

This is the second volume in the Democratic Marxism series. It elaborates on crucial themes introduced in the first volume, Marxism in the 21st Century: Crisis, Critique and Struggle (edited by Michelle Williams and Vishwas Satgar).

Acknowledgements

Acronyms and Abbreviations

Introduction - Vishwas Satgar

Part One: Contemporary Understandings of Capitalism’s Crises and Class Struggle

Chapter 1 From Marx to the Systemic Crises of Capitalist Civilisation - Vishwas Satgar

Chapter  2 Activist Understandings of the Crisis of 2008 - William K. Carroll

Part Two: Capitalist Crisis and Left Responses in the Global North

Chapter 3 Occupy and the Dialectics of the Left in the United States - Leah-Hunt Hendrix and Isham Christie

Chapter 4 Austerity and Resistance: The Politics of Labour in the Eurozone Crisis - Andreas Bieler and Jamie Jordan

Chapter 5 Beyond Social Democratic and Communist Parties: Left
Political Organisation in Transition in Western Europe - Hilary Wainwright

Part Three: Capitalist Crisis and Left Responses in the Global South

Chapter 6 Brazil: From Neoliberal Democracy to the End of the ‘Lula Moment’ - Alfredo Saad Filho

Chapter 7 The Global Financial Crisis and ‘Resilience’: The Case of India - Sumangala Damodaran

Chapter 8 Real Wage Trends and the Labour Crisis in South Africa - Niall Reddy

Chapter 9 Seize Power! The Role of the Constitution in Unifying Social Justice Struggles in South Africa - Mark Heywood

Sujets

• Political Economy
• Political Science
• Histoire
• Theory
• History

Informations

• Publié par: WITS University Press
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2015
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781868149247
• Langue: English

Extrait

DEMOCRATIC MARXISM SERIES
Series Editor: Vishwas Satgar
The crisis of Marxism in the late twentieth century was the crisis of orthodox and vanguardist Marxism associated mainly with hierarchical communist parties, and which was imposed even as state ideology as the correct Marxism. The Stalinisation of the Soviet Union and its eventual collapse exposed the inherent weaknesses and authoritarian mould of vanguardist Marxism. More fundamentally, vanguardist Marxism was rendered obsolete but for its residual existence in a few parts of the world, including authoritarian national liberation movements in Africa and in China.
With the deepening crises of capitalism, a new democratic Marxism (or democratic historical materialism) is coming to the fore. Such a democratic Marxism is characterised in the following ways: Its sources span non-vanguardist grassroots movements, unions, political fronts, mass parties, radical intellectuals, transnational activist networks and the progressive academy; It seeks to ensure that the inherent categories of Marxism are theorised within constantly changing historical conditions to find meaning; Marxism is understood as a body of social thought that is unfinished and hence challenged by the need to explain the dynamics of a globalising capitalism and the futures of social change; It is open to other forms of anti-capitalist thought and practice, including currents within radical ecology, feminism, emancipatory utopianism and indigenous thought; It does not seek to be a monolithic and singular school of thought but engenders contending perspectives; Democracy, as part of the heritage of people’s struggles, is understood as the basis for articulating alternatives to capitalism and as the primary means for constituting a transformative subject of historical change.
This series seeks to elaborate the social theorising and politics of democratic Marxism.
CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS vii TABLES AND FIGURES xi ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS xii INTRODUCTION Vishwas Satgar 1 PART ONE: CONTEMPORARY UNDERSTANDINGS OF CAPITALISM S CRISES AND CLASS STRUGGLE 19 Chapter 1: From Marx to the systemic crises of capitalist civilisation 20 Vishwas Satgar Chapter 2: Activist understandings of the crisis 50 William K Carroll PART TWO: CAPITALIST CRISIS AND LEFT RESPONSES IN THE GLOBAL NORTH 77 Chapter 3: Occupy and the dialectics of the Left in the United States 78 Leah Hunt-Hendrix and Isham Christie Chapter 4: Austerity and resistance: The politics of labour in the Eurozone crisis 97 Andreas Bieler and Jamie Jordan Chapter 5: Beyond social-democratic and communist parties: Left political organisation in transition in Western Europe 123 Hilary Wainwright PART THREE: CAPITALIST CRISIS AND LEFT RESPONSES IN THE GLOBAL SOUTH 165 Chapter 6: Brazil: From neoliberal democracy to the end of the Lula moment 166 Alfredo Saad-Filho Chapter 7: The global financial crisis and resilience : The case of India 189 Sumangala Damodaran Chapter 8: Understanding the labour crisis in South Africa: Real wage trends and the minerals-energy complex economy 211 Niall Reddy Chapter 9: Seize power! The role of the constitution in uniting a struggle for social justice in South Africa 245 Mark Heywood CONCLUSION Vishwas Satgar 277 CONTRIBUTORS 284 INDEX 287
TABLES AND FIGURES Table 2.1 Groups participating in study of cognitive praxis networks 57 Table 8.1 Real wage growth rates, all workers, 1997-2011 (%) 218 Table 8.2 Union coverage, formal-sector employees, 2001-2012 232 Figure 8.1 Real mean monthly wages, 1997-2011 216 Figure 8.2 Real monthly earnings trends for all workers, 1997-2011 217 Figure 8.3 Per cent change in real monthly earnings, 1997-2011 (2011 prices) 219 Figure 8.4 Real wage patterns for different skill categories classified by occupation 220 Figure 8.5 Distribution of the workforce, 2001-2011 229
CAPITALISM S CRISES
CLASS STRUGGLES IN SOUTH AFRICA AND THE WORLD
Editor: Vishwas Satgar
Published in South Africa by:
Wits University Press
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Johannesburg, 2001
www.witspress.wits.ac.za
Compilation © Vishwas Satgar 2015
Chapters © Individual contributors 2015
Published edition © Wits University Press 2015
First published 2015
978-1-86814-920-9 (Paperback)
978-1-86814-926-1 (Web PDF)
978-1-86814-924-7 (EPUB)
978-1-77614-047-3 (Mobi)
978-1-77614-706-9 (Open Access PDF)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher, except in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act, Act 98 of 1978.
This book is freely available through the OAPEN library ( www.oapen.org ) under a CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 Creative Commons License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ ).
The publication of this open access volume was made possible by funding from the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences as well as the Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung.

Edited by Liz Mackenzie and Mark Ronan
Proofread by Lee Smith
Index by Clifford Perusset
Cover design by Farm Design
Book Design by Hothouse South Africa
Book layout and typesetting by Farm Design
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This volume owes a special debt to the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Without their support it would have been impossible to hold a contributors workshop in South Africa and to ensure that the manuscript was developed sufficiently for publication. We are also grateful to the support given by Athish Satgoor and Andrew Bennie, organisers at the Cooperative and Policy Alternative Centre (COPAC), who played a central role in organising the workshop convened with contributors and activists from various social movements, including worker leaders involved in building the National Union of Metalworkers-led United Front. Special thanks also goes to Kathryn Joynt who assisted with a language and citation edit and Professor Michelle Williams who gave feedback on the manuscript. Finally, special thanks to the team at Wits University Press, particularly Veronica Klipp, Roshan Cader and Corina van der Spoel for supporting this volume and the Democratic Marxism Series.
ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS
ANC African National Congress
ARVs anti-retrovirals
BJP Bharatiya Janata Party
BNDES Brazilian Development Bank
BRICS Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa
CALS Centre for Applied Legal Studies
COPAC Cooperative and Policy Alternative Center
Cosatu Congress of South African Trade Unions
CRID Research and Information Centre for Development
DAWN Development Alternatives with Women for a New Era
DGB Confederation of German Trade Unions
DPD domestic public debt
ECB European Central Bank
ECB external commercial borrowings
ECI European Citizens Initiative
EE Equal Education
EFF Economic Freedom Fighters
EMF European Metalworkers Federation
EMU Economic and Monetary Union
EPSU European Federation of Public Service Unions
ETUC European Trade Union Confederation
EU European Union
FDI foreign direct investment
FII foreign indirect investment
GDP gross domestic product
GLC Greater London Council
ICT information and communications technology
IFG International Forum on Globalization
IFIs international financial institutions
IMF International Monetary Fund
ISI import substitution industrialisation
LAT labour aristocracy thesis
LRC Legal Resources Centre
MEC minerals-energy complex
MST The Landless Peasants Movement
NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
NCEUS National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector
NDP National Development Plan
NDR National Democratic Revolution
NEP New Economic Policies
NGO non-governmental organisation
NUM National Union of Mineworkers
Numsa National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa
OECD Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
OWS Occupy Wall Street
PAH Mortgage Victims Platform
PALMS Post-Apartheid Labour Market Survey
PASOK Panhellenic Socialist Movement
PBF Bolsa Fam lia
PRC Rifondazione Comunista (Communist Party, Italy)
PRIA Participatory Research in Asia
PSDB Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira
PT Workers Party
QES Quarterly Employment Survey
RBI Reserve Bank of India
RosaLux Rosa Luxemburg Foundation
SACP South African Communist Party
SAHRC South African Human Rights Commission
SBTC skill-biased technological change
SDS Students for a Democratic Society
SGP Stability and Growth Pact
SER standard employment relationship
SERI Socio-Economic Rights Institute of South Africa
SOEs state-owned enterprises
SV Socialist Left Party
TAC Treatment Action Campaign
TAPGs Transnational Alternative Policy Groups
TNI Transnational Institute
TTIP Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership
UDF United Democratic Front
UK United Kingdom
UN United Nations
US United States
USSR Soviet Union
WSF World Social Forum
WTO World Trade Organization
INTRODUCTION
Vishwas Satgar
Until recently, the Great Depression of the 1930s was considered the worst crisis of capitalism. Today, historians, economists and the business media have confirmed that we are now experiencing the worst crisis of contemporary capitalism. The early-twentieth-century Great Depression seems to pale in comparison to the great financial crisis that occurred at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Despite the massive bailouts given to banks and finance houses, deepening austerity in the heartlands of capitalism and a tenuous continuity in growth rates in countries like China and India, the end of the crisis is not in sight. This, of course, does not mean capitalism is about to collapse - but it is certainly in a state of deepening crisis and will probably reach a historical terminus, like all social systems before it.
However, this volume does not attempt to make catastrophic predictions,