So as of yesterday, oil has never been higher and the the dollar has never been lower.
The most important contemporary Marxian scholar out there is probably David Harvey, whose Limits to Capital is a remarkable update of Marx's entire oeuvre in terms of late-20th / early-21st century economics. I'm going to skip the long summary and just try to paraphrase Harvey on global capitalism as of 2006 (when the last edition came out.) Basically, the Right succeeded in deregulating every market in the world over the last thirty years in search of places to invest all of the insane profits the rich have managed to squeeze out of, well, everyone else. Not since the nineteenth century has there been such a wealth disparity between the top of the heap and, literally, the rest (the stats I remember off the top of my head are that 1 billion people live on a dollar a day, another 2 billion on about two dollars a day, while CEOs have never received such high salaries and bonuses, ever.) So capital needed a place to go, and it opened up every "emerging" market it could find in the space of a few decades, slaughtering labor and health and safety regulations in the process.
The thing is, from the perspective of the US, opening markets for investment may have seemed desirable, but now "we're" reaping the results. "We" shipped everything we had overseas as fast as "we" could so that stocks would go up a few bucks for a few months. And no one that I've read in the mainstream press has ever said anything about FUCKING INCOMES and REAL COSTS OF LIVING. "Consumers" are just supposed to find new ways to borrow. It's insane.
The scary thing is that no one that I've read anywhere, in the leftist academic press or the mainstream economic press, has any solutions. "We" sold ourselves out so that Haliburton could make more money in Iraq and the hedge funds could bet against commodity markets in Africa, and here "we" are. The only sane thing to do is vote for whoever-the-fuck the democrats decide on in November and hope and pray that he or she pulls out of every actual war we're in and launches a full-scale assault on the hedge fund managers and the CEOs instead. But I'm not holding my breath.
And in the meantime, as of March, B and I are now spending 1075/month for this shoebox we live in...
2.27.2008
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7 comments:
jesus h christ. when you spell it all out like that, things seem hopeless. I dont know if its paranoia, but I've feared for a long time (oh, about 8 years now) that our generation will actually see some sort of radical event and Ive secretly hoped that it will be a revolution. Mutiny!
But thats probably not it. Maybe it will be the first black/woman president and they totally pull the country out of one of the worst slumps its ever seen. Heres hoping. In the meantime, as long as I can afford a roof over my head, some food in mah belly and of course, a cheap bottle of wine I think I'll hold out fine until 1.20.09.
Oh and P.S. -
Another scary thing no one seems to be talking about is the DIRE straights our countries transportation infrastructure is in. Since my firm is civil and I work in the transportation department, I get to see first hand how many problems the Portland area has alone and how little money there is to fix them each year. Even with a catastrophic event like the collapse of the HWY 35 Bridge in Minneapolis (which was in better condition than some of ours here in Bridge Town) funding has seen a minimal increase, and that increase has only paid for inspections so far, not fixes.
We live in scary times, my friend.
xo
See, and that's a depressing thing I hadn't even thought of! Dammit!
Word UP.
dude, maybe you should come to FSH. Even though we're likely facing another 7% increase, for and extra $55 a month you get twice the space, an extra bedroom, included cable and internet, and brilliant neighbors.
(At that same time, I understand the allure of downtown and the ability to escape your place of work...)
Good news! There is no recession! The economy is just fine.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080228/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush
"$4 a gallon? Interesting. I hadnt heard that."
must... not... break computer... in rage...
I consider Marxist vision completely deficient on projected outcomes and viable soultions, but Marxist critique of capitalism sowing the seeds of it's own destruction remains valid. The accumulation of capital tends to reinforce itself at an accelerating rate that drives the distribution disparity. The traditional safety valves that have prevented the system from devouring itself in revolution have been periodic, yet mild, income redistribution reforms and expansion/exploitation on the frontiers of western society - from the Roman provinces of antiquity to F. Jackson Turner's "Frontier Thesis". The planet is running out of these safety valves and it is no longer as easy to commit genocide to create new frontiers to exploit. When the system grinds to a halt, you'll know where you can find me trying to assemble my feudal hordes so as to set up a new world order. As Mr. Burns would say while tapping his fingers together - "Excellent!!!!"
So, you're saying "brace yourself"?
We'll all have to follow TIS's lead.
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