A Focus on the Global Capitalist Crisis And Responses to It
This edition of the Khanya Journal explores the nature of the current global capitalist crisis and how social classes are responding to it. Moments of crisis have become a common feature in the history of the capitalist system since In the 20th century history of global capitalism, the current crisis is the deepest and most severe since the Great Depression of 1929. An important aspect of capitalist crisis is the balance of forces in the class battles that ultimately determine its outcome. Historically, fierce class battles around the world have left important political landmarks such as the two world wars; the Russian revolution; fascism in Germany and other parts of Europe; the rise of social democracy after the second world war; anti-colonial struggles in the Third World; and the defeats of the working class in the wake of the world capitalist crisis that emerged in the early 1970s.
In this edition we therefore attempt to accomplish two things. The first is to explore the specific nature of the current capitalist crisis and examine its sources. We also aim to develop an understanding of why the current crisis manifests itself predominantly in the form of a financial crisis and the implications of this for how capitalist crises have been understood before. This will help us understand the changes the capitalist system has undergone in the past 40 years or so and the relationship of these changes to the current crisis. An understanding of the source of the current crisis will also illuminate how it will unfold and what its likely impact will be on the balance of forces on a global scale.
The second is to explore the impact of the crisis on the configuration of social forces through an assessment of how both the capitalist and working classes are responding to it. The history of capitalist crisis teaches that the resolution of the crisis doesn’t come from discussions, policy choices or goodwill of bourgeois governments, but from class battles in which the class that is both politically and organisationally strong shapes the outcome of the crisis in its favour. As such an analysis of the nature of the crisis and responses to it is an important one for socialists as it helps us gain important insights into how the crisis will unfold and therefore what challenges lie ahead for the working class. It is on the basis of such insights that we are able to work out tasks and develop appropriate programmatic interventions to prepare the working class to face these challenges.
This edition of the Khanya Journal opens with an article by Robert Brenner, in which he discusses the nature, sources, character and implications of the crisis for working class struggles. He challenges dominant conceptions of the crisis from within the bourgeois ranks as well as on the left and insists on the current crisis being a crisis of overproduction and falling profits and not a typical financial crisis as commonly held. He locates the current crisis in the evolution of the long downturn since 1973 and argues that although there is no way of knowing, this crisis could come to rival the great depression. He also challenges notions of finance- led capitalism and argues that developments in the real or productive economy are still central to capital accumulation. On the prospect for a return to Keynesianism, he contends that this will require that major political and economic obstacles are overcome. He points out that while attempts to resolve the crisis by creating new areas of economic activity has short term relief, it mainly deepens overproduction in the long run. He examines the impact of the crisis on the US’s position in the world economy, the role of China and the situation in Korea. The article ends with an assessment of the possibilities that the defeat of neoliberalism will open for the left.
By clarifying key issues in the specific nature and sources of the current crisis, the stage is then set for an examination of how the ruling and the working classes are responding to the current global capitalist crisis. The article by Ighsaan Schroeder identifies trends and tendencies within the working class responses to the current crisis. The article is prefaced by a preliminary exploration of how the ruling classes around the world have sought to deal with the crisis as a way to frame an assessment of the working class responses. The main contention of the article is that the range of responses surveyed reveal that, even though marked by unevenness, the responses are of a limited nature and reflective of a class on the retreat. The article makes it clear that to argue that the working class is on the retreat is not synonymous with saying it is not engaged in struggles, but that its struggles are of a defensive nature and don’t translate into a generalised offensive against the capitalist system. After examining experiences from selected places around the world, the article concludes that the current political and organisational weaknesses will become a major factor in the ability of the capitalist classes to overcome the crisis and restore stable conditions for capital accumulation.
Oupa Lehulere explores the response of the South African ruling class by examining the state’s response to the crisis through a document titled: Framework for South Africa’s responses to the international economic crisis, developed by a task team consisting of government, labour and business, which was later endorsed by Nedlac. This article argues that the framework document completely exonerates factors within the country in the causal links to the crisis by moving from the premise that the neoliberal economic course adopted by the state over the last 15 years was not only correct, but had to be pursued into the future. In addition all the measures being proposed as solutions to the crisis have been on the table in 15 years of neoliberal macro-economic policy. These measures include amongst others, the reshuffling of already existing fiscal resources as though it is new money being mentioned and promises of countless meetings and structures to meet urgently to consider various aspects of the response. Even the approach to the bailouts, unlike those pursued by governments elsewhere, is based on commitment to fiscal austerity. The article ends by arguing that the ruling class will use the crisis to defend and create better conditions for capital accumulation and profits.
Ishmael Lesufi looks at Cosatu’s response to the crisis and the challenges this poses to the working class in South Africa. The article locates the federation’s response to the current crisis within the context of its response to the close to 15 years of neoliberal offensive. The federation responded to this offensive through reliance on structures of class collaborations and the abandonment of traditions of militant mass mobilisation. This article argues that this approach is mainly responsible for the series of defeats suffered by the working class during this period. These defeats have produced serious political and organisational weaknesses that have in turn shaped power relations between the ruling
class and working class in favour of the former. The article observes that the federation is reproducing this failed approach in response to the current crisis, meaning the South African working class is being set up for more defeats. The article ends by noting that it is only social movements and community based organisations that have consistently taken up anti-neoliberal struggles, although isolated and uneven. It concludes by arguing that it is to these impulses that revolutionaries should look for renewal of combative working class energies for future class battles, even though the movements are still weak due to their relatively short period of existence.
Open mic section
This section carries three articles. The first is the continuation of the debates on socialist approaches to electoral politics that was inaugurated in the last edition of 2008. Whilst the previous debates focused more on tactical questions of the best to approach to participation in bourgeois elections, in this article Jonathan Payn and James Pendlebury look at the principle of participation in such elections. After examining the various positions in the debate, the article advances a case for active abstention. This is a position calling for a principled boycott of elections, even though at certain times this principle might be waived, for example, when confronted with fascism.
In the second article, Maria Van Driel looks at the place of social grants in the livelihoods of black women in the light of the implementation of neoliberal policies in South Africa. The article observes that the social reproduction of substantial sections of the black working class in South Africa is based on these grants. The article argues that the value of increased government spending on grants in the past few years was eroded by the growing commercialisation of social services. This exerts pressure on the value of the grants as the money received has to take care of increased social needs. With the phenomenon of the changing structure of family forms and single headed female households, women are the sole bearers of the crisis of neoliberal capitalism. Given already high levels of poverty and People’s Summit, Grand Circus Park, Detroit 2009.
Inadequacy of social grants, these will become even worse in the context of the current capitalist crisis, especially in the South African context where the state has demonstrated single-minded commitment to fiscal austerity.
In the third article, Molefe Pilane provides feedback on the regional Social Forum held in Swaziland in 2008. The forum brought together social movements and other civil society organisations to share experiences and reflect on political developments in the region. The article makes an assessment of the forum by looking at various workshops conducted during the course of the forum. The themes covered by the various workshops include: gender and women; food security and land; global warming and climate change; youth; and alternatives to neoliberalism. The article ends with a set of calls made by the forum at its closing session.
Education section
This section of the edition carries an article titled: Capitalism as a system of crisis by Oupa Lehulere. The article is an excerpt from another longer paper. The article looks at the functioning of the capitalist system and how crisis emerge as a result of this. It makes the point that the search for profits is the basic cause of crisis under capitalism. We encourage comrades in Study Groups to read this section first as it will make it easy to follow the rest of the articles on the crisis.
Nehanda Africa supplement
This section of the edition carries the third and last part of the paper by Helen Bradford on the history of abortion in South Africa. The first and second parts of this paper were carried in the previous editions.
Documents
In this section of the edition we carry GIWUSA’s approach to the crisis. This document reflects the union’s perspectives on the sources of the crisis; approach to immediate measures and demands around specific issues like bailouts, short time, relief measures for retrenched workers and labour brokers; and a programme of political mobilisation.
Barometer of resistance
Given the theme of this edition, this barometer goes beyond our normal focus on the Southern African region and focuses on global struggles against the effects of the global capitalist crisis. It looks at struggles from December 2008 until June 2009.
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