PART II.
THE PRESENT STAGE OF CAPITALIST EVOLUTION.
CHAPTER XVI.
GENERAL OUTLINE OF THE PRESENT STAGE OF DEVELOPMENT.
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Since the Industrial Revolution Capitalism has evolved and expanded at increasing speed. From Europe it has spread throughout the world, affecting and being affected by the different environments and cultures.
The capitalist socioeconomic organisms that we find in South America, for instance, are different from that in Scandinavia or other parts of the world, but all these different forms are variations of the same main theme.
Technology has revolutionised the economy and society. It has created entirely new factors which are influencing in almost unforeseen ways the direction of our evolution.
The productivity of capital and labour has risen to a degree that was never thought possible. Consequently the 'effective demand' has been overtaken and the 'markets' are being saturated. At the same time capital has become concentrated in the hand of relatively few 'transnational' banks and corporations. Their investments are spread throughout the world, and consequently there is often a divergence between their interests and that of the countries in which they operate.
Countries that used to be a market for the products of the industrial Nations have been industrialised. They have become producers themselves and are keen competitors in world trade.
To overcome the absurd problem of overproduction and a lagging demand for commodities, the logic of the merchant has devised the scourge of consumerism, with the public and the developing Nations of the world as their victims; these have become dependent, enslaved by debt for generations to come.
Because of the overcrowded situation in the world market and the desperate state of indebtedness of some developing Nations, the trade war, which has always been a natural feature of capitalist economy, is growing in intensity.
The local industries of every Nation are crying for protection, advocating a policy of isolation, while the transnational bankers and Corporations, with capital invested all over the globe, are advocating the elimination of all trade barriers. They are advocating the institution of the 'Global Factory' and the 'Global Supermarket' (Global Reach). Their dream is the super-nationalisation of Capitalism, and, in its defence, the super nationalisation of its armed forces; the United States attempt at World hegemony and transformation of the NATO into their policing tool is proof of this present situation, the excuse for the general public is the never ending War on Terror.
As Capitalism has developed, it has produced opposing and counterbalancing forces. Trade unions, political parties and revolutionary movements have sprouted from the resistance of the alienated or exploited classes of society. These forces are important factors in the evolution of the socio-economic organism, and they are themselves continually evolving.
Because of technological progress in production, the size and the social composition of the workforce has changed. Most have become 'consumers' in a materialistic 'consumer society', they have cast off some of their former poverty but they have lost the proud radical spirit of the nineteenth century.
The number of productive workers has decreased in relation to that employed in the service industries and that employed in the growing State and private bureaucracies. Objective consciousness is being blurred by the pervasive influence of the capitalist oriented mass media and education. Some of the most unfortunate sections of society are becoming more conservative in their attitudes than those who exploit them. But, as the merchant economy is slowly deteriorating among the pollution and social sickness that it creates, new opposing forces are emerging from every level of the social structure.
Innumerable groups and movements are growing; their aim is to change or to escape from the present socio economic organism.
At present, consumerism is not sufficient any more to take care of the over productive forces of the capitalist system. An increasing portion of energy and resources must be wasted in the production and marketing of arms. This waste has become an important part of capitalist economy, essential to keep in motion the cycle of production and profit making.
Many countries are defaulting on the repayment of their debts. The bankers can do nothing but to keep on lending them more money to prop up their faltering economies in order to maintain the illusion of the soundness of the capitalist banking system, and prevent a loss of confidence and a general collapse. We can witness capitalist governments using public money to rescue failing financial institutions, corroborating the business attitude that 'their profits are private, their losses are public', with the awareness that the alternative would be the collapse of the capitalist economy and consequent chaos.
This is, in short, the general situation in the present stage of capitalist economy. We will try to examine all these points in simple and general terms. We will try to understand their relation to the original natural laws and mechanism of the system.
Before we proceed, we should look at the confused picture of capitalist economy in the world today.
As an attempt to see through the maze of combinations and contradictions, we should try to pry apart each of the component elements from their entanglement, and look at them separately, examine their main essential features, and then we should try to imagine what will happen when we scramble them back together.
To this purpose, we must adhere to the general aspects, forgetting for the moment the many variations and exceptions which would render a simple and short analysis impossible. The variations and exceptions are real and important enough, but they do not contradict the main essence of the present situation.
To start, we should first consider the main economic elements that are the interconnected parts of a capitalist economic system. Then, to this simple sketch, we should add the new elements and factors to complete the picture.
As we have seen earlier, a Country or Nation is an organism composed by a large group of people who usually have a common historical heritage, common culture or religion, and usually live in proximity within a definite geographical region. There are some exceptions: people who try to maintain their original national identity while they have been scattered in different parts of the world, but their life is not generally easy although it may be successful.
In capitalist countries most productive activities, mainly those which are profitable, are performed by private businessmen, companies, national and international corporations and monopolies. All these productive activities may be grouped in three main branches of production:
The 'Primary Industry' which is involved in agriculture and the extraction of raw materials.
The Heavy and the Light Manufacturing Industries, which are concerned with everything small or big that is manufactured, whether in a small workshop or in a large industrial complex:
The 'Service Industries' comprising the private and the public infrastructures which facilitate the functioning of the productive industries and the distribution of their products. The more important services are the retail industry, transport, banking, insurance and public utilities.
Some of these industries in the economy may have opposing interests.
One reason is that they all are trying to sell their products to each other as dear as possible, and buy from each other as cheap as possible within the competition of the market. For this reason all businessmen and companies tend to join into different associations and chambers, which in fact are businessmen unions, to protect and promote their particular interests. It should be superfluous to say that the corporations are conglomerates of companies with interests in every branch of the economy.
Capitalist businessmen constitute a very small portion of the total population. The rest, whether employed on salaries or wages, constitute the workforce; their interests, while closely connected with the prosperity of the industries in which they are employed, are at the same time in antagonism with their immediate employers because of the basic natural contradiction between capital and labour, profits and wages. Therefore, while the workforce may be united by its own general overall interest in relation to its immediate employers, it may be often torn apart by the opposing interests of the different industries.
Now, to this general description of social and economic forces, we must add some new elements that must complicate further the conflict of interests between and also within the different industries and groups in the socioeconomic organism of a country. One is the influence of the transnational corporations that have no permanent national interests or loyalties. Another is the armament industry.
Of all these industries and productive activities some are directed to the home market, some are directed to the export market and some to both; therefore, often they have opposing interests: exporters, for example, usually prefer a low exchange rate that makes their products cheaper on the world market, while the local producers prefer a higher exchange rate to protect their local market from foreign competition. The international corporations are usually not affected by this and other particular factors; as they play over the whole globe and they can take advantage of various national differences.
We could try now to mix and superimpose all the activities that have been mentioned so far, as they take place and interact in real life; but I believe that it is almost impossible to have a clear picture of the situation. Moreover, these are only the main activities and to these we should also add the important cultural, political factors that influence the behaviour of different peoples. All we can do, in the absence of a powerful computer with a suitable program, is to try to imagine in one picture the essential concept of all this activity and hope to get as close as possible to reality.