Abstract
The history of capitalism has seen Two Great Long-Lasting Crises separated by one century and which have been marked by two Great Capitalist Mutations. The first Great Crisis started in the early 1870s and after a series of big upsets suffered by capitalism (stock market crash, two World Wars, revolu-tions…), a new form of “different” capitalism emerged within its central core in the form of a muta-tion or hybrid whose reproductive mode had to be permanently propped up by the State through Department III or social services (under the so-called “Keynesian” accumulation-regulation model). The Second Great Long-Lasting Crisis started around 1973 and the attempt made to escape it resulted in a mutation in reverse, marked by the State’s permanent attempt at reducing demand, concentrating wealth and partially maintaining consumption through the financialisation of the economy (the combination of credit-growing debt set amidst speculation or the “Keynesian treatment of the price of assets”). The argument that is put forward here is that we are at the sheer limits of the possibilities offered by a neoliberal-financialised (attempt of) growth model that came into being through the second mutation. This situation is reflected by high systemic instability, uncertainty and violent readjustments. This article analyses the many contradictions and challenges that are faced by today’s capitalism; it is suggested that in consequence a further Great Mutation may take place based on a still unclear model of accumulation-regulation. However it can also provide evidence for capitalist decline (a long process of decline
Highlights
Contradicciones y desafíos en el capitalismo del siglo XXI combination of credit-growing debt set amidst speculation or the “Keynesian treatment of the price of assets”)
The argument that is put forward here is that we are at the sheer limits of the possibilities offered by a neoliberal-financialised growth model that came into being through the second mutation
This situation is reflected by high systemic instability, uncertainty and violent readjustments
Summary
El capitalismo parecía haber encontrado la piedra filosofal del crecimiento sin crisis. El shock financiero-bancario de los años dos mil no es sino el resultado del fracaso en los intentos de escapar de la Segunda Larga Crisis, comenzada hacia 1973 y sólo parcialmente esquivada 7 mediante la nueva mutación capitalista hacia un capitalismo híbrido, pero ahora basado en la exclusión y la crisis (y también a escala mundial en la guerra) como maneras no sólo de gestionar la relación CapitalTrabajo, sino en general la vida de las poblaciones, así como de convertir la Política en administración, eliminando la dimensión social (“keynesiana”) del capitalismo híbrido anterior. 4. El desplazamiento financiero implica una especie de trasmutación de los medios de acumulación de capital por la que el proceso de valorización mediante la producción de valores de cambio y la consiguiente reproducción ampliada del capital (D-M-D’), es subordinada a la vía monetaria de realización de la ganancia (D-D’), desatando el movimiento más ficticio e irreal de la acumulación capitalista, el espejismo de que el dinero “produce” dinero por sí mismo, sin la mediación del trabajo. 10 La inmediatez y cortoplacismo del “interés” de los diferentes capitalistas, nunca les permitió terminar de apostar abiertamente por este desplazamiento temporal de la ganancia, por lo que tuvieron que recibir el “empujón” de la lucha de clases que posibilitó que el Estado (como “capital colectivo”) asumiera esas tareas con muy diferente entusiasmo en unas y otras sociedades. Naredo (2006) ha trabajado bien la dinámica y consecuencias de estos desplazamientos
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