Explaining the crisis

Abstract

Richard D. Wolff Capitalism Hits the Fan: The Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do About It, Interlink Publishing: Northampton, MA, 2009, 272 pp: 9781566567848 16.99 [pounds sterling] (pbk) Paul Mattick Business as Usual: The Economic Crisis and the Failure of Capitalism, Reaktion Books: London, 2011, 126 pp: 9781861898012 12.95 [pounds sterling] (pbk) David McNally Global Slump: The Economics and Politics of Crisis and Resistance, Merlin Press: London, 2011, 230 pp: 9780850366785 12.95 [pounds sterling] (pbk) David Harvey The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism, Profile Books: London, 2011, 312 pp: 9781846683091 8.99 [pounds sterling] (pbk) While the crisis that hit global capitalism in 2008 will be analysed and argued over for years to come, there is a ready audience for early efforts to explain why it occurred and offer prognoses for its resolution. These four titles, all published in North America and dealing mainly with the US experience, have four distinctive features in common. First, they all berate mainstream economics, with its celebration of free-market capitalism and its failure to anticipate the crisis. Second, they draw on a substantial reservoir of earlier analysis and debate, because the idea of crisis has always played a central role in the Marxist critique of capitalism. Third, they offer alternatives not only in explaining the crisis, but also in discussing progressive strategies for resolving it. And finally, they are all written for a non-academic audience--perhaps the sort of audience that the Left Book Club sought in Britain in the 1930s: intelligent, committed, but lacking the knowledge and patience to work through the results of specialist academic research. Richard Wolff's book is a collection of 63 short articles by the author, published between 2005 and 2009 on the website of the US journal Monthly Review. It is linked to a documentary film of the same name, made in 2009. Fifteen articles make up Part I on 'Roots of a system's crisis', with each addressing an economic or political issue that sheds light on what went wrong. Part II, 'Economics of the crisis', includes 33 articles in sections on mainstream economics, efficient market theory, wages and employment, government intervention and international issues. Part III then focuses on 'The politics of the crisis', with sections on mainstream reformism, socialist solutions and anti-capitalist politics, the last having a particular focus on France. The writing is consistently clear, informative and passionate, providing an excellent model for others looking to make use of the blogosphere to bridge the gap between theory and political action. As Wolff puts it in the introduction, 'It's a bit like reading a critic's diary of the crisis', and this gives the more assiduous reader a good idea of how different aspects of the crisis have evolved, and what mattered most at different times. Because the articles have not been edited or updated, and because each has its own distinctive focus, it is hard to build up a systematic picture of the author's analysis: but then the purpose of the book is not to carve out territory in Marxist political economy, rather to provide an accessible introduction for students and activists. Paul Mattick's brief account in Business as Usual is short on detail, but its tight focus on the basic economics of the crisis make it a good introduction for the non-expert looking for a more integrated story. Once again the writing is excellent, and although there are no tables or charts there is plenty of well-chosen information, wide-ranging as regards time and place, and both events and ideas are clearly summarised. His first chapter gives a summary account of the crisis and the mainstream analysis of it, starting from the impact that falling house prices had on the mortgage finance sector from 2006, and the way decades of financial liberalisation and internationalisation had created an ideal mechanism for spreading that impact into global credit markets. …