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| http://www.shorpy.com/node/9413 |
"If our politicians and economists et al were honest with us, in Japan and elsewhere, they would acknowledge that if we look at the rise in debt numbers since about 1980 (pick a date), there’s no escaping the notion that debt has risen faster than economic growth. That means we have borrowed our way into alleged growth for decades now. And the only forward we see, when looking at that, is to borrow more, get deeper into debt, because we feel we need the growth we haven’t actually seen other than in PR driven reports, so much we’re willing to risk our own future well being to achieve it? How does that make you feel smart? What is it about it that makes you feel better?"http://www.theautomaticearth.com/debt-rattle-jun-19-2014-growth-when-we-dont-need-it/
It is the unassailable merit of The Automatic Earth that day in and day out they focus on the
stranglehold of systemic debt and the delusional corollary of economic growth.
What they fail to do is uncover the necessity behind the ideology and
political-economic maneuvering which they regard as a baffling blindness by the
world's elite.
M-C-M', the general formula of capital, is not a suggestion
and it is certainly not a simple fairy tale to intentionally dazzle the
electorate; it is the law. Capitalism doesn't hold its preeminent role in the
conversations of power because of its efficiency in allocating resources or
because it best assures the comfort of the world's ruling classes but because
it grows. Growth is not only a necessity for capitalism it is the religion
through which the bourgeoisie has organized its political ascension. Steady state
societies have historically managed to maintain ruling classes in power but the
world that we live in has long relied on growth to rally the political support
of those whose situation otherwise shares little with their rulers.
Crises have been essential to this growth and it is here
that TAE will often lead us astray by insisting that the world's central
bankers are aggravating the situation by preventing the credit crisis which
would and should resolve the pickle of unredeemable credit. Their advocacy of an honest accounting of the
institutions which continue to benefit from the consensus of dishonesty fails
to recognize the degree to which capital has moved beyond such calls to reason.
Why has the credit system grown into the creature of science
fiction which we confront today? All credit is capital and, as such, will claim
as its birthright its rightful share of surplus labor; something it can only do
through the production of further commodities, M-C-M'. It should be clear to
all that we seem to be unable to escape, of late, a situation of
overproduction. Ours has become, if anything, a world of overproduction and has
been for some time (pick a date). The solutions to overproduction to which
Capitalism has traditionally resorted have never been so out of reach. The
globe is already incorporated, however imperfectly, and war shows only a
negative return on investment. The limits on the exploitation of the natural
world become tighter every day. And the limits on the exploitation of working
humanity, though less obvious to their exploiters, are surely there.
Preparations for intensified class struggle on the part of the rulers are
increasingly frantic even though the workers appear to be all but unarmed.
