全球資本主義危機(jī)TheGlobalCapitalistCrisis

1、The Global Capitalist Crisis:Its Origins, Nature and ImpactProf. Berch BerberogluDepartment of SociologyUniversity of Nevada, Reno Copyright 2011 by Berch BerberogluNo part of this power point presentation can be used for any purpose without priorwritten authorization and permission obtained from th

2、e author.IntroductionnThe U.S. and the global economy have been and continue to be in serious crisis, and the current global recession is the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression of the early twentieth centurynThe Dow Jones plunged more than 50 percent from its highs of 14,000 in late

3、2007 to below 6,500 in early 2009, with more than a trillion dollars of value lost in the stock market in little over a year nAlthough the Dow rose to around 12,500 a little over two years after its worst decline, the recent turmoil on Wall Street over the past two weeks, which pushed the Dow down t

4、o the the 10,000 level could make things worse a “double-dip recession” turning into a depressionnClearly, the global capitalist economy is going through its deepest crisis since the Great Depression of 1929, and this signals serious challenges for global capital over the next decade, especially for

5、 the United StatesnThe best example of this impact, and what is in store for us over the next few years, is what has been happening with the sovereign debt crisis in Greece, Portugal, Spain, Ireland, and Italy, as well as the United States (and with what has happened to the icons of U.S. big busines

6、s General Motors, AIG, Citigroup, and other big corporations and banks)nLets take a brief look at these once-powerful icons of the U.S. economy to assess the magnitude of the damageFigure 1. Lehman Brothers stock, 2007-2011 (in dollars and volume traded)$80Source: Yahoo Finance http:/ retrieved Augu

7、st 19, 2011.$18 4 centsFigure 2. General Motors Corporation stock, 2007-2011 (in dollars and volume traded)Source: Yahoo Finance http:/ retrieved August 19, 2011.$404 cents $5$1Figure 3. Citigroup, Inc. stock, 2007-2011 (in dollars and volume traded)$55$2.68$26Source: Yahoo Finance http:/ retrieved

8、August 19, 2011.Figure 4. American International Group stock, 2007-2011 (in dollars and volume traded)$1,4500$1,000$600$22Source: Yahoo Finance http:/ retrieved August 19, 2011.Figure 5. Fannie Mae stock, 2007-2011 (in dollars and volume traded)Source: Yahoo Finance http:/ retrieved August 19, 2011.

9、$50$2220 centsFigure 6. Freddie Mac stock, 2007-2011 (in dollars and volume traded)$7031 cents$63$32Source: Yahoo Finance http:/ retrieved August 19, 2011.Origins of the CrisisnThe periodic crises resulting from the capitalist business cycle now unfolds at the global level nThe current crisis of the

10、 world economy is an outcome of the consolidation of economic power that the globalization of capital has secured for the transnational corporationsnThis has led to a string of problems associated with the financial, banking, real estate, and productive sectors of the economy that have triggered the

11、 current economic crisis Nature of the crisis The central problem of our present capitalist economic system is the recurrent business cycle which is now operating at the global level. It manifests itself in a number of ways, including:nThe problem of overproduction/underconsumptionnIncreasing unempl

12、oyment and underemploymentnDecline in real wages and rise in super-profitsnThe sub-prime mortgage and credit card debtnSpeculative corporate financial activitiesnIncreased polarization of wealth and incomeTable 2. Distribution of Wealth in the United States, 2007, by Type of Asset (in percentages)_I

13、nvestment AssetsTop 1% Top 10% Bottom 90%_Stocks and mutual funds 49.3 89.4 10.6Financial securities 60.6 98.5 1.5Trusts 38.9 79.4 20.6Business equity 62.4 93.3 6.7Non-home real estate 28.3 76.9 23.1_Total for group 49.7 87.8 12.2_ Source: Edward N. Wolff, “Recent Trends in Household Wealth in the U

14、nited States: Rising Debt and the Middle Class Squeeze,” Working Paper No. 589 (March2010), p. 51.How Did All This Happen?According to Prof. Richard D. Wolff Department of Economics, University of Massachusetts at Amherst Richard D. Wolff, “Capitalism Hits the Fan,” in Gerald Friedman et al. (eds.),

15、 The Economic Crisis Reader (Boston: Dollars & Sense, 2009).nFrom 1820 to 1970, every decade U.S. workers experienced a rising level of wagesnIn the 1970s this came to an end; real wages stopped rising and they have never resumed sincenU.S. workers became more productive, but got paid the same; wage

16、s began to stagnate and declinenThe gap between labor and capital grew bigger1859 69 79 89 99 1909 19 29 1939 1947 1955 1965 1975 1985 1995 2005The large corporations made huge profits and had much money at their disposal They bought other corporations (mergers and acquisitions) and they put their m

17、oney into banks The banks loaned that money (with interest) to workers who didnt have money to consume This was done to raise their purchasing power because their wages werent enough to buy thingsThen What? Since employers no longer raised workers wages, the workers had to go into debt to survive De

18、bt went up and up and things got out of control The banks continued to loan money through new loans (secondary mortgages) at high interest rates, and this was a profit bonanza for the banks As corporations increasingly began to invest abroad (outsourcing production and services), U.S. workers lost t

19、heir jobs, and this led to greater unemployment and underemploymentUnemployed workers with a lot of debt were unable to make their mortgage and credit card payments, and this led to foreclosures and bankruptcies This, in turn, led to the collapse of the banking system, necessitating a government bai

20、lout of the banks It is only through the nearly trillion dollar stimulus funds that the U.S. government poured into the economy to save the banks from default that a financial collapse was averted $ 70Extent of the CrisisnThe current economic crisis has been deep and widespread on a global basis, es

21、pecially in the U.S.nIn the epicenter of the crisis, in the United States, unemployment increased from 7 million in December 2007 to 16 million in October 2010nCounting the discouraged and part-time workers, the unemployment rate reached 18% in 2010nForeclosures have been running over 1 million a ye

22、arnPoverty is on the rise (now 44 million Americans 1 in 7 live at or below the poverty line) With the steady decline of the manufacturing sector in the United States through outsourcing of production to cheap labor areas abroad, 2.9 million well-paying manufacturing jobs have disappeared in the per

23、iod 2005-2008 alone. And thats on top of a loss of more than 3 million jobs in manufacturing from 1998 to 2003, with millions more lost in the entire postwar period.25.1 million workers who were either unemployed or underemployed. Average Annual Unemployment Rate, 2007-2010 (in percent) Source: Bure

24、au of Labor Statistics. nToday, the labor market remains 8.1 million jobs below where it was at the start of the recession over three years ago in December 2007.nThis number vastly understates the size of the gap in the labor market because keeping up with the growth in the working-age population wo

25、uld require adding another 3.4 million jobs over this period.nThus, with the above 9% unemployment rate today, the labor market is now 11.5 million jobs below the level needed to restore the pre-recession unemployment rate of 5.0% in December 2007. nSo, to achieve the pre-recession unemployment rate

26、 in five years, the labor market would have to add 285,000 jobs every month for the next 60 months.nBut, more importantly than that, beyond the impact of the great recession and the slow recovery in the years ahead, the big issue is the impact of globalization on the labor force structure and job cr

27、eation in the United StatesnAnd that will depend in large part how the problem of outsourcing is addressed in conjunction with the role of the state in providing stimulus funds to create jobs in the public sector jobs that private industry is unable or unwilling to create in the era of neoliberal gl

28、obalization. A Second Great Depression, or Worse?SIMON JOHNSON, Thursday, August 18, 2011Simon Johnson, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, is the co-author of 13 Bankers.With the United States and European economies having slowed markedly according to the latest data, and

29、 with global growth continuing to disappoint, a reasonable question increasingly arises: Are we in another Great Depression?The easy answer is no - the main features of the Great Depression have not yet manifested themselves and still seem unlikely. But it is increasingly likely that we will find ou

30、rselves in the midst of something nearly as traumatic, a long slump of the kind seen with some regularity in the 19th century, particularly if presidential election-year politics continue to head in a dangerous direction.The Great Depression had three main characteristics, seen in the United States

31、and most other countries that were severely affected. None of these have been part of our collective experience since 2007.First, output dropped sharply after 1929, by over 25 percent in real terms in the United States (using the Bureau of Economic Analysis data, from its Web site, for real gross do

32、mestic product, using chained 1937 dollars). In contrast, the United States had a relatively small decline in G.D.P. after the latest boom peaked. According to the bureaus most recent online data, G.D.P. peaked in the second quarter of 2008 at $14.4155 trillion and bottomed out in the second quarter

33、 of 2009 at $13.8541 trillion, a decline of about 4 percent.Second, unemployment rose above 20 percent in the United States during the 1930s and stayed there. In the latest downturn, we experienced record job losses for the postwar United States, with around eight million jobs lost. But unemployment

34、 only briefly touched 10 percent (in the fourth quarter of 2009; see the Bureau of Labor Statistics Web site).Even by the highest estimates - which include people discouraged from looking for a job, thus not registered as unemployed - the jobless rate reached around 16 to 17 percent. Its a jobs disa

35、ster, to be sure, but not the same scale as the Great Depression.(For full text of this article see the Appendix at the end of this power point presentation).Which Way Out of the Crisis?nEconomic remedies to save the system from collapse are bound to fail so long as they remain within the framework

36、of the existing capitalist systemnChanges that are required to revitalize the economy and turn things around point to a redistribution of wealth and income to increase mass consumptionnThis would increase demand for consumer goods, hence increase production, and create jobs for the unemployed, as we

37、ll as raising revenue for the state through corporate and individual income taxesnAll these would require a restructuring of the economy away from failed neoliberal corporate capitalist policies and toward a new set of priorities that promote the interests of working peoplenSuch restructuring requir

38、es the transformation of our current capitalist economic system and the existing social order in the direction of providing greater rights and benefits to working peoplenAnd this would, in turn, benefit society greatly and set us on a prosperous course that would vastly improve living standards and

39、pull us out of the economic crisis But, who listens ?Thank You !Contact Information:Prof. Berch BerberogluDepartment of SociologyUniversity of Nevada, RenoReno, NV 89557E-mail:Web Pages:/cla/soc/berchb.htmWhats behind the disconnect between strong corporate profits and a weak

40、 labor market? Several factors:- U.S. corporations are expanding overseas, not so much at home. McDonalds and Caterpillar said overseas sales growth outperformed the U.S. in the April-June quarter. U.S.-based multinational companies have been focused overseas for years: In the 2000s, they added 2.4

41、million jobs in foreign countries and cut 2.9 million jobs in the United States, according to the Commerce Department.- Back in the U.S., companies are squeezing more productivity out of staffs thinned by layoffs during the Great Recession. They dont need to hire. And they dont need to be generous w

42、ith pay raises; they know their employees have nowhere else to go.- Companies remain reluctant to spend the $1.9 trillion in cash theyve accumulated, especially in the United States, which would create jobs. Caterpillar said second-quarter earnings shot up 44 percent to $1 billion. General Electrics

43、 second-quarter earnings were up 21 percent to $3.8 billion. And McDonalds quarterly earnings increased 15 percent to $1.4 billion.Still, the U.S. economy is missing the engines that usually drive it out of a recession.Carl Van Horn, director of the Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers Univer

44、sity, says the housing market would normally revive in the early stages of an economic recovery, driving demand for building materials, furnishings and appliances - creating jobs. But that isnt happening this time.And policymakers in Washington have chosen to focus on cutting federal spending to red

45、uce huge federal deficits instead of spending money on programs to create jobs: If we want the recovery to strengthen, we cant be doing that, says Chad Stone, chief economist at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a research group that focuses on how government programs affect the poor and m

46、iddle class.For now, corporations arent eager to hire or hand out decent raises until they see consumers spending again. And consumers, still paying down the debts they ran up before the recession, cant spend freely until theyre comfortable with their paychecks and secure in their jobs.A Second Grea

47、t Depression, or Worse?SIMON JOHNSON, On Thursday August 18, 2011, 5:00 am EDTSimon Johnson, the former chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, is the co-author of 13 Bankers.With the United States and European economies having slowed markedly according to the latest data, and with globa

48、l growth continuing to disappoint, a reasonable question increasingly arises: Are we in another Great Depression?The easy answer is no - the main features of the Great Depression have not yet manifested themselves and still seem unlikely. But it is increasingly likely that we will find ourselves in

49、the midst of something nearly as traumatic, a long slump of the kind seen with some regularity in the 19th century, particularly if presidential election-year politics continue to head in a dangerous direction.The Great Depression had three main characteristics, seen in the United States and most ot

50、her countries that were severely affected. None of these have been part of our collective experience since 2007.First, output dropped sharply after 1929, by over 25 percent in real terms in the United States (using the Bureau of Economic Analysis data, from its Web site, for real gross domestic prod

51、uct, using chained 1937 dollars). In contrast, the United States had a relatively small decline in G.D.P. after the latest boom peaked. According to the bureaus most recent online data, G.D.P. peaked in the second quarter of 2008 at $14.4155 trillion and bottomed out in the second quarter of 2009 at

52、 $13.8541 trillion, a decline of about 4 percent.Second, unemployment rose above 20 percent in the United States during the 1930s and stayed there. In the latest downturn, we experienced record job losses for the postwar United States, with around eight million jobs lost. But unemployment only brief

53、ly touched 10 percent (in the fourth quarter of 2009; see the Bureau of Labor Statistics Web site).Even by the highest estimates - which include people discouraged from looking for a job, thus not registered as unemployed - the jobless rate reached around 16 to 17 percent. Its a jobs disaster, to be

54、 sure, but not the same scale as the Great Depression.Third, in the 1930s the credit system shrank sharply. In large part this is because banks failed in an uncontrolled manner - largely in panics that led retail depositors to take out their funds. The creation of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corpo

55、ration put an end to that kind of run and, despite everything, the agency has continued to play a calming role. (Im on the F.D.I.C.s newly created systemic resolution advisory committee, but I dont have anything to do with how the agency handles small and medium-size banks.)But the experience at the

56、 end of the 19th century was also quite different from the 1930s - not as horrendous, yet very traumatic for many Americans. The heavily leveraged sector more than 100 years ago was not housing but rather agriculture - a different play on real estate. There were booming new technologies in that day,

57、 including the stories we know well about the rapid development of transportation, telephones, electricity and steel. But falling agricultural prices kept getting in the way for many Americans. With large debt burdens, farmers were vulnerable to deflation (a lower price level in general or just for

58、their products). And before the big migration into cities, farmers were a mainstay of consumption.According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, falling from peak to trough in each cycle took 11 months between 1945 and 2009 but twice that length of time between 1854 and 1919. The longest dec

59、line on record, according to this methodology, was not during the 1930s but rather from October 1873 to March 1879, more than five years of economic decline.In this context, it is quite striking - and deeply alarming - to hear a prominent Republican presidential candidate attack Ben Bernanke, the Federal Reserve chai