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Capitalist Meltdo-Wn "To face reality squarely; not to seek the line of least resistance; to call things by their right names; to speak t�e truth to the masses, no matter how bitter it may be; not to fear obstacles; to be true in little thi�gs as in big ones; to base one's progra.1!1 on the logic of the class struggle;. to be bold when the hour of action arrives-these are the rules of the Fourth International." 'Inequality, Unemployment & Injustice' Capitalist Meltdo-wn Global capitalism is currently in the grip of the most The bourgeois press is relentless in seizing on even the severe economic contraction since the Great Depression of smallest signs of possible "recovery" to reassure consumers the 1930s. The ultimate depth and duration of the down­ and investors that better days are just around thecomer. This turn remain to be seen, but there are many indicators that paternalistic" optimism" recalls similar prognosticationsfol­ point to a lengthy period of massive unemployment in the lowing the 1929 Wall Street crash: "Depression has reached imperialist camp and a steep fall in living standards in the or passed its bottom, [Assistant Secretary of Commerce so-called developing countries. Julius] Klein told the Detroit Board of Commerce, although 2 'we may bump along' for a while in returningto higher trade For those in the neocolonies struggling to eke out a living levels " (New Yo rk Times, 19 March 19 31).The next month, on a dollar or two a day, this crisis will literally be a matter in a major speech approved by President Herbert Hoover, of life and death. Klein'sboss, Secretary of Commerce Robert P.Lamont, reit­ erated this upbeat projection: Capitalism & Economic Crisis "Declarirlg that after such industrial cataclysm, time and the slow working of economic readjustments were After the experience of the 19 30s, bourgeois economists necessary before the world could return to economic paid a good deal of attention to the origins of capitalism's health and vigor, Mr. Lamont said that therecould be no inherent boom-bust tendency, \mt in recent decades most doubt that many of these necessary readjustments-had considered that the problem of periodic crises had been been and are being made and that business even now was solved.Paul Krugman, winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize responding sluggishly to the stimulus of these needed for Economics, recalled how a previous Nobel laureate changes.He added thatwhatever were the causes of our declared that the business cycle had been tamed: present difficulties, the corrective influences now had "In 2003 Robert Lucas, a professor at the University of been at work for many months." Chicago and winner of the 199 5 Nobel Memorial Prize in -New Yo rk Times, 30 April 1931 Economics, gave the presidential address at the annual But Hoover's stimulus failed to produce the anticipat­ meetings of the American Economic Association.After ed "corrective influences " and the depression dragged on explaining that macroeconomics began as a response to the for years, turning the 19 30s into a lost decade of unthink­ Great Depression, he declared that it was time for the field able hardship for tens of millions of ordinary working continued on page 14 people. Today, parallels with the 19 30s are becoming increas- ingly obvious: "Withthe release of thejobs report on Friday, thebroadest measure of unemployment and underemployment track­ Contents ed by the Labor Department has reached its highest level Capitalist Meltdown . 1 in decades.If statistics went back so far, the measure NPA: France's New Reformist Party ......... 3 would almost certainly be at its highest level since the Workers Power, Chavez & the '5th International' . .12 Great Depression. Karl Marx on Capitalist Crises.. .18 "In all,more than one out of everysix workers-17.5 percent­ SL's 'Real World' Social-Imperialism . .19 wereunemployed or underemployed inOctober." . Haitian Disaster: Neocolonial Nightmare .21 "Nearly 16 million people are now unemployed and more For Labor Action to Free Mumia! . .22 thanseven million jobs have been lost since late 2007. Onthe Lindsey Oil Refinery Strike . .24 "Officially, the Labor Department's broad measure of IBT Supporter Leads Walkout . .28 unemployment goes back only to 1994.But early thisyear, Bolsheviks, Ballots & the Class Line .29 with the help of economists at the department, The New EFCA, Bureaucrats & Democrats . 34 York Trmes created a version thatestimates it going back to IMT on Iran, Yesterday & Today . 37 1970.If such a measure were available for the Depression, 'People's War' in the Himalayas.. 64 it probably would have exceeded 30 percent." -New York Times, 8 November 2009 The U.S.economy, which grew by 2.1 percent in 2007, stagnated in 2008 and shrank by 2.5 percent in 2009.Th e Correction economies of the Eurozone and Japan also contracted, The article in 1917 No.31 entitled "Capitalism in Crisis " stat­ by 3.9 and 5.3 percent respectively (IMF, World Economic ed: "Between 1988 and 2007, credit card debt mushroomed Outlook Update, January).Gross fixed capital formation from 168 percent of GDP to 350 percent. " This should have in the advanced industrial economies, which fell 2.1 per­ read: " ... credit market debt mushroomed from 168 percent of cent in 2008, was projected to drop another 12.4 percent GDP to 350 percent." Credit cards accountfor onlya relatively in 2009.Meanwhile government deficits and levels of small portion of total credit market debt. national debt have climbed sharply, particularly in the U.S. Some of this is attributable to declining tax revenues as unemployment rises and incomes fall, but much of it stems from the costs of the failed military adventures 1917 in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the government bailout of Editorial Board: C.Lichtenberg, B.Logan, T.Riley Wall Street speculators that Neil M.Barofsky, inspector Signed articles or letters do not necessarily represent the general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, estimates viewpoint of the InternationalBolshevik Te ndency. "could end up costing $3 trillion " (New Yo rk Times, 21 Subscription: U.S.$10/4 issues July 2009). Order from/pay to: The effect of a prolonged downturn in a "globalized " BT, Box 332, Adelaide St. Stn., economy, characterized by fabulous wealth for a handful Toronto, Canada MSC 2J4 at the top and desperate poverty for billions at the bottom, closing date: 1 March 2010 will inevitably magnify the already enormous disparities. 3 USec Flagship Renounces Trotskyism NPA: France's NewRefonnist Party Paris, 19 March 2009: NPA participates in union-organized day of action Reprinted below is a leaflet initially distributed by IBTsupport- programme. The NPA, which was launched by the Ligue ers in London in November 2009. communiste revolutionnaire (LCR), the former leading sec­ tion of the fake-Trotskyist 'United Secretariat of the Fourth The emergence of France's Nouveau Parti anticapitaliste International' [USec ], does not even pretend to stand in (NPA) hasgenerated considerable interestwithin the European the tradition of Marx, Lenin and Trotsky. In the interview left. The NPA's charismatic leader, Olivier Besancenot, has in which he first publicly floated the idea of the NPA become a household name in France and thebroad outlines of Besancenot explicitly spelt out its anti-Leninist character: hisgroup's policies are knownto millions. 'If it [the NPA] sees the light of day, the LCR will have no At the time of the party's founding in February 2009, reason to exist as such. It's about forming a militant party a public opinion poll reported that 23percent of respon­ which resembles society, a party which will be neither a dents considered Besancenot to be the 'best opponent' of party of passive adherents nor an elitist revolutionary van­ President Nicolas Sarkozy, compared to only 13percent guard' (Le Parisien, 24 August 2007). who favoured Martine Aubry, leader of the much larger Parti socialiste (PS), which has long been one of the tradi­ Origins of the NPA tional governing parties of the Fifth Republic. Many on the British left are impressed with the NPA's In April 1995, Arlette Laguiller, who repeatedly stood popularity, but few have more than a vague notion of what as the candidate of the osten5ibly revolutionary Lutte it actually stands for, or what it does. Sensationalised red­ ouvriere (LO), first passed the 5 percent mark in the baiting by the bourgeois press and enthusiastic endorse­ French presidential election. LO quickly poured cold ments by much of the 'far left' have given the impression water on speculation that it might form a 'new party' in that the NPA has succeeded in winning mass support a bid to displace the moribund Parti communiste fran<;ais while maintaining a more or less revolutionary profile. (PCF) as the hegemonic group to the left of thePS. In the But a careful examination of the NPA's origins, politics 2002 presidential election Laguiller's vote edged up to 5.7 and activity reveals it to be a reformist formation whose percent while the LCR's Besancenot, then an unknown leadership are chiefly concerned with electoral manoeuvr­ young postal worker, received a surprising 4.2 5 percent. ing and acutely aware that to be a major player in French The growth in support for the 'far left' reflected massive politics they need to appear as militant 'anti-capitalists' to working-class disenchantmentwith five years of capitalist left-wing youth and working people. austerity administered by the 'Plural Left' government-a In the final analysis, to be truly 'anti-capitalist' an org­ popular front composed of the PS, PCF and a few small anisation must be committed to a revolutionary socialist bourgeois fragments. 4 The PCF sought to distance itself from the Plural Left' s sider participating in any sort of coalition with it, was record of cuts with condemnations of the 'neo-liberalism' only a tactical manoeuvre but posed a direct challenge to of the European Union's 'constitutional' treaty, which the PCF, which can only maintain its apparatus and par­ its erstwhile partners in the PS supported.
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