BECAUSE OF the demand increase which followed Reaganist policies, especially the military spending, the outbreak of the third recessionary wave was delayed. The world economy developed an asymmetrical set-up, in which Japanese and German capital financed the substantial US deficit by increasing interest rates to unprecedented levels.
At the same time the cracking and collapse of the bureaucratised societies made it possible to present capitalism as the unsurpassable bori. zon of nomanity Only the Marxists pointed out the limited and contradictory character of this recovery: rater than sustainabic growin it was a cycacal movement based on an almost mechanical kickstarting of investment founded on the restructuring of production worldwide. The relapse THE THIRD generalised recession setversals. Seen this way, the rôle of the Gulf War was secondary - the recession began before the oil crisis in several counties and continued long after the war. It had limited economic repercussions. clearly illustrate the current period: deep, durable and costly in terms of jobs. Much more than the two previous recessions, it has re vealed the growing contradiction between economic globalisation and the survival of national traiectories THE FRENZIED neo-liberal economic deregulation in the 1980s underlay and amplified the globalisation process.
Contrary to all the theory's forecasts, this did not lesd to reductions in the real interest rafts. They have remained at record levels. lished direct relations between els of productivity. of political domination. origin. This is new. GLOBALISATION of the world capital. ist economy is unmanageable, and not just because of the instability of exchange rates and finance. The principal source of the disequilibrium lies in the difficult. quite new situation - which has estabeconomic zones with very different levThis is different from the internationalisa. tion of capitals: multinationals used to be the agents of a single imperialist centre. The dominated countries had one-to-one relationships with these multinationals; completing a system With Globalisation, the relations start off as multilateral, and the group of multinationals have come to another stage of internationalisation which leads, bit by bit, to them getting more autonomy in relation to their country of What some have called the "Triad" does not for much longer. just signify the tri-polar (US, Japan, Europe) domination of the word economy, but also a harmonious. Each is accompanied by fundamental imhalances. The three are endowed with very different cohesiveness.
The Asian zone is the best protected and the best organised. while Japan and Korea are present in all the world markets, the penetration of their interior markets is, in practice, extremely The organisation into concentric circles of the region's economies and China's involvement have achieved formidable economic efficiency and commercial aggressiveness.
Europe differs completely from that plan. It is an agglomeration of capitalist nation-states which are largely open to external competition. Europe is less present in the third-rank markets and, above all, has shown itself to be incapable of a dynamic structuring of is natural periphery: the Mediterranean and Eastern Europe.
As for the US, its vocation to direct the American continent was reaffirmed by the treaty signed with Canada and Mexico. However the differences in development between the north and south of the continent are too important to be simply secondary considerations
"There will continue to be revolts of the oppressed" Two campaigns THERE ARE TWO campaigns I would suggest we need to take up. In 1996 the Inter-Govermental Conference of the European Union will be hekl. Let us start our counter campaign against the logic of Maastricht. of austerity measures, attacks on the working class and poor and the racism and discrimination within the EU against black and migrant workers and the treatment of refugees and asylum sockers from the poor countries.
We have another conception of Eurone. Not the bosses Europe, not the capitalise, imperialist Europe but a social, democratic Europe open to the East and in solidarity with the Third World. We must begin to advance this campaign initially of course with our comrades in other sections of the Fourth International in Europe - East and West - but broaden it to include other parts of the workers movement.
Also the campaign for cancellation EUROPE APPEARS to be the weakest pole in the "Triad". The fundamental difficulty for the European countries is building something Europe-wide which can take up basic functions normally given to the state. The other poles of the "Triad" are organised hierarchically around one nation-state, which remains the bastion of the dominant groups.
The situation differs in Europe, especially since the multinationals rarely aspire to func.
tion with a European logic.
The Treaty of Maastricht was, perhaps, the constraining.
Its failure results not only from underestimating the specific details of national econoforce between the social classes within each of those countries making up the European Unign.
The incohesiveness of the European Union is shown whenever it finds itself in a confrontation with the other two imperialist powers. The of the Third World Debt. We have had some experience of this work in the student movement. Unfortunately it has not had the same resonance here as st has had in other parts of Europe notably Belgium where our comrades are pivHowever we cannot pre-judge the possibility that it could yet capture the imagination of young people and others. For now we can use our press 1o explain the debt and thererore Emperial ism while making modest initiatives as well. It is a very real form of solidanty to call and achieve the cancellation of the debe, it would make an enormous difference in peoples lives if that burden was to he lifted from them We have considered the objective contradictions of capitalism and the pressing need for its overthrow and replacement by a sanct, more numane social and economic order. However within the Left and also the workers' movement there is a profound crisis of creatority in the socialist project. in d number of his talks and writings over the last few years, our comrade Ernest Mandel spoke of three steps that revoEurope is playing the game of free trade alone. The permeability of its economy weakens it against its competitors. The imperialist coalition thus has the potential for internal conflict because of its multiple imbalances. Unless it breathes life into a European "nationalism"-something which won't correspond to the interests of the dominant groups. let alone the peoples—the European bourgeoi. sies will be solidly set to resort to the more traditional nationalisms.
East and south
THE WHOLE logic of the world economy is based on competition between the countries of the south and east. Not every country can win at this game. The main reason is simple arithmetic: the ability of the economies of the north to take in products from the south is limited in contrast 1o their ability to sell to the south because of social effects of the north's success. In this market the "sellers" are the low-waged countries which are brought by a scam. less logic to maintain their comparauve advantaee", which rests mainly on their low theory+practice 10 • Fighting back for socialism • page four lutionary socialists need to take to overcome this crisis of credibility and to renew our project and vision for society.
First, he was fond of quoting Lenin (who himself was quoting Napoleon) who remarked. "First start the struggle and then see!". We cannot afford the luxury of reticence or conservatism if meaningful contribution to the shape of the world we live in.
When we are on the sidelines looking in on the terrible struggles taking place. we are often overawed by the strength of our enemy and our weakness, but by simply engaging in that battle the relationship of forces changes. There is no guarantee that we will emerge the victor but of course unless and until we intervene - we will never know Now more than ever is the time for combativeness on our part. We know that capitalism is dragging humanity down to the depths of barbarism and we know that we have a superior alternative called socialism. Let's say so!
Secondly, Mandel now quoting Marx reminded us "That the educators themselves need to be educated!"
against neighbouring competitors. such assimilation.
we believe that as revolutonanes we have a better understanding of the world and we are justifiably proud of the lessons, triumphs and tragedies of ne words move wai we shad wily ouis so that new sectors of struggle, new generations too may leam from them. So that they may not repeat However we also know that our programme is not a holy book which is either infallible or has the answers to the questions of an tink In the explosions of rage that take place from the Los Angeles uprising to the valiant Zapatistas in Chiapas, Mexico we take comfort that contrary to the post-modernast inicaccians bos crety" one has given up fighting back. Capital. ism has not won. Revolts THERE WILL. continue to be revolts of the oppressed which have contradictory politics and are not formed in the shape and vocabulary of our choosing. However it would be wrong of us to hector them brandishing a pristine pure programme which is never tested in struggle. We believe that these movements have much to teach us as well and are actors in the making of history. Thirdly. Mandel stressed over and over again the categorical imperative that Marx defined. "We fight for and be with the oppressed, downtrodden, exploited and despised, no matter who they are, where they are and what their particular struggle may be". The way we make our ideas more popular and accessible than they are is to demonstrate by example that we have something to contribute towards the effective execution and hopefully success of that struggle. That is how we begin talking about socialism again, now we put some content into it which ordinary people can relate to their everyday lives. If we do not do so the vacuum is filled by reactionary oppressive ideologies like nationalism and religious fundaIn every age, in every society since the birth of humanity there have been a small number of people who have been able to free themselves from the dominant ideology. to look beyond the narThis model is very different from Korea's trajectory and it is practically excluded that we will see new countries arrive, from within the of the industrial sectors. Any success will be Only China, with a very specific mixture of via. ultra-capitalism, the mass peasant economy and repression, can hope to put in place a more even and relatively self-centred model.
The same considerations weigh on the restoration process which has opened in the castern countries, which is largely determined by the new arrangements of the world economy. Far from forming a new frontier, or a limitless zone of expansion for the accumulation of capital, the castern countries in a sense represent a burden which international capital is not able to The experience of German reunification is clear evidence of this. Even with a strong political will and enormous financial means, assimilation remains a contradictory and difficult process. This would be even more the case for countries too poor or too vast to be ready for Again, the dominant logic is to chose from these countries those with sufficient interest which sin in a corin mar he drawn into caps- urgent needs.
Grow self-serving prejudices of those tem. They have been reviled, persecuted, ridiculed and killed. However future generations have hailed them as visionaries and innovators who darto lo believe and struggle against the odds for what incy Delicaco in We do so now in the hope that those who join our ranks tomorrow will real. ise that cien when i was opopera w do so, others struggled for and had faith in them, and so too must they struggle for the socialist future. looks in-depth at key is. sues of socialist analysis and strategy. Each issue examines a subject of importance to socialists in greater depth and at greater length than is possible in Socialist Outlook. Back issues available 5 Can Marxism Survive? 6 Revolution & CounterRevolution In Nicaragua. 7 Asian War on the Horizon? 8 A World in Crisis 9 A fighting programme for socialists Send 50p each copy to Socialist Outlook, PO Box 1109, London, N4 2UU. Half-price bundles Many Socialist Outlook readers will be interested in carrying forward the discussions reflected in theory+practice by taking copies to sell. Bundles in multiples of 10 carry a 50 per cent discount. talist Europe. Hungary, the Czech republic and Poland appear to be the best positioned.
The Yugoslav precedent is a special case. but the internal tensions obviously were rein. forced by the different levels of attraction Europe had for the different parts of YugoslaTHE RECESSION at the start of the 1990s proves that the neo-liberal solutions have not put the capitalist economies on a trajectory like the No successful connection between profits and outlets has emerged, and the current situation remains dominated by a relatively new phenomenon-the conditions for profitability have been reestablished while growth is being continuingly restricted.
Today this contradiction takes the form of growing contradiction between production determined by profitability, and humanity's most
SOCIALIST OUTLOOK No 89, September 9 1995, Page 9.
International Finance
Contradictions in building Europe
The current functioning of the capitalist economy