Chapter 1: LIMITATIONS OF CAPITALISM
3. Capitalism might not collapse.
3.1. Keynes'aphorism
The Great Recession of 2008 aroused pessimism about the "collapse of capitalism" even among those who had been touting the victory of global capitalism. However, will a situation like the final judgment of "the collapse of capitalism" really come?
This theory of the collapse of capitalism is reminiscent of Marx, who left an apocalyptic prophecy in the first volume of "Capitalism," saying, "The bell will ring announcing the end of capitalist private ownership." This God-like rhetoric could undermine the prestige of Marx's theory, which emphasized "science."
Rather, Keynes's aphorism, "Capitalism, so long as it is managed wisely, can be more efficient than any alternative economic organization ever seen,'' is more convincing. There is enough evidence to admit it.
In fact, even during the Great Recession, there were predictions that it would lead to a Great Depression at first, and there was a tumultuous mood as if it was the end of the world. The financial crisis that triggered the Great Recession, where various measures were swiftly taken, and the United States, the head of capitalism, violated a taboo by using methods such as injecting public funds into private capital and de facto nationalization. As a result of rushing to rescue the financial world and the automobile industry, which is a symbol of American capitalism, the worst situation was avoided for the time being.
Modern capitalism is no longer a pure laissez-faire economy, but should also be called a "coordinated economy," which includes monetary controls that are carried out regularly by the central bank and direct capital relief measures by the government during economic crises. It can be said that this system is still maintained under global capitalism, where deregulation and privatization have become the top priority, and that it has been proved once again that this system works quite effectively even in the face of large-scale economic crises.
3.2. Resilient capitalism
In addition, since the Great Depression of the 1930s, the capitalist economy has been repeatedly hit by economic crises on an international scale, and has a wealth of experience in overcoming them each time. In other words, it is like having a cheat sheet for crisis management. From these facts, it cannot be denied that the modern capitalist economy has become a crisis-resistant or resilient system.
Of course, in history, no economic system lasted forever. The slave economy, the feudal economy, the socialist economy, etc. have all ended. There is by no means evidence that capitalist economies are the only exception.
In a sense, the fact that the United States was forced to take measures such as the nationalization of private capital during the Great Recession might be a terminal event. And President Obama at the time, who led those taboo measures, might have been a person equivalent to General Secretary (later President) Gorbachev, who tried to partially introduce a market economy, which had been taboo in the Soviet Union.
In particular, the decline of financial capital and automobile capital, which were symbols of the U.S. economy, together with the depreciation of the dollar, are the beginning of the end of the great capitalism that the U.S. has embodied. Historically, it may have as much significance as the dissolution of the Soviet Union, whether or not the United States dissolves and the fifty states become independent.
If a situation that could truly be called the "collapse of capitalism" were to occur, it is highly likely that American financial capital would pull the trigger. In the second volume of Capital, Marx points out that the credit system, which promotes the material development of productive forces and the formation of the world market, simultaneously promotes crises and promotes the elements of the dismantling of the old mode of production. It can be said that this part was a correct diagnosis.
However, the capitalist economy has the most powerful self-preservation mechanism of any economic system in history, and it comes to mind that the capitalist economy will continue to exist almost indefinitely as long as humanity continues to adhere to it.
