Chris Hedges
Karl Marx Was Right
Posted on May 31, 2015
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Here's the link.
In a preface to "The Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy", Marx wrote:
No social order ever disappears before all the productive forces for which there is room in it have been developed; and new higher relations of production never appear before the material conditions of their existence have matured in the womb of the old society itself.
Therefore, mankind always sets itself only such tasks as it can solve; since looking at the matter more closely, we always find that the task itself arises only when the material conditions necessary for its solution already exist, or are at least in the process of formation.
Socialism, in other words, would not be possible until capitalism had exhausted its potential for further development. That the end is coming is hard now to dispute, although one would be foolish to predict when. We are called to study Marx to be ready.
Hedges connects the dots, which seems to prove Marx predicted correctly our current state of affairs. These are not small dots, and the picture ain't rosy.
The final stages of capitalism, Marx wrote, would be marked by developments that are intimately familiar to most of us. Unable to expand and generate profits at past levels, the capitalist system would begin to consume the structures that sustained it. It would prey upon, in the name of austerity, the working class and the poor, driving them ever deeper into debt and poverty and diminishing the capacity of the state to serve the needs of ordinary citizens. It would, as it has, increasingly relocate jobs, including both manufacturing and professional positions, to countries with cheap pools of laborers. Industries would mechanize their workplaces.
Certainly bankster fraud, corporate welfare, never ending war, and hoarding of capital has created ever increasing poverty, global instability leading to governmental crises, and the pillaging of the middle class.
Marx warned that in the later stages of capitalism huge corporations would exercise a monopoly on global markets. "The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe," he wrote."It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere."
Hedge's essay savages corporations, and rightfully so in my opinion.
They would fix prices to maximize profit. They would, as they [have been doing], push through trade deals such as the TPP and CAFTA to further weaken the nation-state's ability to impede exploitation by imposing environmental regulations or monitoring working conditions. And in the end these corporate monopolies would obliterate free market competition.
The article is a must read. These are only portions of four paragraphs. There is much more.