EDITORIAL
Summit of sharks
Published Oct 22, 2008 5:03 PM
As the global economic crisis intensifies, leaders from some of the largest
capitalist economies are trying to save the economic system that enriches them
and their class by impoverishing the vast majority of the rest of the
population.
President George W. Bush emerged from the compound at Camp David outside
Washington, D.C., on Oct. 18 flanked by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso to announce that the U.S.
will host an emergency world economic summit.
The exact date for the emergency economic summit was just announced as being
Nov. 15 in Washington, D.C. What is not known at this time is its
location.
Wherever it happens, it is sure to draw opposition from those fighting the
devastating effects of the capitalist crisis on the lives of the workers and
oppressed peoples.
The capitalist leaders will not be discussing how to help the millions of
people who have suffered the loss of their homes, jobs and life savings in the
current economic meltdown.
Instead they will be discussing how to best coordinate their criminal bailouts
of a handful of the largest banks, transnational corporations, hedge funds and
other financial institutions. This only accelerates the trend towards
capitalist consolidation—monopoly—during this time of crisis.
Behind their facade of cooperation is the poisonous competition and jockeying
for markets that is an indelible feature of imperialism and has in the past led
to war among these same countries. The only thing that truly unites the
guardians of these capitalist states is their fear that hard times will revive
the struggles of the working class in their respective countries.
Some of the imperialist leaders appear to be lobbying for a restructuring of
institutions like the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in order to
make them better equipped to protect the profits of the transnational
corporations and banks.
Indeed, the neoliberal economic model traditionally pushed by the IMF and World
Bank has contributed to the global scope of the current meltdown.
By making aid to developing countries contingent upon financial market
liberalization, among other “Washington Consensus” policy
prescriptions, the IMF and the World Bank helped foster a growing cross-border
interconnection between streams of finance capital. This increasing
interconnectedness is one reason the crisis has spread so quickly and so
thoroughly across borders.
When discussing the need for a world economic summit, Sarkozy said there needs
to be “a new capitalism.” “We don’t want all this to
start again; we want lessons to be learned,” he said.
But if there is any lesson to be learned, it is that economic crisis is
inherent in the capitalist mode of production. There is no such thing as
capitalism without crisis. Crisis is written into the very DNA of
capitalism.
The anarchy of capitalist production ensures that crises of overproduction will
always occur. As long as production is undertaken with the goal of obtaining
profits and not with the goal of meeting actual needs, the next crisis will
inevitably be right around the corner.
This crisis was not caused just by a lack of regulation in the financial
markets or corruption on Wall Street. It was caused by capitalism and there is
no permanent solution that doesn’t include the overthrow of capitalism
and the creation of socialism.
While announcing the emergency world economic summit, Bush said,
“it is essential that we preserve the foundations of democratic
capitalism.”
For billions of workers and oppressed people around the globe who are homeless,
jobless and hungry, it is getting harder and harder to see what exactly about
this rotten, exploitative and crisis-prone system is worth saving.
When the imperialist leaders convene to advance their ideas on how to save the
capitalist system, they can be assured that militant workers and activists will
be there to meet them, ready to advance ideas of their own.
For information about how to get involved in demonstrations against the
bailouts on Wall Street and at the upcoming economic summit, visit
www.stopforeclosuresandevictions.org.
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