Is it time to look beyond capitalism towards a new social order that would allow us to live within a system that could be responsible, just and humane?”
Professor David Harvey, PhD, researches to
figure out the role of crises in the whole history of capitalism and what’s specific and special about the crisis this time around” by looking at “the internal contradictions of capital accumulation.”
An Internal Contradiction Of Capital Accumulation
Financial profits in the United States were soaring after the 1990s” while “profits in manufacturing were coming down … you can see the imbalance … you’ve screwed industry to keep financiers happy,” and as a result “the wealth of the rich … has accelerated.”
How Did This Happen?
- Since the 1970s, we have been in a phase that we call wage repression.”
- If you diminish wages, where is your demand going to come from?”
- The answer was, well … get out your credit cards.”
Capitalism Never Solves Its Crises Problems, It Moves Them Around Geographically
Out of this comes a theory which is very, very important: that capitalism never solves its crises problems, it moves them around geographically.”
In other words,
you had a finance crisis … you sort of half solved that, but … at the expense of a sovereign debt crisis!”
