social.marxist.network is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.

Administered by:

Server stats:

2
active users

Yogthos

While a lot of people are now gloating how Trump is destroying the economy, it’s important to keep in mind that economic crashes can serve as a strategic tool for the oligarchs to consolidate power. They will use the resulting chaos as an opportunity to restructure society in their favor. There is a calculated logic here of using destruction as a tool for entrenching elite dominance.

a long 🧵

The key idea is to expand the reserve army of labor by engineering mass unemployment and flooding the labor market with desperate workers. Availability of surplus labor suppresses wages, erodes workplace rights, and dismantles collective bargaining power. This forces workers into accepting worse conditions allowing the rich to maximize their profits. The 2008 financial crisis serves as a recent example where mass layoffs and austerity measures significantly weakened labor power.

Rising cost of living also forces people to let go of their assets such as homes and businesses as workers and small businesses start defaulting on their debt. Oligarchs, insulated by their massive capital reserves, swoop in to acquire these assets at a fraction of the cost. David Harvey referred to this process as accumulation by dispossession.

During the 2008 housing crash, private equity firms like Blackstone purchased over 200,000 foreclosed homes, converting them into a rental empire. Similarly, during Covid, billionaire wealth surged by $4 trillion while millions faced eviction and bankruptcy.

Naomi Klein’s Shock Doctrine provides a solid analysis of how disasters are inevitably weaponized to privatize public goods, slash taxes for the wealthy, and dismantle regulations. As an example, the bailouts in 2008 prioritized banks over homeowners further entrenching “too big to fail” institutions. Similarly, corporate lobbyists pushed for liability shields and austerity during Covid. Such policies consolidate oligarchic control, ensuring future crises disproportionately benefit the elites.

Finally, political volatility during a crisis can be leveraged to promote right-wing populists, and justify increasingly draconian measures such as measures forcing striking workers back to work. Just as fascist politics gained momentum during The Great Depression, modern oligarch funded politicians and media weaponize xenophobia and anti-labor rhetoric to fragment working-class solidarity.

The main thing to keep in mind is that the oligarchs are able to easily weather the crisis by moving their vulnerable assets into offshore tax havens, getting to state bailouts, and so on. Their wealth will not suffer during the collapse. Bezos saw his wealth grow by $75 billion during Covid lockdowns, while the working majority was pushed further to the margins. Likewise, quantitative easing after 2008 crash inflated asset prices, enriching shareholders while wages remained stagnant.

Each time a crisis happens, the oligarchs only emerge stronger with and with deeper control of the restructured economy. The collapse that’s currently being engineered through the trade war is an an opportunity for the rich to reset the system in their favor.

@mr_jj_cakes @yogthos

We're in a massive game of musical deck chairs. Every time there's a crash, the Mad Hatter screams again, "CHANGE PLACES!!" and everyone scrambles around the table stealing chairs. Those who lose their seats slide screaming down the ever more steeply sloping deck into the dark waters below. And the band keeps playing...

@yogthos I strongly believe that the only way out of this mess is the complete abolition of both money and private property. While either exist, even small discrepancies of wealth will tend to drive ever greater inequality in the same way that small differences in matter density in the young Solar System ended up with just nine large planets, and the surviving 'free' bodies being insignificantly small by comparison.

@simon_brooke ultimately I agree, but realistically we can't just flip a switch and go to a Star Trek society from where we are today. People are a product of their conditions, and people who've internalized capitalist relations require a transitional period which is what a socialist stage would be.

@yogthos I'm not sure that works. I think it's cold turkey, or we don't, as a society, break the addiction.

And the addiction WILL kill us all.

@simon_brooke I don't see any path to society going cold turkey, seems a collapse is the most likely scenario at this point.

That said, I'm fairly optimistic with what's happening in China. So, perhaps the collapse will only be unfolding on our side of the world.

@yogthos @simon_brooke what's happening in China? From my very limited point of view I only see another capitalist superpower.

@yogthos @simon_brooke I will read the book with an open mind. But I have some serious concerns about China's handling. To start the way it addresses any thought that doesn't follow allegiance to the CCP, is not very socialist. Then, factual metrics like those regarding the collapse of its demographics show that China is affected by the same disease western countries have. Namely capitalism has taken control over private life.

@yogthos

Ms. Klein published her book in 2007. It has had little effect in adjusting public policy.

It's a sign we need another version of democracy: one without any political parties.

@UnionizedNetizen @yogthos

Just like we learned how to break free of feudalism, we need to break free of western democracy.

To make this new way work, we have to learn some new skills. Some of us already have some of these skills.

tiereddemocraticgovernance.org

tiereddemocraticgovernance.org:: TDG :: Blog

@yogthos sure but I don't believe that within the range of possible restructuration, it exists one where the Us keeps its global dominance. It a question of possible neighborhood in a graph and none are ok because of deeper reasons like the obsolescence of their production model.

@yogthos the concentration of capitals during the crisis benefits the oligarchs but do not solve the crisis. I think the key point would be to watch where the capitalist structure (where finance is in the chain) is not compatible with an optimal developpent of technologies for instance.

@bluevelvet321 that's correct, ultimately the whole house of cards is destined to collapse, but there's still a long way down

@bluevelvet321 the US has already admitted that the unipolar moment is over, Rubio openly said it in his interview the other day. The US will now retrench and draw up its sphere of influence while it disciplines the vassals.

@yogthos (Fuckin’ 🧵s 😞 Can't you increase your instance’s max chars?)

@davel haha I guess I could, but I kind of want to try to keep my stuff shorter as a rule :)

@yogthos@social.marxist.network

Yes. This has all the hallmarks of disaster capitalism, just like Brexit.

@yogthos Oligarchs were able to turn 2008 GFC in their favor, true...Wars could be better for the working class. WWI and WWII destroyed a lot of elite assets back in the day.