Economy

In this major article, Ted Grant provides us with a general analysis of the present state of capitalism. With chapters on the nature of the boom/slump cycle, the peculiarities of the present "boom", the claim that Information Technology has solved the problems of capitalism, the crisis of overproduction, the situation in South East Asia, the consecuences that the coming slump will have and the tasks in front of Marxists at this particular juncture.

In this introduction to the special feature Rob Sewell gives a general view of the meaning of the present turbulence in the markets and explains why we say these are just the first tremors of a coming slump.

Michael Roberts, ecomics editor of Socialist Appeal, explains the immediate causes of the present crash of the markets: the currency crisis in South East Asia and how these economies, which were supposed to be models of capitalist development suddenly collapsed.

It has become fashionable among contemporary bourgeois historians and sociologists to belittle the role of the working class by claiming that it has been diminished in size and influence. Some even venture as far as declaring that the working class no longer exists. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mick Brooks answered these points in an article that was originally published in November 1996 in the British Socialist Appeal.

The capitalist world enters a period of industrial upswing. Booms alternate with depressions – an organic law of capitalist society. The current boom nowise indicates the establishment of equilibrium in the class structure. A crisis frequently helps the growth of anarchist and reformist moods among the workers. The boom will help fuse the working masses.