People's Democracy

May Day In The Midst Of Grave Crisis Of Capitalism

Sukomal Sen

WHEN this year May Day is going to be observed, the entire world has been plunged into the deepest economic crisis ever seen since the Great Depression beginning in 1929. And the working class will observe this Day in a situation when crores (billions) of workers will be rendered jobless mortally hit by the crisis. It is an unprecedented situation facing the May Day celebration of 2009.

While the Russian Revolution of 1917 shook the entire world and heralded a new era of civilisation and establishment of the first socialist state, the global crisis of capitalism set off on September 15, 2008 through Wall Street crash has also shaken the world from a different direction discrediting the global capitalist system itself.

The sweep of the current crisis is enormous. The Great Depression began with Wall Street crash of 1929 when only USA, Europe and Japan were capitalistically developed. The entire continent of Africa, almost entire Asia barring Japan, and also Latin America could not see or had some primary level of any modern capitalist development. The impact of global depression of 1929 was mostly concentrated in the areas where capitalist development took place in a limited part of the world, but the September, 2008 has engulfed the entire world and the tremor is also more intensive. Thus the dimension of the crisis set off in September 2008 is all embracing and in intensity is also much deeper.

Frederick Engels while writing the preface of English edition of Das Capital in November 5, 1886 pointed out that this repetitive crisis of capitalism will ultimately result in capitalist prosperity �vanishing into air�. He wrote �The decennial cycle of stagnation, prosperity, over production and crisis, ever recurrent from 1825 to 1867 , seems indeed to have run its course; but only to land us in the slough of despond of a permanent and chronic depression. The sighed-for period of prosperity will not come; as often as we seem to perceive its heralding symptoms, so often do they again vanish into air. �(Capital Vol I, preface , p. 6 )

In these treaties we will try to analyse the present catastrophic crisis of global capitalism and its lessons by drawing upon Marx�s theory of capitalist crisis and how Marx�s analysis fully corresponds to the present world shaking event. Karl Marx�s theory of capitalism and its crisis is now getting appreciation from various unthinkable quarters like venerable Pope Benedict of Vatican, the religious head of the Christian world, political personalities like Sarkozy, president of France, German and other European state leaders and various other personalities who had despised Marxism earlier. But the grave crisis of capitalism has inspired them to read Marx�s works.

What is the meaning of this crisis to the working class of the World?

No sooner the crisis broke out, the director general of International Labour Organisation warned that by 2009, about 51 crores of workers throughout the world will lose their jobs under the impact of this crisis.

And of late, Strauss-Kahn, the chief of IMF, one of the biggest proponents of neo-liberal globalisation, against which the working class all over the world battled relentlessly, warned �The world is now in the grip of the �Great Recession� and economic growth could dip below zero in 2009�, as stock markets hit their lowest levels in decades.

Kahn said: �The global financial crisis, that might now be called the great recession, provides a sobering backdrop to our conference. The IMF expects global growth to slow below zero this year, the worst performance in most of our lifetimes�. He was addressing a conference of the African finance minister at Paris on March 10, 2009.

�And the threat is not only economic, there is a real risk that millions will be thrown back into poverty.� he added. It is the first time that Strauss-Kahn, who said last week that he saw no chance of a global recovery before 2010, had predicted an actual global contraction.

The impact of this crisis, meanwhile, on one of the world�s wealthiest countries was highlighted by German figures showing its exports plunged 20.7 percent in January as a result of a reduction in demand.

The heavily export-driven German economy � the largest in Europe � is suffering its worst recession in six decades, with the government expecting output to shrink 2.25 per cent this year.

And in Great Britain the number of unemployed persons rose to 20 lakh (2 million) as of today.

Welcome Sense of Reality

Shaken by this economic earth quake of capitalism, some institutions which had earlier did not utter a word in opposition to privatisation or other prescriptions of neo-liberal economy, are now talking sense.

International Labour Organisation, though a tripartite international body of labour, capital and the government and supposed to look after the interests of labour, was never critical of the anti-worker neo-liberal globalisation of the capitalist economy. Now the same ILO warns that more than five crores (5.1 hundred million) workers will lose jobs within the year 2009. But the most surprising is that a sense of reality that arose in the thinking of IMF, one of the chief protagonists of neo-liberal prescription of capitalism. The IMF chief, of late, warned of a very dark future for the world economy, as referred to above.

Even in India, though the prime minister repeatedly asserted that India would not be affected because �India�s economic fundamentals are strong that too at a time when the stock market index came below 10 thousand from that high pedestal of 21 thousand point. But the prime minister�s balloon of false confidence has been blown up by FICCI (Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry) when they warned that at least one crore (10 million) workers of India will lose their jobs by 2009 under the impact of the crisis. And huge joblessness in India has already started.

Though the union Commerce ministry warned that five lakh (half a million) of textile workers will be thrown out of jobs this year, in fact about 10 lakh (one million) textile workers including the garment industry have already lost their jobs. In the ornament industry - diamond-cutting and gold ornament approximately another one million workers have been rendered jobless. Several lakhs of (hundreds of thousand) construction workers have also been rendered idle, as there is hardly any new construction work in India in the aftermath of the crisis.

The economic crisis has set in a great economic depression with rapid reduction of production and all productive activities. This has led to a deflationary situation also, as IMF has also noted the reluctance of the buyers to buy faced with a bleak future. Many other activities have also come to a standstill throwing workers out of job. As a result, the unemployed army has started swelling at an unprecedented speed.

This is how, the Great Economic crisis, and the Great Depression has started affecting the working class all over the world. May Day was born in 1886 in Chicago with martyrdom of the working class leaders to protect the interests of the workers. At that time, eight-hour duty was the main slogan of the working class movement in America, England and some other European countries.

Besides this avalanche of joblessness caused by the ongoing grave economic crisis of capitalism, the neo-liberal globalisation itself, which stands highly discredited today, has put the workers into another catastrophic situation that is the so- called flexibility of labour. It means that no regular or permanent job for the workers and that should be considered a forgotten past. For Neo-liberal globalisation it should be �hire and fire�; no permanency or stability of job, jobs will be casual or contractual and eight-hours� work a day should be considered as simply an illusion of the May Day fighters of Chicago in 1886. Neo-liberalism sermons the world that the eight-hour work a day - forget it! It may be 12 hours, 14 hours or even 16 hours as was in vogue in 18^th and early 19^th century in Europe and America. More so, the neo-liberal globalisation has snatched or still snatching the social security benefits of the workers, earned through their relentless and hard struggles. Labour law is also being changed to withdraw all service protection to the workers.

Now, the grave economic crisis of capitalism has given rise to a worst monster against the working class with reckless retrenchment of the workers in millions. It is really an avalanche of joblessness that we are facing to-day.

Revolutionary Message of May Day

Chicago workers and their leaders who embraced martyrdom in 1886 itself damned capitalism as an unsustainable system - their war-cry was �down with capitalism�.

Today, the ongoing economic crisis of capitalism doubly confirmed the correct understanding of the Chicago workers about the unsustainable and most anti-worker character of world capitalism.

Today what we see is not an ordinary repetitive crisis for capitalism, but a structural crisis which Marx explained. Crises of capitalism are unavoidable. In the present case, crisis caused by Wall Street crash, hits the very basis of global capitalism. Working class will have to deeply go into the causes and nature of this grave crisis of world capitalism and devise their appropriate course of action. Free market capitalism is collapsing. With capitalism�s maneuverability it may recover to some extent. But this way it cannot survive.

On the occasion of this May Day, the current global crisis of capitalism set off by the Wall Street crash of September15, 2008 need to be examined in the light of inevitability of crisis. This crisis has created a favourable situation for the working class to advance in a rapid stride by exposing the repetitively crisis ridden ugly character of capitalism and its unsustainability.

So, for the working class, this grave crisis again presents the idea of socialism in a more vibrant way. It is possible in the post -1991 era for a practical realisation of the slogan of �back to socialism� while the promoters of free market capitalism are making frantic but vain efforts to any how protect the slumping economy, it is the duty of the international working class to unite in the new situation and decide its course of action to ensure the downfall of capitalism.

But this does not mean that the break down of capitalist system is automatic. Marx has never said so, on the contrary he visioned a working class revolt when he called upon the working class to unite globally. In today�s world it will depend upon how the international working class movement is willing or capable of utilising the situation, adopt appropriate strategy, mass mobilisation make the working class politically conscious for causing its early downfall.

This is the revolutionary message of May Day and its multifold relevance in today�s extraordinary world situation.