Notes on the political and economic crisis of the world capitalist system
and the perspective and tasks of the Socialist Equality Party
By David North
11 January 2008

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*The following report was given by David North, national secretary of the
SEP, at a national aggregate meeting held January 5-6 in Ann Arbor,
Michigan.*

1. 2008 will be characterized by a significant intensification of the
economic and political crisis of the world capitalist system. The turbulence
in world financial markets is the expression of not merely a conjunctural
downturn, but rather a profound systemic disorder which is already
destabilizing international politics. As always, the weakest links in the
chain of imperialist geo-politics are the first to break. The assassination
of Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan, the eruptions of civil wars in the Congo and
Kenya, and the renewed tension in the Balkans over Kosovo are indicative of
the increasingly explosive state of world politics.

2. Sixteen years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, an event which
supposedly signaled the definitive and irreversible triumph of global
capitalism, the world economy is in shambles. The bursting of the housing
market bubble in the United States, which had been fueled by uncontrolled
speculative investments in sub-prime mortgages, has resulted in global
losses of hundreds of billions of dollars for international banks and other
financial institutions. The murky alphabet soup of financial
instruments—i.e., SIVs (structured investment vehicles), CDOs
(collateralized debt obligations), etc.—had been devised to "securitize"
sub-prime mortgages, conceal their dubious character, and spread risk among
a large number of institutions. The result is an international financial
crisis which, in the words of one analyst, has called into question the
viability and legitimacy of the Anglo-American system of capitalism.
The *Financial
Times* writes that "faith in 21st century financial innovation has since
evaporated. The events of last year showed with brutal clarity that risk
dispersal does not always prevent financial shocks, but may fuel contagion
instead..." (January 2, 2008)

3. That the present economic situation is extremely serious is no longer a
matter for debate among informed bourgeois analysts. The most astute and
honest among them acknowledge that there is still insufficient data about
the extent of financial losses and their impact upon broader sectors of the
American and world economy to make firm predictions about the consequences
of the still unfolding crisis. The "credit crunch" which developed in the
summer of 2007 remains a major threat to the functioning of the world
capitalist economy. With the realization that billions of dollars in assets
must be written off as unrecoverable losses, the mutual confidence of
financial institutions in each other's solvency has been gravely undermined.
Moreover, it is widely assumed that the same sort of lending practices that
created the housing bubble were applied in other sectors of the US economy.
There is growing fear that a US recession may expose the recklessness in
corporate lending. But in this tense situation, initial hopes that the
impact of the collapse in housing prices on the broader American economy
will be contained are rapidly dissipating. "America has entered 2008,"
writes the *Financial Times*, "in greater danger of recession than at any
stage since the collapse of the internet bubble in 2000-01, as the world's
largest economy struggles to maintain growth in the face of the credit
squeeze, a housing slide and high oil prices." (January 2, 2008)

4. Another major economic study concludes: "So far as the credit crunch
goes, there seems to be widespread agreement that, taking everything
together, the present crisis is already more serious than any other that has
occurred before in modern times. Major banks and their financial
institutions are still, almost daily, revealing huge losses as a result of
imprudent lending. House prices are falling. And there is a general sense
that some further deterioration is in prospect, particularly as many more
sub-prime borrowers [and some others who obtained (misnamed) 'interest only'
loans or loans with enticing 'teaser' rates of interest] are going to come
under increased pressure as the initial rates they have paid get raised over
the coming year." [ *Strategic Analysis, November 2007*, Levy Institute of
Bard College, p. 9]

5. A crisis of the US economy has direct and immediate global implications.
The International Monetary Fund warns that "risks to domestic demand in
western Europe and Japan have now shifted to the downside" as a result of
the "contagion" emanating from the United States. ( *World Economic Outlook*,
October 2007, p. 11) Also, the IMF anticipates that "continuing turbulence
in global financial markets could disrupt financial flows to emerging
markets and trigger problems in domestic markets... [G]rowth [in Asia and
Latin America] would be vulnerable to spillover effects from slower
aggregate demand growth in the advanced economies..." [ibid., p. 19]

6. Within the United States, the crisis in the housing industry is, first
and foremost, a social disaster for millions of working- and middle-class
families. It is expected that at least one million families will lose their
homes due to foreclosures during the next two years. Millions more who are
not immediately threatened with foreclosure are being seriously affected by
the crisis. In many parts of the country housing prices are expected to fall
by 25 percent or more. Declines of this magnitude must have a devastating
impact on the personal finances of working class families. It is well known
that home equity loans have played a crucial role in supplementing the wages
or salaries of working- and middle-class families. These loans have been
used to finance education for children, pay medical bills and meet other
pressing needs. This source of additional income will no longer be available
for millions of people.

7. Thus, the collapse of housing prices deprives the broad mass of working
Americans of one of the principal means by which they have sought to
counteract the financial burdens created by three-and-a-half decades of wage
stagnation. The income of a male worker in his 30s is now 12 percent below
that of a worker the same age in 1978. As former Labor Secretary Robert
Reich has noted, the "coping mechanisms" that have been employed to deal
with wage deflation have been the massive movement of women into the work
force (from 38 percent in 1970 to 70 percent today), and the addition of two
weeks to the annual work load. Americans work 350 hours longer per year than
the average European. By the turn of the 21st century, when workers reached
the physical limit of their ability to make money by working, they began to
depend more and more on borrowing, using their homes as collateral. As this
means of bridging the ever-wider chasm between income and needs disappears,
millions are faced with the specter of falling into the financial abyss.
Already, during the first half of 2007, personal bankruptcies in the United
States increased by 48 percent. The extent to which workers are stretched
financially to the limit is exposed by the fact that 27 million workers will
have to borrow money this winter simply to pay their heating bills. But the
use of credit cards is becoming just as problematic as home equity loans. As
all the traditional and individualistic means for coping with prevailing
economic realities recede, the working class is forced to turn to the only
means by which it can defend itself—that of collective and conscious social
and political struggle against the capitalist system.

8. The revolutionary character and consequences of the struggle of the
working class are determined above all by the objective nature of the crisis
of the global capitalist system. As stated previously, the expanding crisis
is of a systemic character. For the third time in a decade, the world
economy has been shaken by the collapse of a bubble that had been created by
massive financial speculation. The East Asian financial crisis, which
erupted in the summer of 1997, engulfed the economies of Thailand, Malaysia,
Indonesia, South Korea, the Philippines and Singapore, and came close to
triggering an international financial meltdown. This was prevented by
massive counter-measures by the International Monetary Fund, which funded
country-wide bailouts to the tune of billions of dollars to prevent a series
of cataclysmic national defaults. The vulnerability of the US equity markets
to the Asian crisis was reflected in the upheavals on Wall Street. On just
one day, October 27, 1997, the Dow Jones average fell 554 points (
7.2percent) in response to turmoil on Asian currency markets.
Subsequent
efforts to stabilize Wall Street, particularly with low interest rates,
further inflated the investment bubble that had begun to develop in the
mid-1990s. By 2000, the unsustainable character of the "dot.com" craze,
characterized by "irrational exuberance," had become all too clear. The
bubble burst, and the subsequent crash led to the first recession in a
decade. Again, the response of the Federal Reserve was to lower interest
rates to their lowest levels in decades and flood the economy with
liquidity. The means employed to contain the bursting of the dot.com bubble
set the stage for the frenzied speculation in the US housing market. The
highly speculative character of the housing market was widely recognized,
but financial policy makers believed that its continued growth, however
dubious in nature, was required in order to prevent a relapse into
recession. As noted by the Levy Economics Institute, "The rise in
*personal*expenditure, on which continuous growth of the US economy
largely depended
after 2001, was directly and indirectly caused by the hysterical boom in the
housing market." [*Strategic Analysis, November 2007 *, p. 7]

9. The persistent tendency toward the creation of speculative bubbles arises
out of deep-rooted contradictions in the development of the world capitalist
system, especially bound up with the historical decline in the global
position of American capitalism. The long-term decline in the profitability
of US-based industry has propelled the drive by American financial
institutions for alternative sources of high returns on investment. The mode
of existence of the American ruling elite has been characterized for the
last 30 years by the ever-wider separation of the process of wealth
accumulation from the processes of industrial production. The latter is of
interest to the ruling elite only where the availability of cheap labor
provides the possibility of realizing a rate of profit large enough to
satisfy its demand for ultra-high levels of personal enrichment.

10. The parasitic character of the American ruling elite is inextricably
bound up with the extreme intensification of militarism. In the final
analysis, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—while exploiting the events of
9/11 as a pretext—grew out of the drive by the American ruling class to
maintain the hegemonic global position of the United States. The doctrine of
preventive war, unveiled by the Bush administration in 2002, remains in
place. The geo-political and economic challenges posed by existent or
emerging rivals are to be counteracted through the exercise of military
power. The setbacks suffered in Iraq, far from diminishing the aggressive
impulses of US imperialism, have created new imperatives for the deployment
of US power. The threats against Iran have escalated in response to the
fragility of the American position in Iraq.

11. As for the war in Iraq, the slight abatement of violence in Iraq does
not mean that Bush's "surge" has been successful, let alone that the war is
drawing to a close. To a certain extent, the temporary decline in violence
reflects the degree to which "ethnic cleansing" of neighborhoods—the product
of the US invasion—has been carried out. There is also the effect of the
massive loss of life that has already been suffered in Iraq. But the outcome
of the US invasion has been a tremendous intensification of the social and
political contradictions within the country and region. The escalating
conflict between Turkey and Iraqi Kurds threatens to break out at any time
into full-scale war. At any rate, there exists—apart from the development of
a powerful anti-war movement of the American and international working
class—no prospect for the withdrawal of US troops in the foreseeable future.
As writer Nir Rosen observed in a recent article in the journal *Current
History*, "The US surge is merely a way to kick the problem of Iraq down to
the next administration, but the truth is that American soldiers will never
leave Iraq. The large bases in Anbar province, such as Al Assad and Taqadum,
are built to last—'an enduring presence,' as one Marine officer told me.
Located in the remote desert, virtually impregnable and only occasionally
targeted by mortars, these bases will remain for decades." [December 2007,
p. 413]

12. During the five years since the invasion of Iraq, the strategic position
of the United States has deteriorated. Particularly in Central Asia, whose
domination is considered by Washington to be essential to the project of
global hegemony, the United States is confronted with a more challenging
environment. The revival of Russian influence in the region and the
continuing economic expansion of China and India are seen as a potential
constraint on the imperial ambitions of the United States.

13. For the strategists of American imperialism, the issue of China looms
ever larger. The unabated growth of China's economic strength—which must
assume an ever more overt military form—is widely seen as incompatible with
the global interests of the United States. The recent formation of the new
American military center for Africa—AFRICOM—is a direct response to steadily
expanding Chinese influence on that continent. But the conflict between
China and the United States for influence in East Asia is fraught with even
greater and more immediate tension. As foreign policy expert Christopher
Layne has written: "If the United States tries to maintain its current
dominance in East Asia, Sino-American conflict is virtually certain, because
US grand strategy has incorporated the logic of anticipatory violence as an
instrument for maintaining American primacy. For a declining hegemon,
'strangling the baby in the crib' by attacking a rising challenger
preventively—that is, while the hegemon still holds the upper hand
militarily—has always been a tempting strategic option." [ *Current History*,
January 2008, pp. 16-17]

14. The drive toward war arises inexorably out of the global geo-political
interests and ambitions of the American bourgeoisie. It is also a product of
the increasingly malignant state of social relations within the United
States. The staggering growth in the levels of economic inequality over the
past three decades signifies the build-up of extreme social tensions beneath
the surface of official political life and outside the channels of
media-sanctioned public discourse. Imperialist militarism is among the most
important political instruments employed by the ruling elites to prevent
social tensions from assuming the form of domestic class conflict.

15. Recent studies by Edward N. Wolff of the Levy Economics Institute of
Bard College document the extreme levels of social inequality in the United
States. The statistics relating to the allocation of wealth and income
reveal the extraordinary degree of social stratification. The top
1.0percent of the population holds
34.3 percent of the net worth of households in the USA. The next 4.0 percent
holds 24.6 percent, and the next 5.0 percent holds 12.3 percent. All in all,
the richest 10 percent of the population holds just about 71 percent of the
national household wealth. The next 10 percent holds just 13.4 percent of
the wealth. The bottom 80 percent of American households accounts for just
15.3 percent of wealth. Those who fall in the third quintile own just
3.8percent of the wealth. The bottom 40 percent of households
possesses just
0.2 percent of wealth!

16. When non-home wealth is considered, the stratification is even greater.
The top 1.0 percent of households owns 42.2 percent of non-home wealth. The
top 10 percent owns just under 80 percent of non-home wealth. The bottom 80
percent owns 7.5 percent of non-home wealth. The poorest 40 percent report a
-1.1 percent of non-home wealth.

17. Measuring income, the top 1.0 percent receives 20 percent of the total.
The top 10 percent receives 45 percent of total income. The bottom 80
percent receives 41.4 percent. The poorest 40 percent accounts for
just 10.1percent of income.

18. Another extremely interesting set of statistics relates to the financial
condition of households falling within the middle three quintiles (80-60,
60-40, 40-20). Their homes account for 66.1 percent of their personal
wealth. Liquid assets account for only 8.5 percent of their wealth.
Investment instruments (stocks, securities, trusts, etc.) account for only
4.2 percent. These figures make all too clear the extent to which the
financial position of the middle three quintiles depends upon home valuation
and the general condition of the housing market.

19. This fact makes all the more significant the sharp rise in the
indebtedness of these sections of the working class and middle class. In
1983, the debt to equity ratio of these sections was 37.4 percent. By 2004,
it had risen to 61.6 percent. In 1983, the debt to income ratio was
66.9percent. In 2004, it had risen to
141.2 percent! In 1983, the mortgage debt on the homes of these three
quintiles was 28.8 percent of house value. By 2004, the debt level had risen
to 47.6 percent.

20. One last set of statistics: In 2004, according to Wolff, "the richest 1
percent of households held about half of all outstanding stock, financial
securities, trust equity, and business equity. The top 10 percent of
families as a group accounted for about 80 to 85 percent of stock shares,
bonds, trusts, business equity, and non-home real estate. Moreover, despite
the fact that 49 percent of households owned stock shares either directly or
indirectly through mutual funds, trusts or various pension accounts, the
richest 10 percent of households accounted for 79 percent of the total value
of these stocks, only slightly less than its 85 percent of directly owned
stocks and mutual funds." ["Rising Trends in Household Wealth in the United
States: Rising Debt and the Middle-Class Squeeze," June 2007, p. 25]

21. What are the political implications of these statistics? The extreme
stratification of American society over the last three decades is rapidly
approaching the point of open and violent class conflict. The sclerotic
American political system, administered by two political parties that serve
as instruments for the implementation of the interests of the ruling
plutocracy, is organically incapable of responding in any sort of credible,
let alone progressive, manner to the demands of the people for significant
social change. In the final analysis, the demand for social change, even of
a reformist character, runs up against the unyielding determination of the
ruling elite to defend its wealth and social privileges.

22. The stolen election of 2000—as the SEP and the *World Socialist Web Site
* warned at the time—represented a historical milestone in the degeneration
of American democracy. The willingness of the Democratic Party to accept the
theft of the election demonstrated that no substantial section of the
American capitalist class retained a compelling interest in the defense of
the traditional institutions of bourgeois democracy. All that has occurred
since the election has substantiated that judgment. The wholesale violations
of democratic and constitutional principles carried out under the cover of
the post-9/11 "war on terror"—in which both the Democrats and Republicans
are complicit—represent ever more brazen preparations for dictatorial forms
of class rule. These are not aberrations, but arise out of a deepening
social polarization that is ultimately incompatible with the maintenance of
the traditional forms of American democracy. It should be taken as a warning
that the procedure of "enhanced interrogation"—i.e., torture—is an English
translation of a procedure that Hitler's Gestapo called "verschärfte
Verhemung."

23. Regardless of who is ultimately nominated by the bourgeois parties and
elected president, the logic of social and political developments is leading
inexorably toward an intensification of class conflict. Moreover, the
protracted deterioration in the social position and living standards of the
working class, its ever-decreasing share of the wealth of society, and the
unrelenting intensification of its exploitation by those who own and control
the means of production have laid the foundations for a profound change in
the political orientation and allegiances of the working class. Those who
fail to see or who even deny that the profound changes in economic life over
the past 30 years have left deep marks in the social consciousness of the
American working class expose not only their demoralized skepticism, but
also their ignorance of history. Indeed, the absence of open social and
class conflict during the past quarter century stands in sharp contradiction
to the general pattern of American history. But this prolonged period of
social quiescence, rooted in a complex and exceptional interaction of
national and, above all, *international *economic and political processes,
is now drawing to a close. The central task of the Socialist Equality Party
in 2008 is to prepare in all aspects of its work—theoretical, political and
organizational—to meet the challenges posed by the eruption of class
conflict.

24. A critical element of this preparation is the review of the lessons of
past periods of revolutionary upheaval. This year marks the fortieth
anniversary of 1968, a year that was characterized by explosive struggles
internationally and in the United States. The events of that year set into
motion a protracted period of international revolutionary struggle and
intense class conflict within the United States. Significantly, the
political eruptions of 1968 were first anticipated and then developed
against the backdrop of increased strains in the world economy. The
devaluation of the British pound in November 1967, followed by the March
1968 instability in the European gold market, presaged the 1971 breakdown of
the Bretton Woods system upon which the post-World War II reconstruction of
international capitalism and the dominant role of the United States was
based.

25. Let us briefly review the main events of that year: In late January, the
government of North Vietnam launched its historic "Tet Offensive," which
utterly discredited the claims of the Johnson administration and the
Pentagon that the United States was winning the war. Secretary of Defense
Robert McNamara resigned and a ferocious internal struggle erupted within
the administration over its Vietnam policy. Also in January, the
arch-Stalinist Antonin Novotny was replaced as premier of Czechoslovakia by
Alexander Dubcek, setting in motion what was to become known as the "Prague
Spring." In February, Lyndon Johnson narrowly defeated Sen. Eugene McCarthy
in the New Hampshire primary, an outcome that was interpreted as a major
political defeat for the incumbent president. In March, Sen. Robert Kennedy
announced that he would challenge Johnson for the nomination. Two weeks
later, Johnson announced both his willingness to enter into peace talks with
North Vietnam and his decision not to seek renomination. On April 4, Martin
Luther King was assassinated in Memphis and riots erupted in cities
throughout the United States. In May, the violent suppression of student
protests at Paris' Sorbonne University led to a general strike of the French
working class that paralyzed the DeGaulle government and brought the country
to the very brink of social revolution. On June 5, Sen. Robert Kennedy was
assassinated in Los Angeles. In August, the Democratic convention in Chicago
was besieged by anti-war protests, which Mayor Richard Daley sought to
suppress with police violence. During the same week, Soviet tanks entered
Czechoslovakia and restored hard-line Stalinist control. In November,
Richard Nixon was elected president.

26. The events of 1968 marked only the beginning of a massive upsurge of
global class struggle, which persisted for nearly a decade. On every
continent mass struggle was the rule, not the exception. The most
significant feature of that period was the parallel development of
revolutionary movements in both the less developed and advanced capitalist
countries. Pre-revolutionary or revolutionary conditions arose in Bolivia,
Chile, Argentina, Italy, France, Britain, Portugal, Greece, and Spain.
Within the United States, the dominant force in social struggles during that
period was not the students, but the working class. With the exception of
1973 and 1976, the number of workers involved in major strikes never fell
below one million between the years 1967 and 1979. In 1970 and 1971, the
number of workers involved in strikes was 2.4 million and 2.5 million
respectively. In Britain, the strike of coal miners in 1973-74 forced the
resignation of the Conservative government of Edward Heath.

27. What then accounted for the survival of the capitalist system during
this period of tumultuous social struggles? On the political front, the
principal reason for the survival of capitalism is to be found in the
counter-revolutionary policies of the Stalinist and social democratic
governments, parties and trade union bureaucracies, which did everything in
their power to sabotage the revolutionary struggles of the working class.
Moreover, the Pabloite parties and organizations, which had in the 1950s and
early 1960s broken with the Fourth International, played a destructive role
in covering up for the political treachery of the Stalinists and social
democrats and channeling mass struggles into politically impotent protests.
In this project, the Pabloites worked arm-in-arm with the organizations of
the so-called New Left, whose defining characteristics were disdain for the
working class, indifference toward the lessons of history, hostility toward
Marxist theory, and bitter hatred of Trotskyism.

28. The political treachery of these forces was abetted by substantial
objective factors, of which the most significant was the still-dominant
world position of American capitalism. The dollar functioned as the linchpin
of the world capitalist economy, convertible into gold at the rate of $35
per ounce. But politically and economically, the world of 2008 is vastly
different than that which existed 40 years ago. The world's principal
creditor has become its most indebted nation. The US dollar, whose value on
international markets is only a fraction of what it was during the era of
Bretton Woods, has lost virtually all credibility as a world reserve
currency. Its displacement by the euro or a "basket" of international
currencies, a development which is all but inevitable, will only confirm
what is already apparent—that the era of the global dominance of American
capitalism has come to an end. Moreover, the extraordinary technological
changes that underlie the processes known as "globalization" are profoundly
revolutionary in their implications. The last three decades have witnessed
an immense world-wide expansion in the forces of the international working
class. Its social power and potential ability to reorganize the world
economy along socialist lines—that is, for the consciously directed purpose
of ending poverty and exploitation and serving the needs of humanity—is
greater than in any previous period of history.

29. The Socialist Equality Party, in political solidarity with the
International Committee of the Fourth International, anticipates with
confidence the resurgence of working class struggles. We are convinced that
the objective crisis of the capitalist system will provide the impulse for
the upsurge of the American and international working class. But the coming
upsurge will not automatically solve the problems of developing socialist
consciousness.

30. As the initial struggles of the working class in recent months
demonstrate, there remains an enormous gulf between the objectively
revolutionary implications of the crisis and the present level of political
consciousness. Objective conditions will propel the working class into
struggle and create the conditions for an immense leap in consciousness. But
it would be a mistake to underestimate the degree of struggle that must be
conducted by the party to raise the political consciousness of the working
class and overcome the reactionary influence of the bureaucracies, which,
while weakened, remain a dangerous and critical prop of capitalist rule. Nor
can we ignore the role played by myriad "radical" petty-bourgeois
tendencies, which persistently seek to disorient the working class and
maintain its subordination to "progressive" sections of the bourgeoisie. The
influence of all these different political agencies of the ruling class can
be overcome only by fighting for the assimilation of the strategic
experiences of past revolutionary struggles and for an understanding of the
implications of the developing crisis of world capitalism.

31. During 2008, the Socialist Equality Party will undertake a
politically-ambitious campaign to expand its influence within the working
class and among youth. This campaign will include:

(a) The participation of the SEP in the 2008 elections with its own
candidates in as many states as possible. The purpose of this campaign will
be to develop the political consciousness of the working class and its
understanding of the program of international socialism, to hasten its
political break with the parties of the capitalist class, to fight against
poverty, exploitation and all forms of social inequality, to build
opposition to American militarism and imperialism, and to recruit new forces
into the Socialist Equality Party.

(b) The development, in conjunction with our political co-thinkers in the
International Committee, of the *World Socialist Web Site*. This will
include a major redesign of the web site to improve readability and make the
most effective use possible of modern web technologies. The WSWS will also
introduce editorial changes that will strengthen its political, cultural and
theoretical content. The goal of all these changes is to expand the
readership and political influence of the web site as an instrument of
socialist thought and action.

(c) The International Students for Social Equality (ISSE), the student youth
movement affiliated with the SEP, will expand its work on campuses
throughout the United States. Combined with the efforts of our political
co-thinkers in the International Committee, we will strive to develop the
ISSE as a genuinely international movement fighting for the political unity
and solidarity of youth and workers throughout the world.

32. We appeal to all SEP members to fight on the basis of the perspective
outlined in this report for the expansion of the work of the party in 2008.
At the same time, the entire SEP membership calls upon the readers and
supporters of the *World Socialist Web Site* to recognize the urgency of the
political and economic crisis of American and world capitalism and join with
us in the fight for socialism.

*Join the fight for socialism! Click
here<http://www2.wsws.org/phpform/use/isse/form1.html>to contact the
SEP and ISSE.
*

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