i on thomas paine reviews: origins of crisis in ussr - Common Sense

Page42 Common Sense - Issue 15
existence of the national states changed radically. This change was expressed in the
failure of Keynesianism and of interventionist import-substitution policies (with all
the wrporatist politics which they involved). it was expressed in the rise of the
politics and ideology (and culture) of money in all countries during the 1980s. it
was expressed in the final collapse of the grotesque myth of socialism in one
country, both in its socialdemocratic form in Western Europe and its 'communist'
form in Eastern Europe.
The dominance of money during the 1980s seemed to express the almost limitless
triumph of capital. But it was not really like that: the existence of capital in the
form of money capital was the surest indicator that capital had not succeeded in
recreating its domination over labour to a sufficient degree. In spite of appearances.
capital continued to be weak (and dependent). The economic expansion that took
place m the richer countries had a largely fictitious basis. sustained by the constant
expansion of indebtedness. The fictitious character of this expansion was manifested
more and more clearly from the end of the 1980s. with the stock market crash of
1987, growing monetary instability, the enormous fall in the Japanese stock
market the increasing problems of banks throughout the world, and finally the
'credit crunch', the restriction of credit which has been a central element in the
economic recession of the last few years. The realisation of the fictitious nature of
the expansion was an important factor in the fall of Thatcher, of such happy
memory, and in the fall in the prestige of neo-liberalism throughout the world. It is
similalry the question of the real or fictitious character of the economic expansion
in Mexico which will determine the reputation of Salinas de Gortari in the time that
remains to him as President of Mexico. And the basis of everything is the
insubordination of work, the fact that capital has not succeeded in subordinating
labour sufficiently to secure a stable future for itself. For us that is both a warning
and a hope.
The third thesis, then, is that the fragility of capitalism is not the expression of
objective laws but of the dependency of capital on the power of labour. This
conclusion seems relevant to me, because the precondition of any radical change of
society is the theoretical and practical realisation by those without power that the
powerful depend on them, the realisation of the power of the powerless. Manrisrn is
the theory of the power of the powerless.