A Peoples Guide to Capitalism : an introduction to Marxist economics

287 Pages·3.423 MB·English

by  Hadas Thier

© 2020 Hadas Thier
Pub lished in 2020 by
Hay mar ket Books
P.O. Box 180165
Chicago, IL 60618
773-583-7884
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info@hay mar ket books.org
ISBN: 978-1-64259-218-4
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Cover art work, de sign, and in te rior il lus tra tions by Tania Guerra.
Li brary of Con gress Cat a loging-in-Pub li ca tion data is avail able.
To Uri and Tzvia Thier, who in stilled in me a knee-jerk rea ct ion to in jus tice,
and who gave me enough conf i dence to do somet hing about it.
And to Naim, with love, and with the hope that somed ay you can use this book
to exp lain to your child ren what life was like bef ore we rele g ated capi tal ism to
the dustb in of his tory.
CON TENTS
Int rod uct ion
CHAP TER ONE
The Birth of Capi tal
CHAP TER TWO
The Lab or Theo ry of Value
CHAP TER THREE
Money
CHAP TER FOUR
Where Do Profi ts Come From?
CHAP TER FIVE
The Acc um u lat ion of Capi tal
CHAP TER SIX
Capi tali st Cri sis
CHAP TER SEVEN
Credit and Fin anc iali zat ion
CON CLU SION
Capi tali sm’s Gravedigg ers
AF TER WORD
The Coron a virus Cris is
Ack nowl edgm ents
GLOS SARY
FUR THER READI NG
NOTES
IND EX
IN TRO DUC TION
The world is be ing rava ged by a coron avirus pand emic as this book goes to
print. The virus first reared its head at the end of 2019 and by now, April
2020, the known num ber of COVID-19 cases worldw ide have surp assed a
mil lion, leavi ng over one hun dred thou sand dead, with est i mates that the virus
will claim still hund reds of thous ands of lives, if not more.
Yet it has bec ome painfully and tragi cally clear that it is not merely a virus
claimi ng lives. We are also bei ng ass ailed by a so cie ty that has no probl em
mars hali ng bombs and fighter jets, but that will not ass emb le enough vent i la‐
tors and masks to batt le the pan demic. We live in a so cie ty in which decades
of bud get cuts have made a run on overw helmed hos pi tals in evitable and
which has set count ries and states bid ding against one ano ther for vent i lat ors
on the “free mark et” rather than dev ise cent rali zed plans for their prod uct ion
and dist rib u tion.
Gove rnm ents’ res ponses have been un even across the globe. In count ries
where au thori ties res ponded early on with wides pread testi ng, the transm is‐
sion of the dis ease was slowed, as cases were ident i fied, iso lated, and quara n‐
tined. While the United States, the epic ent er of global capi tali sm, has bec ome
also the epic ent er of the pand emic. At the first sign of coron avirus-rel ated
stock mark et troub le, the riche st count ry in the world quickly mo bi lized tril‐
lions of dol lars to prop up fin anc ial capi tal. But the gov ernm ent did noth ing to
make testi ng widely availa ble. We thus faced the ob scene rea l ity of heari ng
about countl ess celebrit ies’ test res ults while most health care worke rs on the
frontl ine batt led the pand emic witho ut acc ess to testi ng.
In Brookl yn, New York, where I live, sixty-eight-year old Theresa Loc oco,
a ped i atric nurse of forty-eight years, cont racted COVID-19 on the job and
died within days. Her son, Ant hony, was asked by the New York Post whether
wides pread testi ng could have prev ented his mom’s death. He ans wered, “I
don’t even want to hear that—bec ause it would make me feel like someo ne
murd ered my mom.”1
The com bi nat ion of in ept i tude and mali ce has abs o lutely had murd ero us
cons eq uences, but the roots of the cris is are deeper still. “The tragedy is im‐
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med i ate, real, epic and un foldi ng bef ore our eyes,” wrote Ind ian nov eli st
Arundh ati Roy. “But it isn’t new. It is the wrecka ge of a train that has been ca‐
reeni ng down the track for years.”2 The unt hink able scale of the tragedy is the
res ult of a capi tali st perf ect storm.
First, the in creasi ng num ber of novel viruses is linked to the rise of fact ory
farmi ng, city enc roachm ent on wildlife, and an in dus trial model of lives tock
prod uct ion.3 Seco nd, budg et cuts and a sys tema tic un derm in ing of health care
sys tems across the world—at varyi ng leve ls of cris is—have left count ries in‐
cap able of hand ling a pub lic health emer gency. Fi nally, as coron avirus rips
through our comm u ni ties, the dark rea li ty of class in equali ty is laid bare: who
will be most vul nera b le to in fect ion, who will rec eive treatm ent, and who will
be left to die? Mil lions of frontl ine worke rs—from nurses to groc ery clerks to
del iv ery pers ons to the homel ess largely unp rot ected and un able to stay home
—will bear the brunt of the death toll.
All this is to say noth ing of the un preced ented econ omic cris is that we are
plum meti ng to ward. Bef ore the ashes of the health care cris is even clear, we
can see ben eath them a deci mated econo my. Again, worki ng peop le are pay‐
ing for this. As this book heads to print, a record-breaki ng 17 mil lion jobs
have been lost in a matt er of three weeks. Duri ng the ent irety of the Great Re‐
cess ion, 9 mil lion jobs were lost. The stay-at-home lockd owns ripp ling
through the world have, in the words of Arundh ati Roy, brought “the eng ine of
capi tali sm to a judd eri ng halt.”4 With worke rs at home, prod uct ion stands still,
and sup ply chains are brok en. Mass layo ffs ens ue, and mil lions of un em‐
ployed and und ere mp loyed worke rs deb il i tate dem and.
As I frant i cally set upon rewriti ng this in trod uct ion and adding the aft er‐
word to ref lect the new rea li ty of a coron avirus-inf ected world, two things
were clear. One, is that an un ders tandi ng of the way that capi tali sm works,
who it serves and why, is ur gently needed. My hope is that this book makes a
timely con trib u tion to those dis cuss ions. Two, is that at this mo ment, as the
book goes to print, it is im pos si ble to pred ict how all of this will play out. The
bi ol ogy and evol u tion of the virus is un cert ain, and the scale of the econ omic
cris is is lit era lly un preced ented. In the aft erw ord I att empt to sketch out a few
thoughts on the econ omic rami fic at ions of the pand emic with out the pret ense
of pred ict ions.
The coron avirus pand emic has acc ele ra ted econ omic and so cial proc esses
that have been un foldi ng over the decade since the GREAT RECES SION of
2007 to 2009, the long est and deepe st cris is in the United States since the
Great Dep ress ion. That dis tinct ion will, of course, be eclipsed by the curr ent
cris is. But the deva st at ion wrought by the Great Rec ess ion was sig nifi cant in
its own right. And along with the weak and joy less rec ove ry that foll owed, it
fue led new heights of econ omic pol ari zat ion.
2
The Fed eral Res erve rep orted that in 2019 the count ry’s top 1 perc ent con‐
trolled a record-high 33 perc ent of the wealth, while the bot tom 90 perc ent of
the adult pop u lat ion shared 30 perc ent of the wealth. See Fig ure 1. Even more
shocki ng, the bot tom half of the pop u lat ion have had to divvy up 1 perc ent of
the nat ion’s wealth among us.5 Step ping back to look at the last three decades,
the traj ect ory is even more dram atic. See Fig ure 2.
FIG URE 1. DIS TRI BU TION OF WEALTH 2019
Source: Board of Gov er nors of the Fed eral Re serve Sys tem, Dis tri bu tion of House hold Wealth
in the US since 1989.
FIG URE 2. DIS TRI BU TION OF WEALTH 1989–2019 (IN TRIL LIONS)
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