this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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I think what happened is some people got smart and figured they stand to make a lot of money in a recession.
Chaos is a ladder.
Not for us, obviously. It's just a swamp.
Nah, the boom bust cycle happens due to the contradictions inherent to capitalism. They are speeding up because the contradictions get sharper as capitalism progresses. Marx developed this understanding 200 years ago, check it out:
"When the expansion of production outruns its profitability, when existing conditions of exploitation preclude a further profitable capital-expansion or what amounts to the same thing, an increase of accumulation does not increase the mass of surplus-value or profits, an absolute over-accumulation has occurred and the accumulation process comes to a halt. This interruption of the accumulation or its stagnation constitutes the capitalist crisis. It represents an overproduction of capital with respect to the degree of exploitation. From the point of view of profitability at this stage, existing capital is at the same time too small and too large. It is too large in relation to the existing surplus-value and it is not large enough to overcome the lack of surplus-value. Capital has only been over-produced in relation to profitability. This is not a material overproduction for the world in this respect is undercapitalised [73]. This stresses once again the central contradiction between the commodity as a use-value and as an exchange-value, between production for use and that for profit." https://www.marxists.org/subject/economy/authors/yaffed/1972/mtccs/mtccs3.htm
Let me take a moment to comment not specifically on this but on my own disillusionment. It's a strange personal experience to be raised believing that the evils of Marxism is this boogeyman of economic, social, and moral disenfranchisement, but then, I look around myself and observe the supposed ravages, but there is no shadow of Marxism to be found--it's capitalism. It's a strange thing to behold not unlike having been raised by ultra-religious and reaching the age where it becomes clear that there exist questions for which that system has no good answer.