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From the Domination of High Finance to the Systemic Crisis of Capital: A Marxist Interpretation

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Confronting Mainstream Economics for Overcoming Capitalism

Part of the book series: Marx, Engels, and Marxisms ((MAENMA))

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Abstract

This chapter denounces the lack of analysis of the crisis in the neoclassical mainstream and proposes a Marxist interpretation of the current capitalist crisis, mobilizing Marx’s conceptual tools, especially those of overaccumulation and “fictitious capital.” It explains the origins of this crisis, which have its roots in the role of U.S. high finance. However, we analyze the crisis of capital as “systemic,” and not only financial. We also provide a critique of the orthodox anti-crisis policies, as well as of the return to “Keynesianism.” We argue that there is a high probability that the present crisis will become more acute as a systemic crisis of capital, since all the conditions are there for that to happen. (116 words).

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Notes

  1. 1.

    This chapter is based on various articles: Herrera (2012, 2013a, 2014). Its main conclusions are similar to those of two press articles of the same author, published in L’Humanité (n° 21,354, p. 12, February 7–8-9, 2014) and in the monthly journal Afrique Asie (n° 102, p. 14–15, May 2014).

  2. 2.

    To take another example, concerning France, in the original version of the Dictionnaire d’analyse économique—one of the most solid and useful books in the French language for systematizing the critique of neoclassicism—his author, Bernard Guerrien, did not even need to devote a single article to it (guerrien [1996a])—nor in the numerous books he wrote for the student public (e.g., guerrien [1989, 1996b]). At the other end of the spectrum, and in a completely different genre (low-end product), Gérard Horny, author of La Bourse pour les nuls (The Stock Market for Dummies), “fortunately” devotes three and a half pages (out of 392) to it, before attempting for the umpteenth time to convince us to invest even a small part of our savings in securities (Horny [2012])…

  3. 3.

    Casanova and Herrera (2014), Presentation.

  4. 4.

    On money: Herrera (2022), Introduction.

  5. 5.

    Here: Binmore (2005).

  6. 6.

    See: Aumann (1996).

  7. 7.

    Kydland and Prescott (1977, 1982).

  8. 8.

    Pagano (1993).

  9. 9.

    Also: Levine (2005).

  10. 10.

    Herrera (2003a).

  11. 11.

    For example: Bourguinat (1999).

  12. 12.

    Mishkin (2010).

  13. 13.

    Here: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Zinn.

  14. 14.

    Zinn (1980).

  15. 15.

    This is obviously the case for the articles devoted to major bankers, businessmen, billionaires by the famous “free encyclopedia” Wikipedia…

  16. 16.

    Zinn (1980, p. 296).

  17. 17.

    Ibidem, p. 297.

  18. 18.

    Ibidem, p. 298.

  19. 19.

    Marx and Engels (1968 [1846]) (e.g., p. 105); from the same authors: (1965 [1848]). Also: Marx (1984 [1850]); and Engels (1975) (where we find the formula: ‘zwischen gleichen Rechten entscheidet die Gewalt,’ to be translated by “between equal rights, it is force that decides”). For a synthesis, cf. Herrera (2001).

  20. 20.

    See, for example, http://www.next-finance.net/JP-Morgan.

  21. 21.

    Herrera (2003c, 2006, 2021).

  22. 22.

    Herrera (2010b) and more precisely: Appendix 2, p. 147–148.

  23. 23.

    For example, the Chapter IX (criticism of imperialism) in: Lenin (1969 [1916]). Also: Lenin (1970 [1916]).

  24. 24.

    See: Herrera (2005).

  25. 25.

    On the U.S. blockade against Cuba: Herrera (2003b, 2004b , 2013b).

  26. 26.

    Herrera (2004a).

  27. 27.

    Read: Herrera (2010a), Chapter 5.

  28. 28.

    Nakatani and Herrera (2007).

  29. 29.

    Vitali, Glattfelder, and Battiston (2009).

  30. 30.

    Dierckxsens (2000).

  31. 31.

    Dupuis (1997, p. 90).

  32. 32.

    Karl Marx uses this concept, along with those of interest-bearing capital and the credit system, in Sect. 5 of Book III of Capital, and especially from Chapter XXV, above all in Chapter XXIX (“Components of bank capital”), until Chapter XXXIII. See: Marx (1978), Book III, (vol. II). In German: Marx (1964).

  33. 33.

    See: Carcanholo and Nakatani (1999); Nakatani and Carcanholo (2001); Herrera and Nakatani (2008); Nakatani and Herrera (2009); Marques and Nakatani (2009), Carcanholo and Sabadini (2009), Gomes (2015), Piqueras (2017), Nakatani and Marques (2020). Earlier, from a different but complementary perspective: Harvey (1982).

  34. 34.

    Estimate at the end of December 2010. Cf. the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) report dated June 2011.

  35. 35.

    Saez (2013) and The World Top Incomes Database (http://topincomes.g-mond.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/).

  36. 36.

    Oxfam (2022).

  37. 37.

    See: Dierckxsens and Formento (2016), and Observatoire international de la Crise (2019).

  38. 38.

    Herrera (2011). Also see: Herrera, Dierckxsens and Nakatani (2014).

  39. 39.

    We are thinking here of the combined effects of tension and stress caused by the threat of unemployment and the pressure exerted by individual evaluation methods, leading to heightened competition between workers within the same production unit. This leads to a rupture in the bonds of conviviality, respect, loyalty, and solidarity between colleagues. Hence, the appearance of distrust among them, fear at work, self-control, reciprocal surveillance, as well as that of pathologies of loneliness, accompanied by feelings of moral betrayal of oneself, awareness of a “lie” in the face of the requirements of total quality and certification by the market (e.g., Dejours [2010]). Hence also, in a universe where the mobilization of energies is permanent, where flexibility and instability tend to become normalized and, at the same time, where collective spaces for thinking and acting together are reduced, a loss of moral reference points, of the sense of responsibility and of motivation to regain the instruments of a transformation of human relationships at work. Not to mention the hardening of labor conflicts, and forms of repression against workers who resist and against those who defend them (in the case of France: Herrera [2019, 2020]).

  40. 40.

    Bernanke (2010).

  41. 41.

    For a Marxist alternative, based on the theory of unequal exchange, opposed to the neoclassical analysis of international trade, see: Long, Feng, Li, and Herrera (2020), and Herrera, Long, Feng, and Li (2021).

  42. 42.

    Krugman (2009).

  43. 43.

    Stiglitz (2003).

  44. 44.

    Morin (2006).

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  1. National Center of Scientific Research, Paris, France

    Rémy Herrera

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  1. Rémy Herrera
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Herrera, R. (2022). From the Domination of High Finance to the Systemic Crisis of Capital: A Marxist Interpretation. In: Confronting Mainstream Economics for Overcoming Capitalism. Marx, Engels, and Marxisms. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-05851-6_7

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