Marxist economists on the crisis, 2nd round: 5. David Laibman - The Onset of Great Depression II: Conceptualising the Crisis
At this writing (January 2009), firms in all sectors of the U. S. economy are cutting their payrolls; unemployment and homelessness are soaring; and the working class is taking the biggest hit to living standards in several generations, raising deep doubts about the capacity of our capitalist society in the near term to ensure overall social reproduction. Similar trends are evident around the world, reflecting a heightened degree of interconnection and transnationalisation. Mountains of debt -- consumer, business, government, offshore -- continue to accumulate, and the fragility of the...