US Capitalism is not so cocky now!

The serious capitalist press is full of reviews of the year that is ending. What comes across in these is that US capitalism is not so cocky as it was. The main headline in the Wall Street Journal analysis article today is: "The dimming of a beacon." It is referring to US capitalism and how it is no longer seen as knowing everything and being able to do everything. Its light has dimmed.

Here are a few of its observations.

"The 2000s could be termed a lost decade for the US economy."

"The average American's annual income stood at $39,446 as of October 2009, up only 5.3% in inflation adjusted terms from the end of the 1990's. That is the slowest growth registered in at least six decades. The average person's net worth fell 13% through September 2009 as stock and home prices plunged. ... Meanwhile inequality grew."

Referring to the US economy's performance in the 2000s the Wall Street Journal writes in relation to its economists that they are forced to "confront an age old quandary: how to save capitalism from itself."

Referring to the recent financial crash it writes: "The result: a deep financial crisis that has discredited the idea, central to the US system, that bankers own interests would guide them to do what was best for the economy."

Yes US capitalism is not so confident now, and as it gets bogged down further in its foreign wars and as its political system is increasingly exposed as being unable to solve its economic crisis and its social problems then we will see this confidence erode further. This will push the working class more to take action and also see the working class increasingly consider options to capitalism. The Democratic Socialist alternative can once again come back onto the agenda of the mass of workers.

I would like to comment on one detail in these quotes from the Wall Street Journal. Where it says that people believed that "bankers own interests would guide them to do what was best for the economy." Well what people believed this, who believed this? This is an outright lie.

Take the overwhelming majority of the population, that is the working class, they are very clear about bankers. They understand very well that bankers are a bunch of crooks who act only in their own interest. Working people know this. Its the Greenspans, the Summers, the Bushs, the Obamas, who preach that the bankers if left alone will work in the economy's interests. And they do not preach this because they believe it, they preach it because they are part and parcel of the bankers system, making money out of it, deriving power from it, they are part of the capitalist class and the capitalist class wants its hands to be completely free to swindle and speculate and exploit to its heart's content.

Working people know what the bankers are alright. They are a bunch of crooks and swindlers. As Woody Guthrie wrote in relation to bankers. "Some rob you with a six gun, and some with a fountain pen." Today's version would be: "Some rob you with a six gun/ uzi/ semi automatic weapon/ and some with a computer."

It is doubtful whether there has ever been such a concentration of crooks and swindlers together in the same couple of spots as there are in washington and Wall Street. But they are not ruling the world like they were before. they had to be bailed out with our money. and a new financial crisis is not far away. They will get another blow when this hits. Confidence in capitalism will be further weakened. the opportunity to build a mass socialist workers movement will improve. we need to prepare ourselves for this.

For a mass Working Peoples' Party.

For Democratic Socialism.

Sean.