Canada’s Financial Bailouts: A Whole New Round of Attacks on the Working-Class

by Steve da Silva

Global Research, January 12, 2009
Basics Community Letter, No. 12


It’s in the time of economic crisis that it becomes most apparent whom capitalism (and the governments that manage it) really works for.

For the last four months politicians and mainstream economists have incessantly uttered two lies to the people regarding the current economic crisis: (1) that it was completely unpredictable; and (2) that we should not worry because economic recovery is on the near horizon, perhaps in a quarter or two. Nothing could be further from the truth, and most of these “experts know it.

The truth is that this crisis was completely expected, and that our society will not emerge from this crisis looking like what it did going into it. Anyone familiar with the economic forecasts of popular and independent economic institutes like MonthlyReview.org or GlobalResearch.ca, would have seen the current economic crisis coming years, if not decades, ago.

The Root of the Crisis: Stagnation

The root of everything wrong with the economy today is inherent to capitalism. Capitalism must constantly expand because capital itself must constantly expand – i.e. it must be invested in the production of new commodities and the exploitation of more workers so as to attain a rate of profit as high as or more than the average.

When capital is unable to find profitable outlets for investment, this is what is called stagnation, and stagnation from the perspective of capital equals crisis! It’s important to recognize that this “crisisâ€