The Economic Basis of the Current Political Crisis in the United States
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Abstract
It is becoming clear that the United States is in a serious political crisis. By political crisis we mean that the ruling class is no longer able to rule and control the masses of people in the same way it has been running the country in the past period of time. Marx pointed out that at certain periods of history, the Forces of Production come in conflict with the Relations of Production. Then begins an epoch of social revolution. The electronic revolution of microelectronics is a generic technology that is increasingly coming into conflict with the Relations of Production of capitalism. Capitalist private property is based on wage labor and scarcity. Electronics is labor-replacing and abundant. This has de-stabilized capitalism, which is now creating a permanent form of poverty, including homelessness. The struggle in the political arena has unfolded between a rightwing “populist” sector and the mainstream “liberal” capitalist sector, represented by the Council on Foreign Relations. Many see the “populist” sector as the source of fascism coming to the US. It is possible that fascism in the US will come from the fight against the “fascism” of the “populists.” The role of revolutionaries in this situation is to unite the poor and dispossessed (those without private property) as a force independent of both wings of the capitalist class.
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Electronics revolution, political crisis, capitalism, Marxism, United States
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Data Sources (FRED)
Capacity Utilization: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TCU
Labor Force Participation Rate: fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CIVPART
Employment-Population Ratio: fred.stlouisfed.org/series/EMRATIO
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