Deputy Minister of Transport and Deputy General-Secretary of the South African Communist Party, Jeremy Cronin gave the fourth address in the Department of Political and International Studies Annual Teach-in on Thursday. Arguing that ‘crises’ are the norm for capitalist economies rather than being an abnormality, Cronin described capitalism as ‘a mode of production directed towards accumulation for its own sake, regardless of social needs’.
What this means is that there is always a tendency in capitalism to produce more goods than can be profitably sold while at the same time leaving many important human needs unfulfilled. Crisis, moreover, Cronin pointed out, is regarded by many free market enthusiasts as regenerative in their capacity.
While they cause a certain amount of pain, so the conventional economic argument goes, they also rid the system of its unproductive and uncompetitive elements. What this argument ignores, Cronin countered, is the immense human suffering particularly for the poorest in society that goes along with this so-called healthy renewal of the system.
Pointing to the phenomenon of jobless growth Cronin made the argument that growth is not always positive from the point of view of social redress, reduction of inequality or addressing poverty.
The growth boom in China between 1990 and 2002 was close to jobless with the period seeing only a 0,8 per cent increase in employment. Cronin’s point then, was that it is not only during times of so-called crisis that capitalism does not work well from the point of view of providing jobs or addressing poverty. Even in times of relatively high growth in South Africa the gap between rich and poor has widened.
The focus of debate in mainstream economics in this period has been on finding ways of getting things ‘back to normal’ – stimulating the economy, returning liquidity to the system, restoring confidence, and so on. For Cronin these debates within the logic of capitalism focus on measures that will inevitably be temporary given that crisis is an inherent and inevitable feature of capitalism, fail to appreciate or address the bigger questions which have to do with the inability of the system itself to meet human need.
‘Until we roll back the global empire of capitalism by beginning to treat all of our social and natural resources as common wealth, we will continue to be locked into the boom-bust treadmill of profit-drive private accumulation and crisis. A different future is the only future for humankind’ Cronin concluded.