Capitalism And Communism: A Marxist Analysis
Capitalism is a hegemonic global, economic, and social order that increasingly shows a fatal contradiction between reality and reason, where it threatens human welfare as well as but also the continuation of most sensitive forms of life on the planet. Three critical crises make up the contemporary world condition originating from capitalist development: the emergence of global imperial instability associated with shifting world hegemony; the Great Financial Crisis and stagnation/depression; the growing threat of planetary ecological collapse. Since the Second World War, the capitalist world has seen two main political-economic policy regimes: Keynesian (1945 and 1973), framing the last phase of corporate industrial capitalism,
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The fundamental ecological flaws of the capitalist system have been emphasized primarily by critical political-economic thinkers coming out of or deeply influenced by the Marxist tradition. In the United States environmental sociology has been deeply affected by two critical concepts arising out of Marx, the treadmill of production, and the metabolic rift. The treadmill of production concept is the notion that capitalism is geared above all to exponential growth, as suggested by Marx’s M-C-M’ shorthand. The level of economic activity in each period starts with the end point of the previous period, leading to a doubling of economic output. The driving force of this expansion is capital accumulation and the search for ever expanding profits. Marx’s theory of the metabolic rift helps us understand capitalism’s intensive, not merely extensive, destruction of the environment. The metabolic rift was developed as capitalism systematically violated the basic conditions of sustainability on an increasingly large scale, through soil intensification and global transportation of nutrients, food, and fiber (Clark, B., & York, R. …show more content…
In most cases, if you have a lot of money you can get away with anything. When a country faces financial crises, it doesn’t affect wealthy people until their asset value decreases. Wealthy people have all of the political power and money to protect themselves from anything. Those in positions of power, even if they are critical of capitalism benefit from the system and may subconsciously or intentionally not want change. Developed countries have most say in what to do next when there is a crisis, for example, climate change. Developed countries must step up and use their money and resources to help create a new system because developing countries cannot afford to do so. Developing countries are more vulnerable to the political, economic and climate crisis and suffer more than developed countries. Unless urgent and costly measures are taken, the situation could become
The fundamental ecological flaws of the capitalist system have been emphasized primarily by critical political-economic thinkers coming out of or deeply influenced by the Marxist tradition. In the United States environmental sociology has been deeply affected by two critical concepts arising out of Marx, the treadmill of production, and the metabolic rift. The treadmill of production concept is the notion that capitalism is geared above all to exponential growth, as suggested by Marx’s M-C-M’ shorthand. The level of economic activity in each period starts with the end point of the previous period, leading to a doubling of economic output. The driving force of this expansion is capital accumulation and the search for ever expanding profits. Marx’s theory of the metabolic rift helps us understand capitalism’s intensive, not merely extensive, destruction of the environment. The metabolic rift was developed as capitalism systematically violated the basic conditions of sustainability on an increasingly large scale, through soil intensification and global transportation of nutrients, food, and fiber (Clark, B., & York, R. …show more content…
In most cases, if you have a lot of money you can get away with anything. When a country faces financial crises, it doesn’t affect wealthy people until their asset value decreases. Wealthy people have all of the political power and money to protect themselves from anything. Those in positions of power, even if they are critical of capitalism benefit from the system and may subconsciously or intentionally not want change. Developed countries have most say in what to do next when there is a crisis, for example, climate change. Developed countries must step up and use their money and resources to help create a new system because developing countries cannot afford to do so. Developing countries are more vulnerable to the political, economic and climate crisis and suffer more than developed countries. Unless urgent and costly measures are taken, the situation could become