BE AFRAID.... VERY AFRAID, People's Voice Editorial, Oct. 16-31, 2009

(The following article is from the October 16-31, 2009, issue of People's Voice, Canada's leading communist newspaper. Articles can be reprinted free if the source is credited. Subscription rates in Canada: $30/year, or $15 low income rate; for U.S. readers - $45 US per year; other overseas readers - $45 US or $50 CDN per year. Send to: People's Voice, c/o PV Business Manager, 133 Herkimer St., Unit 502, Hamilton, ON, L8P 2H3.)

People's Voice Editorial, Oct. 16-31, 2009

Over the past few months, the corporate media and right-wing politicians have hailed the "economic recovery." Slight gains in GDP figures and ballooning stock prices make these folks absolutely giddy. But no less a source than the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), "the central bank to the world's central banks," continues to warn against such silliness. This powerful institution reported recently that "the global market for derivatives rebounded to $426 trillion [up 16%] in the second quarter as risk appetite returned, but the system remains unstable and prone to crises."

Former BIS Chief Economist William White warns that "The world has not tackled the problems at the heart of the economic downturn and is likely to slip back into recession.... government actions to help the economy in the short run may be sowing the seeds for future crises." The only thing that would surprise him, says White, was a rapid and sustainable recovery.

Meanwhile, the global capitalist system faces sharp contradictions. Failure to adopt massive government stimulus packages over the past year would have meant risking an enormous social explosion and possibly the meltdown of the entire capitalist economy. But governments have gone even more deeply into debt to pay for such measures, adding to their structural difficulties. Even so, the OECD and other capitalist think tanks warn of a "jobless recovery," with mounting unemployment for at least the next couple of years.

How much debt are we talking about? By 2007, the total of U.S. domestic, commercial and consumer debt stood at $51 trillion. Over $20 trillion more has since been added to that figure.

There's no way out of this conundrum, short of a complete social and economic restructuring of the imperialist world. That's a revolutionary concept, but one which is desperately necessary.