“Hitherto men have always formed wrong ideas about themselves, about what they are and what they ought to be. They have arranged their relations according to their ideas of God, of normal man, etc. The products of their brains have got out of their hands. They, the creators, have bowed down before their creations.” Karl Marx, The German Ideology.
Since the collapse of 2008, and now nearly three years into a global economy troubled by Covid, the prevailing feeling that ‘something is amiss’ persists, even among the most hopeful individuals. However, what is the true nature of the predicament? Each person offers nearly a distinct response: advocates of austerity blame excessive debt; central bankers argue for insufficient liquidity; the Austrians advocate for the dissolution of central banks; Keynesians lament ‘too much finance, not enough investment!’ advocating relentless spending as the remedy. This disregards accusations against ‘the elite’ and ‘the globalists’, deemed excessively greedy and bearing the consequences of their avarice for the rest of us.
For Michael Roberts, these explanations are mere ideological oscillations. If they serve to elucidate anything, they do so by diverting attention from the inherent inter am flaws of capitalism itself. An unwavering supporter of Marx’s theory of the ‘tendency of the rate of profit to fall’ (TRPF), Roberts perceives capitalism’s shortcomings as intrinsic to its function: its crises emerge ‘endogenously’ from within, rather than, as many propose, as external shocks or consequences of mismanagement. As Marx articulated: the limits of capital is capital itself.
In this first online seminar of 2024, marxist economist, Michael Roberts, is joining the Federation to share his thoughts and musing about the trends global capitalism is producing in the wake of the economic crisis that the world was plunged into during the pandemic and what these trends might mean for both the future of the left as well as the future of Globalism as a project of mature capitalist development.
Michael Roberts is a distinguished marxist economist with a career spanning more than thirty years in the City of London. He has penned several influential works of marxian economics, among them “The Great Recession,” “The Long Depression,” and “Marx 200,” each acclaimed for their profound analysis and depth of insight. Roberts’ extensive expertise and astute marxist perspectives are further showcased through his engaging blog hosted at thenextrecession.wordpress.com
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/
Meeting ID: 884 1823 8865
Passcode: 239175
This event will be hosted on zoom. Please find the linked embedded in the event above.