PRODUCTIVE PRODUCTION IS THE LIFEBLOOD OF CAPITALISM :The most serious problem is the lack of productive investment. In the US, private investment remains below even its long-term share of national output, while public investment peaked with the stimulus in 2010 and has been falling ever since. The capitalists are not investing in the kind of productive activity that would lead to the hiring of American workers in sufficient numbers to allow the economy to take off. The reason is because there is no market for their goods; that is to say, there is no “effective demand”. The economic outlook is dark and uncertain. Nobody wants to spend or invest because they cannot predict the future. The number of jobs increased in 2013 but factory employment continued to decline. Initial forecasts that the US recovery would be led by a manufacturing rebound have been comprehensively falsified. A healthy and sustainable recovery must be based on productive investment, not a larger number flipping burgers in McDonald’s. The costs of investment are actually far lower now than in 2008. Yet business investment in the US is running at only slightly above its 2008 level. A recent survey of the 40 biggest publicly traded US companies recorded that roughly half of them intended to curtail their capital expenditures in the course of 2013. What is the point in building new factories and investing in costly new machinery and computers when they cannot use the productive capacity they already have? In the UK, a mere 15% of total financial flows actually go into investment. The rest goes into supporting existing corporate assets, real estate, or unsecured personal finance. Instead of investing in new plant and machinery, the big companies are borrowing large sums of money at negligible rates of interest in order to buy back their own shares. In the first nine months of 2013 alone, $308 billion was spent for this purpose in the USA. The problem is therefore not lack of liquidity. In the USA, businesses are awash with cash yet they do not invest in productive activity. In the last four years vast sums of money have been pumped into the economy, particularly the banks. The result has been to increase the public debt to alarming levels, without producing any economic recovery worthy of the name. Yet Moody's estimate at the beginning of 2013 (reported by Forbes in March 2013) was of $1.45 trillion in cash stashed away by US non-financial corporations. The increase for the year 2012 alone (included in the total) was of $130 billion. This is not a new phenomenon. In the late 1920s, there was a massive accumulation of unspent cash in the economy—just before the crash. The bourgeois economists have an aversion to pronouncing the word “overproduction” (strangely, some self-styled Marxist economists suffer from the same affliction). But from a Marxist point of view the root cause of the crisis is very clear. Surplus value is extracted in the process of production, but this does not exhaust the process of money-making. The ability of the capitalist to realize the surplus value extracted from the labor of the workers ultimately depends on his ability to sell his commodities on the market. But this possibility is limited by the level of effective demand in society, that is, by the ability to pay. The capitalists’ urge to produce in order to obtain profit is virtually unlimited, but his ability to find a market for his produce has very definite limits. The world economy is perilously dependent upon the USA. In reality, the whole world now depends on US consumption. But consumption in the USA is hardly in an ideal condition to act as the engine of world growth. Median earnings have fallen by 5.4 per cent since the US recovery began. Unemployment hovers around 7 per cent. Consumption accounts for roughly 70 per cent of US gross domestic product and about 16 per cent of global demand. Exporters everywhere are thus hoping the US consumer will come to the rescue. But this creates new contradictions. Last year, surging imports pushed the US trade deficit up by 12 per cent to $45bn per month, which was the largest jump in five years. Imports from China accounted for almost two-thirds of that. If this continues, the US-China deficit will exceed $300bn. On the other hand, US exports fell. Obama’s goal of doubling exports in five years is a hopeless dream. The US recovery might peter out, dragging the global economy down with it.This resembles the old Russian fairy tale of a hut supported by chickens’ legs

THE CRISIS IS STILL ON :Since 2008, all the factors that drove the system upwards have combined to drive it downwards. The massive increase in credit has become a huge mountain of debt, a colossal burden on consumption, which is dragging the economy down under its weight.

While the press and politicians talk about a recovery, the serious strategists of capital are plunged into the blackest pessimism. The more far-sighted economists are talking not of recovery but of the danger of a new and even deeper crisis. The “recovery” is really a convenient fiction, calculated to soothe the nerves of investors and restore “confidence”.

Insofar as it is possible to speak of it, the partial recovery in the USA is the weakest recovery from a slump in history. Normally after a slump, the economy tends to rebound strongly on the basis of productive investment, which is the lifeblood of the capitalist system. But this is not the case now. According to the IMF, the world economy is on track to grow just 2.9%, which is roughly half its pre-crisis level.

The irrational nature of capitalism, trapped in the vice of insoluble contradictions, has been given an even sharper and more painful and destructive character through globalization. “National sovereignty” has become an empty word, as every government is subjected to the vicissitudes of the world market.

Speculation flourishes despite all the talk about regulation. A vast amount of money is sloshing around the world, adding hugely to the danger of an unprecedented economic collapse. The global derivatives market, which amounted to $59 trillion in 2008, had risen to $67 trillion by 2012. This is a measure of the unbridled speculative frenzy that has gripped the bourgeois in our times. The tangled interconnections of the derivatives market, which it seems nobody truly understands, have introduced complex and new risks.

The nervousness of the bourgeois is mirrored in the feverish rise and fall of the markets. The slightest incident can cause a panic: political tensions in Portugal; social unrest in Egypt; uncertainty over the outlook for China’s economy; the possibility of military action in the Middle East leading to a sharp rise in oil prices; any of these things can cause a panic that can plunge the world economy back into a deep recession. The yields on government debt play approximately the same role as the charts on the bottom of a hospital bed that denote the rise and fall of a fever. Beyond a certain limit, the increase in the level of a fever threatens the patient with death.

GOING THROUGH THE ANNALS HISTORY :

There are certain moments in history that are decisive turning points. Such moments were 1789, 1917, 1929 and 1991. At such times the whole process is accelerated, and processes that seemed to be fixed for all time turn into their opposite. To this list of great historical turning points we must now add the year 2008. The new period that opened with the crisis of 2008 finds its reflection in an intensification of the class struggle, and in relations between states, by wars and international conflicts.

Dialectics deals with processes in their development through contradictions. The dialectical method enables us to look beyond the immediately given (the “facts”) and observe the deep-seated processes that lie beneath the surface. The capitalist system historically produces and destroys its internal equilibrium. This is manifested at intervals in the outbreak of crises. In the economic sphere this is expressed in the alternation between booms and slumps, which are a fundamental characteristic of the capitalist system for the last 200 years. Periods of prosperity and full employment are followed by periods of slump in which investment falls off, factories are closed, unemployment soars and the productive forces stagnate.

Marx explains that the fundamental cause of all real capitalist crises is overproduction, or, in the jargon of the modern economists, excess capacity (which is the result of overproduction of the means of production). The fact that society is plunged into crisis because it produces too much is a feature of capitalism that was unknown in previous societies. It is the fundamental contradiction of capitalism, which cannot be resolved within the limits of private property of the means of production and the nation state. For what appeared to be a long period—approximately three decades, this seemed to have been falsified by history.

The collapse of Stalinism was an important turning point. From a psychological point of view it gave the bourgeoisie and its ideological defenders a new lease of life. It further impelled the Social Democracy towards the camp of capitalism, creating new illusions in the “free market economy”. It set the final seal on the former Stalinist parties, which abandoned any pretension of standing for socialism and became a pale reflection of the Social Democracy. The same process led to the virtual collapse of left reform-ism as a definite tendency in the labor movement.

During the last boom, capitalism went beyond its natural limits through the unprecedented expansion of credit and the intensification of the world division of labor through so-called globalization. The growth of world trade propelled the system upwards in what appeared to be an unending spiral of growth. The expansion of credit temporarily increased demand. In the case of Britain, the size of private credit, as a proportion of GDP, has doubled to 200% in the last 50 years. The USA and other countries went down the same road.

The sun shone, the markets boomed and everybody was happy. Everything seemed to be for the best in the best of all capitalist worlds. Then came the crash of 2008. With the collapse of Lehman Brothers, they came very close to a catastrophe on the scale of 1929—or even greater. They were only saved by massive injection of public money. The whole burden of debt accumulated by the private banks was placed on the shoulders of the taxpayers. The state—which the economists insisted had no role to play in the economy—had to prop up the whole crumbling edifice of the “free market economy”.

A SHORT STORY : THE POLITICIAN AND THE PROFESSIONAL....

There was a politician whose hatred for his rival was so deep that the politician one day engaged a professional assassin to eliminate the rival. The assassin took the advance and went ahead with his plan. The assassin assured the politician that he would execute the mission within three days. After the assassin left, as the politician sat with his whiskey - tense and expecting- his rival called him. The rival wanted to join hands with him and form the government. The rival agreed to give the politician the most coveted position in the government. The deal was to preempt a third party to take away the cake. The offer was a dream come true and the politician happily agreed. Neither he nor his rival was ready to delay, so one day after they formed the alliance and organized a massive rally. Both went to address the gathering from together. They both sat on the dais- cool and satisfied with a big smile permanently lingering on their lips.
Then all of a sudden…. ……………..
There was a big ……boom!!!!
The bomb exploded and both the politician and the rival were blown to pieces…
The politician in a hurry had failed to inform and ask the assassin to call off the mission…
After all, the assassin was a professional, who unlike the politician, never changes the side all of a sudden.

WHERE ARE WE HEADING TOWARDS :

WHERE ARE WE HEADING TOWARDS ? In reality, neither booms nor slumps in and of themselves cause revolutions. But it is the rapid successions of boom and slump, the interruption of the "normal" pattern of existence, which provokes general uncertainty and instability, and causes people to question the existing state of things. Even more profound are the shocks caused by wars, which turn the world upside down, uproot millions and compel men and women to shed their illusions and finally stand face to face with reality.

Anna's agitation was a concrete expression of the fact that the old regime had reached an impasse.
But to expose something is not to cause it. The crisis on international finance markets and the run on Dollar recently exposed the chronic weakness of the Capitalist economy.The decay of U.S. capitalism has taken place gradually over a period of decades, disguised by the general upswing of the world economy. This was explained by the Marxists decades ago. The difference now is that, under the relentless pressure of world capitalist crisis, the mass of the American people are beginning to wake up to the fact.

The mood of discontent emanating from the industrial centers found an echo in the ranks of the army, suffering from corruption and exhaustion. The crisis of the regime anticipated the movement of the masses.

Every revolution begins, not at the bottom, but at the top. Its first manifestation is a series of crises and splits in the ruling class, which feels itself to be in a blind alley, and unable to continue to rule in the old way.

A revolution breaks out when all the antagonisms of a society have reached their highest tension. But this makes the situation unbearable even for the classes of the old society - that is, those who are doomed to break up."

The smell of corruption and scandal always hangs around a regime which has outlived itself. The present-day epidemic of political and financial crisis and greed of of the corrupt in Europe, Japan, the USA, are no more an accident than the Rasputin regime at the court of "Nicholas the Bloody," or the "Pompadour factor" of the Ancient Regime in France.

ON PEOPLE'S ROLE :
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In reality, as Trotsky explains, the essence of a revolution is the direct intervention of the masses in the life of society and politics. In "normal" periods, the majority of people are content to leave the running of society in the hands of the "experts" - the parliamentarians, Councillors, lawyers, journalists, trade union officials, university professors, and the rest of them.

Over a period, which may be a protracted period of years or even decades, society may acquire the appearance of a certain "equilibrium." This is particularly true in a prolonged period of capitalist economic upswing, like that which lasted for nearly four decades after the end of World War Two.

In such periods, the ideas of Marxism are not readily accepted or understood, because they appear to fly in the face of "the facts." On the contrary, the illusions of the reformists Labor leaders of a slow, gradual, evolutionary change - "today better than yesterday, and tomorrow better than today" - achieve a widespread audience.

However, beneath the apparently calm surface, powerful currents are building up. There is a gradual accumulation of discontent and frustration in the masses, and an increasing malaise among the middle layers of society. This is particularly felt by the intellectuals and students, who are a sensitive barometer reflecting the changing moods of society.

In a marvelously graphic phrase, Trotsky refers to the "molecular process of revolution", which goes on in uninterrupted fashion in the minds of the workers. However, since this process is a gradual one which does not affect the general political physiognomy of society, it goes unnoticed by everyone - except the Marxists.

In just the same way, the ground appears to be solid and firm under our feet ("as steady as a rock," as the saying goes). But geology teaches that rocks are by no means steady, and that the ground is constantly shifting beneath our feet. The continents are on the march, and in a state of perpetual "warfare," one colliding with another. Since geological change is not measured by years or even centuries, but aeons, the continental shifts remain unnoticed except for specialists. But fault-lines build up, subject to unimaginable pressures, which eventually erupt in earthquakes, wars and revolutions.

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IRONY:
======The irony is that in every elections we see that candidate of working class (left or other) is either the last or out of race.To sum up even the working class voters who take out rallies and observe Strikes and Dharnas on their call but , do not vote for them.Then they vote for the candidate of their caste,relative,friend etc.
That makes it even more important for Union Functionaries to work for raising the Political Quotient of members and non-members through periodic classes on the subject. Bipin Ghosh the task is difficult particularly when the member or non-member comes from a society ridden with all sorts of divisive elements. The slate is already filled by the time an innocent mind comes out of college or adolescence and before writing anything a fresh ; it needs to be cleaned-up.