[Quinny]

I suppose the timescale is the only point we disagree on.

I accept there is surpus value to be had from the low wage developing nations, but don't accept that the worker/consumer in developed world will just roll over and accept a life with no expectations for them or their children especially if it gets harder to feed those kids. The social problems in China indicate that an urbanised working class want more and want it quicker. Although this indicates almost a flip-flop in roles, IMO unrest will grow throughout the working class on an international basis in the next few years.

A collapse of the banking system in the west would be bound to accelerate this and would cause serious unrest throughout the world. Whether this would result in revolution is very questionable, particularly in a world where Soviet Russia's collapse has convinced many that communism is dead.

The continual can-kicking by the worlds elite cannot continue without the pain caused to the 'working class' becoming unbearable or sudden systemic collapse. The offshoring of so much productive capacity driven by the pursuit of surplus value was only possible by the subsidy of the western consumer. This subsidy/tax cannot be sustained but show me the cash left after bills for the newly emerging chinese middle class when house prices are sky-high and food inflation starts to bite. You say time is short - how short?

I've always been of the opinion that I would accept less if it was shared equally and although most are currently seduced by the ad-mans glitter, in a world of diminishing resources altruistic self-interest could flourish. I suppose that's why people find me such a f****** comedian

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pretorian', 'Y')es, people will turn into selfless droids as soon as crisis/depletion deepens.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Quinny', 'I') suppose the timescale is the only point we disagree on.

[SeaGypsy]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '
')The globalised state will in essence be a corporate body run along the same lines as a regular corporation, in which the shareholding, I suspect, will be held by the major corporates.

[kublikhan]

Saw this posted over at the oildrum and ourfiniteworld. Might be a good read, it talks about many of the topics brought up in this thread:

Oil Limits, Recession, and Bumping Against the Growth Ceiling

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', '
')The globalised state will in essence be a corporate body run along the same lines as a regular corporation, in which the shareholding, I suspect, will be held by the major corporates.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', ' ')in China Tienamin was a bourgeoisie uprising....

[Pops]

I agree with you Plant, but you should have left out "[citation needed]" from your cut n paste derision.
-1

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', '[')i]In the Western world, between the late 18th century and the present day, the bourgeoisie is a social class "characterized by their ownership of capital and their related culture." A member of the bourgeoisie is a bourgeois or capitalist (plural: bourgeois; capitalists). --Wikipedia
The Tien Amin uprising occurred in 1989 in communist China. The people involved in the revolt were desperately poor students and working people---just like the vast majority of people in China at that time. None of them owned anything more than a bicycle. And NONE of them were capitalists or members of the bourgeoisie class. Not a single one.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'c')apital ... bourgeoisie.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Plantagenet', 'I')f your main interest is in smearing the demonstrators who died in the 1989 Tien Amin revolts with important sounding words that you don't actually understand, then smear away, but if you want to make sense in your posts then please educate yourself as what "capital" is and who the "bourgeoisie" actually are before misusing these terms again.

[americandream]

Here you are. From the very mouth of bourgeoisiedom's homeland.....shopkeeper Britain:

Around the end of these Middle Ages, something began to stir. People were travelling the countryside, selling objects, from tools and trinkets to information about faraway places. These people were merchants, and because of their travelling life and their value as tradesmen, they were largely left alone by the lords and kings.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A533396

From every acorn grows a great oak tree.

[Plantagenet]

Your post just demonstrates again that you don't know what you are talking about.

The impoverished students and working people who rebelled against the Chinese communists in 1989 in Bejing's Tien Amin Square were clearly not capitalists and members of the bourgeoisie as you falsely claimed earlier.

Similarly, your current claim that the merchants who traveled around England 500-1000 years ago are the same as the Chinese students and workers who demonstrated in Tien Amin square in 1989 doesn't make any sense.

Merchants make their money buying and selling things. Chinese workers in 1989 owned nothing and worked for the state for pennies a day. The differences in their societal roles, daily activities and class are obvious.

You are just making it more and more obvious you don't have the slightest clue what workers, students and capitalists actually do.

[americandream]

Lol. Calm down. Bourgeoisie start from somewhere. Invariably as small scale traders and that naturally gives rise to its particular tendencies. Their aspirations are invariably articulated by those with some degree of political acumen reflecting a process that has started and will and MUST be articulated.

It could be via any means...in Medieval England, it was through religion and reformative tendencies as the centre of academic excellence in that era resided with the church.

In post Maoist China, the impulse started by Deng's reforms and which gave rise to a rising rank of small traders (invariably stifled by Maoist bureaucracy) was articulated through its students who did not demand a return to Maoist collectivism (as you no doubt would have noted) but the removal of these bureaucratic limitations....freedom in other words...the freedom to move, think and above all to earn privately in an unfettered manner. The essential basis for the rise of a class of merchants capable to determining the limits of the manner in which they may trade and of course, accumulate.

The fact that a bourgeoisie revolution is characterised by a woefully underfunded but emerging bourgeoisie is PRECISELY the founding characteristics of a bourgeoisie class within a defined territorial limit, such as a nation. From nothing to something. The fact that those pennies are then transformed into the sort of surpluses that characterise the emergence of capital speaks more for the maturation of bourgeoisie mercantilists into full blow capitalist than the fact that they are somehow inalienably separate classes (with no apparent source?) as you apparently seem to labour under the misconception of.

As I said, you would be well advised to gaduate beyond primary school in political economy. You might larn a thing or two. Perhaps less phlegmaticism and fearfuness as to the future of the state and its fiscal tendencies (within your lifetime anyways.)

[SeaGypsy]

Sometimes you are a seriously arrogant piece of work AD. If you are going to dismiss this uprising, curtly as you did, you should expect some confrontation. Dismissing your detractor as 'below economic primary school' is insulting without basis. The mistake was yours in the outset. You perpetuate the argument with silly diatribes.

[ralfy]

The crisis involves various factors, including the need for increasing credit to support increasing production and consumption of goods, and the effects of financial speculation, as more move to earning money by lending money. The results include debt-ridden economies and credit crunches.

Behind all that is the more serious problem, which is the main topic of this forum:

"Our Oil-Constrained Future"

http://motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2011/ ... ned-future

Thus, each time resource demand goes up and hits the production ceiling, then prices go up, leading to a recession and a drop in demand. More credit is pumped into the system (leading to more credit shocks) to drive up demand, which hits the ceiling again, resulting in another recession. After that, production starts dropping, and the global economy is pulled down with it.

Some will argue that there's a lot more energy available. If so, then businesses should have put it online around a decade ago, and we'll need more to maintain just current global economic growth. To meet increasing demand from BRIC and emerging markets, we'll need even more resources.

As one report mentioned in this article indicates:

"Running dry"

http://www.economist.com/blogs/dailycha ... onsumption

energy demand has already reached the oil production ceiling, leading to energy needed from other sources to make up for the deficit. Thus, what optimists argue won't happened has already happened. Whatever techno-fixes they think will solve this problem should have been put online some time ago.

[geezer]

Planet - thank you thank you thank you for calling bs on AD and his schizophrenic ramblings. "Currency Trader" by day, disgruntled, pedantic, Berkeley political science professor at night on the keyboard. I for one have had enough.

[Plantagenet]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('geezer', 'P')lanet - thank you thank you thank you for calling bs on AD and his schizophrenic ramblings.

[Oneaboveall]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('americandream', 'I')n post Maoist China, the impulse started by Deng's reforms and which gave rise to a rising rank of small traders (invariably stifled by Maoist bureaucracy) was articulated through its students who did not demand a return to Maoist collectivism (as you no doubt would have noted) but the removal of these bureaucratic limitations....freedom in other words...the freedom to move, think and above all to earn privately in an unfettered manner. ...
As I said, you would be well advised to gaduate beyond primary school in political economy. You might larn a thing or two. Perhaps less phlegmaticism and fearfuness as to the future of the state and its fiscal tendencies (within your lifetime anyways.)

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('SeaGypsy', 'S')ometimes you are a seriously arrogant piece of work AD. If you are going to dismiss this uprising, curtly as you did, you should expect some confrontation. Dismissing your detractor as 'below economic primary school' is insulting without basis. The mistake was yours in the outset. You perpetuate the argument with silly diatribes.

[americandream]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('geezer', 'P')lanet - thank you thank you thank you for calling bs on AD and his schizophrenic ramblings.
"Currency Trader" by day, disgruntled, pedantic, Berkeley political science professor at night on
the keyboard. I for one have had enough.