Clarion call to the movementPrepare for the biggest global capitalist crisis in history
www.workers.org
The writer is Workers World Party’s First Secretary. According to the International Monetary Fund, most of the world, including the U.S., is either in or headed for a recession, or something worse, by sometime in 2023. All economic indicators are pointing to severe economic contraction. Businesse

In many left circles, talk of capitalist crisis leading to revolution is considered proven wrong by history, and talk of revolution is considered unrealistic at best. Unfortunately, these notions make it easy for a section of the capitalist ruling class, such as the Democratic Party in the U.S., to control the working class and keep it tied to capitalist-class interests.

The global economic crisis unfolding before us is going to change all of this. Already, we have seen young radical workers breathe new life into the working class with organizing drives that are transforming the old traditional labor movement. Socialism is already more popular than it’s ever been, and this capitalist crisis is going to explode the ranks of anti-capitalist militants.

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The whole capitalist system was so shaken by the crash of 2008 that they decided to do something completely unprecedented. The major central banks of the world, led by the Federal Reserve Bank, agreed that in order to prevent such an unimaginable crisis in the future, they would collectively lower interest rates to reboot financial markets.

But they went further. Under the label of “quantitative easing,” the banks printed trillions in currency and funneled it into the financial system. The Federal Reserve pumped at least $20 trillion into the financial system, not into the actual economy but into the big banks to use as they pleased.

In the early days of the pandemic, with the economy closing down and financial markets crashing, central banks led by the Federal Reserve pumped trillions more into the financial system and into the economy to prevent a worldwide depression.

The problem is all this money, that central banks printed to prevent the financial system from collapsing, had no relationship to anything of real value; and therefore, all this currency was virtually worthless. This is one of the main reasons why there is such a gigantic debt crisis.

The size of the debt crises is concealed until there’s an economic crisis that is so big that the real value of things can no longer be hidden, and the extent of debt is exposed. This is the reality that is beginning to unravel. The central banks can’t keep the financial system on life support forever; this reality is central to the crisis the system has entered.