Robert Kurz: The Road to Devaluation Shock and the Collapse of Capitalism (Final)

5. The recovery of capitalism is no longer possible

Kurz’s overall analysis of the crisis that emerged full blown in 2008 consists of four fundamental bullet points:

First, in the course of capitalist development Marx’s theory states there is a rising composition of constant capital to variable capital; this rising composition of capital compels an increasing dependence of productive capital on interest yielding capital, i.e., on debt.

Second, this rising composition of capital is also a declining ratio of variable capital to constant capital that compels the total capital to find new outlets. This dependence can, at first, be satisfied through outward expansion into new markets, but ultimately can only be met by the growth of an unproductive service (or tertiary) sector.

Third, based on the above two developments, there is an increasingly paradoxical (self-contradictory) dependence of productive capital on profits derived from debt of the non-productive sector that consists entirely of a dependence of productive capital on fictitious claims to its own future profits.

Fourth, this third paradoxical, self contradictory, dependence can only be resolved ultimately through the dependence of this entire increasingly fragile structure of accumulation on the consumption and debt of the fascist state.

In the first instance, the increasing dependence of the total social capital on the state is made necessary by the fact that the state becomes essential to the expansion of the total social capital into new markets through the means of imperialist wars and predations. But, this dependence really only comes into its own when the state becomes the consumer and debtor of last resort. In the final analysis the growth of a non-productive sector must be dependent on the growth of the fascist state as consumer of last resort. And this latter, if it is to maintain existing commodity production relations, must be dependent on expansion of the public debt. This is true because only the state can decide what serves as money within its territory and what means are used to pay its debts. It can, therefore, pay its debts with “money” it creates out of nothing, simultaneously “satisfying” this debt and evaporating its value.