The great recession and its economic and political aftermath, Doug Lorimer

The Great Recession of 2008-09 was widely acknowledged as capitalism’s most severe economic downturn since the 1930s Great Depression. Was it just a product of lax government regulation and the bankers’ greed, or was it a result of systemic problems at the heart of the capitalist system? In the midst of the Great Recession, the governments of developed capitalist countries ditched their previous rhetoric about de-regulation and “free markets” being the road to prosperity and adopted policies of greater state intervention into the capitalist economy (bank nationalisation, enormous government-funded economic stimulus packages, deficit financing, etc). Many commentators mistakenly heralded this as the end of “neoliberalism” and a return to the Keynesian policies of the late 1940s to the mid-1970s. However, in the aftermath of the Great Recession, these governments have launched a new round of social spending cuts and privatisation of state assets. Will this bring about a sustainable economic recovery or simply prepare the way for an even greater economic slump?

Doug Lorimer, author of Historical Materialism: The Marxist View of History and Politics (Resistance Books/Aakar Books), national executive member of the Revolutionary Socialist Party and regular contributor to Direct Action.

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