David Harvey is a professor at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. He has authored many books and articles dealing with the social issues of the modern world, his writings include; Social Justice and the City, The Condition of Postmodernity, The Limits to Capital, and A Brief History of Neoliberalism. In the book, The Enigma of Capital and the Crises of Capitalism, David Harvey examines the circumstances that resulted in the 2007 economic collapse. He attempts to connect what appears at the surface to be random market failures into a larger indictment on the entire capitalist system.
It is Dr. Harvey’s belief that capital flow is the lifeblood of capitalist societies and for the system to work there must be constant growth. When there isn’t enough growth then the system is in crisis. Reoccurring crisis is one of the major issues with capitalism in his opinion as perpetual growth will eventually become unsustainable and a market correction will result. These corrections rarely affect the wealthy individuals that caused the issue as they have already pocketed all the profits available and moved on to their next target market. The lower and middle classes of society are left with the results of a system that adds wealth only to the world’s elite while saddling everyone else with massive debts and liabilities.
The economic system of the United States and the rest of the world were once based on industry and the manufacturing of goods. As the profits from these industries began to be unable to keep up with the demand of three percent annual growth, the amount David Harvey feels is necessary to prevent crisis, investors began looking to the higher profit margins that the financial markets can achieve. This ...
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...rack Obama, “Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
Works Cited
Harvey, D. (2010). The enigma of capital: and the crises of capitalism. Oxford [England:
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Capitalism was suffering from the industrial success. Parenti uses the term “over-accumulation” do describe this issue, saying there was a “chronic excess capacity on a global scale” (32). Because of this issue, the American manufacturing and merchandising organizations found it problematic to keep up with the postwar profits. Many commodities were already around and one wanted to create a new one, the price declined. Upholding the profits that they had earned before, businesses had to switch how they ran their business. They had to expand their output which only drove down prices more than they previously were. Parenti then concludes by saying “there was too much capital looking for profitable investment outlets, and not enough profitable investment opportunities”
December of 2007 saw the beginning of the worst economic downturn in memorable history; not since the end of the Great Depression in 1939 has the world seen such a devastating and long-lasting economic breakdown. The Great Recession shook the public’s faith in the capitalist system and silenced those who claimed a modern economy was impervious to another broad collapse like the one in 1929. Discontent and mistrust from the public has built not only with large corporations and the financial sector, but also with the government whose legislature and policies in recent decades seem to coincide with the interests of private corporate power-houses. These lenient policies contributed directly to the recession that affected individuals across the globe. Stunted wages, increased poverty,
Finally, President Obama calls for action. He reminds us, through anaphora, that “our journey is not complete” until we are all equal and more opportunistic, per-se. Obama tells us that that is our task, alluding to the Declaration of Independence, to “make these words, rights, these values of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness real for every American” is a task that we will all go through together as one to achieve for all. Concluding his speech, the president reminds us that we are the hope; we ARE the change.
His point was that with capitalism and the people working would develop to have less money and experience alienation that is viewed as the workers developing more separation and solitude with their own job developing into a feeling of helplessness.
Obama goes on to say “We cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together.” He believes that this is the time to change, and a new generation governed by racial minorities. Obama support these claims by reiterating his own beliefs and those of the American nation. “I would not be running for President...
Often times, Americans do not realize the corruption that surrounds them in their nation. Capitalism is an economic and political system in which the country’s trade and industry is controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. Business owners, CEO’s, corporations, and large businesses have the propensity of taking extreme advantage of the power capitalism brings. For decades companies and corporations have been taking unexplainable benefit of the power they have. Capitalism in the Unites States leads to corruption.
This is a crucial factor for what caused the 2008 Global Financial Crisis: as the ratio of capital value to variable value was increasing at a faster rate than the rate of surplus value for many years in the lead up to the crisis (Bowman 2009). Thus, business profits had been in steady decline in the years leading up to the GFC and it was inevitable that as long as the rate of profits continued to fall then a financial collapse and economic crisis would
... America, there has to be a change. We not only have to make a change in the person, but also there needs to be a change in the economy. Let’s make a change for the future generations to come.
Marx is able to demonstrate the consequences that result from transforming values into productions suited for profit, as he writes, “This boundless greed after riches, this passionate chase after exchange-value is common to the capitalist and the miser; but while the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser” (Marx 63). There is no sense of abhorrence for a particular individual in Marx’s interpretation of capitalism and instead focuses on the capitalistic economic structure. However, it is through this quote that a sense of inequality starts to emerge. As a result, a hierarchy is produced, creating an enduring structure of capitalism, where those who control the circulation of money are granted unlimited power. This has become evident in recent years, as in 2008, a social power analysis by Dr. John S. Atlee and Tom Atlee was published. In “Democracy: A Social Power Analysis” Altlee describes the power of money and status as he states, “People with lots of money, muscle, status, intelligence, etc., can usually successfully influence other people. In most (but, significantly, not all) circumstances, they have more social power” (Atlee). Economic power is proven to be pivotal in attaining another individual’s attention and status of capability. Thus, the capitalist is free to develop their own sense of
Through out history money, wealth and capital have dictated a way of life to the masses. Wealth dictated the lives that the rich lived and the lives of the poor that worked for and surrounded them. In some cultures your class could never be escaped in life, you had to wait for your next incarnation, while in other cultures the idea of wealth transcended a life and allowed for growth from one class to another. This is the reality of a capitalist society that was first discussed by Karl Marx in the 19th century.
Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.
Lynn Harsh (Nov. 2002). ‘Capitalism – A Deal with the Devil?’. Retrieved on Mar. 23 from:
There were many theories that promotes and explains how the capitalist system works; however, Karl Marx’s Capital is the first one that can explain the imminent relationship between poverty and wealth, inequality and growth under capitalism. ...
...e happy. However, Carl argued that now more than ever people are questioning capitalism. It is important to question and critique our current capitalistic system. The current system in place is alienating workers and places too much emphasis on profit and the modes of production. There are extensive problems and repercussions that must be death within a profit-driven society. We should be working towards a system that is driven by what is needed not what is profitable. A profit-driven system can lead to over-accumulation and production of items that are actually not required because of over-production. We need to undergo change in order to construct a form of social and economic life based on production for need, not production for profit. This means that a system must be created that has a focus on democratic planning, worker-self management, and global solidarity.
Shawki, Ahmed, Paul D’Amato (2000), “Briefing: The Shape of World Capitalism,” International Socialist Review, [http://www.isreview.org/issues/11/world_capitalism.shtml], accessed 19 May 2012.