THE AGE OF SPECULATIVE CAPITAL AND GLOBAL CIRCULATION FIGHTS (4)

​by Achim Szepanski

In the mid-1970s, Fordism, which consisted of class compromise, full employment, rising social security, and higher educational opportunities for youth from the working class, reached its limit, and now also women, migrants, and guest workers were more heavily involved in labor markets. At the same time, investors took advantage of the new financial opportunities made possible by the liberalization of currency trading, the liberalization of oil prices and the development of new derivative financial instruments. Conservative governments, Thatcher and Reagan, chose new priorities: the fight against inflation became more important than ensuring full employment, and supply policy was more important than Keynesian demand stimuli, which led to a stagnation of real wages and the gradual dismantling of the welfare state. Instead of tax increases or the printing of money, which serves to guarantee state financing, the system of state indebtedness has been forced and the private debt has been "democratized".
​
Debt became the new social-economic engine to set economic growth in motion, which in turn meant debt was now more tied to the fluctuations of the financial markets. Although the concept of self-responsibility has been preached ever more massively, it has become relatively clear to borrowers that the new concepts do not lead to financial independence, but rather generate potentially infinite dependence on the financial markets.Borrowers should no longer escape the spiral of debt in the future, but rather constantly create a kind of trust through their risk management with the lenders, so that they could again borrow. Supposedly, this was a win-win situation in so far as the consumer wishes of the many were fulfilled and at the same time the portfolios of the lenders were filled to their satisfaction. But as the latest financial crisis of 2008 showed, neither the promise to borrowers to at least finance the lifestyle of the middle classes through credit, nor the profit expectations of the lenders were fulfilled to their full satisfaction.

If credit functions as a new engine of capital accumulation and a social control and disciplining mechanism, then new forms of resistance need to be considered, with union struggles being able to be linked with debtors sharing common interests and, at the same time, the Submission to the strategies of the lenders to delegitimize. However, indebtedness can not be understood by the subaltern as a weapon, as long as they regard debt as a moral problem. In addition, debt should not be reduced solely to the asymmetric relationship between the lender and the borrower; in addition, the triangular relation between lenders, governments who finance their budgets through loans and citizens,

​After the financial crisis of 2008, it quickly became clear that there was a symmetrical inversion of the »roles«: taxpayers became lenders for systemically insolvent creditors. The austerity measures that hit the population finally made them the lender of last resort. However, the financial institutions immediately went on the offensive and spread their fear of the bad conditions of the accounts of their rescuers in their departments.And since that also affected the states, governments had nothing better to do than dramatically reduce resources for social programs and services. By making fiscal consolidation its main task for ensuring confidence in the financial markets, governments have not only shifted the transfer of funds to the rescue of the financial system, but made the taxpayer to a third player who should take over the refinancing of the banking system in the event of a crisis for all eternity. For the taxpayers themselves, this meant borrowing on the basis of cuts in social benefits, and precisely for those who were just saved by them. So, after the crisis, you quickly went back to the "normal" relationship between creditors and debtors.
​
The speculative attacks on financial investors from 2010 onwards, especially against countries in southern Europe, gave rise to new messages: austerity policy should no longer be a temporary cure stemming from exceptional circumstances; rather, it should be a constant of the state Government policy. In doing so, the social state is directly linked to the form of the debt-state. And if social debt is related to financial debt, then it depends on which debt governments give priority, and governments' answers to that are clear, because legality over financial investors is always paramount.

The various roles that citizens play in their credit - borrowers, lenders of last resort, social borrowers - should, according to Feher, become the subject of political appropriation by activists. As borrowers, activists should be concerned about non-fulfillment or transformation of their payments, as lenders of last resort they must engage in state debt policy and, as social borrowers, they can attack the policy that places their priority on financial investors and at the same time rely on a restructuring of the welfare state, are the illegitimate beneficiaries of the financial resources of the hard-working taxpayers. Conversely, neo-liberal policies assume that union members, some public officials, and above all the unemployed, are the illegitimate beneficiaries of the financial resources of the hard-working taxpayers. The neo-liberals are waging war for a new form of equality by attacking those who allegedly plunder ordinary taxpayers when they claim social rights. At the same time, they began early to empower citizens who were deprived of their social rights and services to lead a life without secure jobs and state benefits on their own responsibility.​ ​The task of the neo-liberal governments was to help citizens to help themselves. The denunciation of the unemployed went so far as to equate them with alcoholics and drug addicts who are unable to live a decent and orderly life.

​In Germany, this led consistently to the Hartz IV laws introduced by the Greens and the SPD, advocating the needy that they should be proud to no longer be dependent on state social benefits while being placed in precarious, underpaid or jobs which lay far below their qualifications. At the same time, they mobilized the unemployed and led them into state exercise and training programs that are often barely surpassed in meaninglessness, and prescribed working people's lifelong learning program. Even those who were totally deprived were told that they were capable of accepting the so-called self-enhancement, if they only had the necessary flexibility and willingness to work, i.e. beyond a substantial portfolio of knowledge and skills, they should agree to work as long as possible in conditions of maximum insecurity and for low pay, and that would encourage the necessary respect for one's own and recognition by others. In particular, social democratic governments in the 1990s, under the label of creativity and ownership, supported the transformation of large parts of the population into debtors who, through the credit card system and easier access to credit, were allowed to integrate into the financial system and surplus In order to create a reasonably "normal" life, not only the potential for employment but also one's own solvency had to be taken into account. Whether it was a short-term job, a mortgage loan, or taking part in any start-up initiative, it was about creating a new "investees" that worked around the clock, trusting and crediting for Investors and companies, that is, constantly looking for new projects. Therefore, he differs from the typical wage worker in Fordism, who lived from long-term employment contracts and state social benefits, but also from the original self-responsible entrepreneur of small capital x. If the investees are responsible for increasing their attractiveness in the markets themselves and are constantly testing their employment capacity and solvency, then governments must strive to invest in the education and training of their citizens, at least to repay their loans In addition, they should also be trained for future payment. At the same time, unemployment insurance must be transformed in such a way that the recipients of social benefits are permanently driven into return-to-work programs and made fit for credit. Social democratic governments in the 2000's need not only reduce capital and corporate taxes, deregulate labor markets and safeguard intellectual property rights, they also need to be financially attractive in order to make state territory attractive to financial investors Estimate the value (the credit potential) of one's own population. All of this applies to territories that are political areas and have been composed of terra and terror since Roman legal principles.

translated by Dejan Stojkovski

taken from:

non.copyriot