In the 2008 crisis, government subventions were used to fight it – urging consumers to purchase cars and property – but the price of the temporarily recovery was rising state debt with no control. The decline of the core of capitalism, the US economy, will drag in the whole world. By deploying all of its anti-crisis tools accumulated over its history, the by now ‘outworn capitalism’ is not able to curb its serious diseases. We cannot expect a simple replacement of the unipolar world with an effective multipolar one but a very lasting decline. Barbarism is marching on the streets but the suppressed are also preparing to rise up.
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Popular Rebellions in 2011 – in Historical Respect
The wave of popular rebellions in 2011 taught us many lessons and raised several questions. However, the collective experience that the capitalist state and capitalism itself, as the possessor and producer of exclusive power and structural violence, are totally illegitimate and anachronistic – seems to be certain. The people, according to the author, are mature enough to understand this. Yet, how to move on? How to create a movement after mobilization? Where are the bridges, which link the struggle of today with a very different tomorrow?
Seminars on Mészáros in Brazil
The Dialectic of Social and Ecological Metabolism: Marx, Mészáros, and the Absolute Limits of Capital
István Mészáros wrote already about the structural crisis of capital in the early 1970s with a strong ecological critique. The capital system, points out Mészáros, is not a mechanism that can be logically controlled. On the contrary, the logic of capital overwrites everything, including heath care, education, production and the ecology. The drive for eternal accumulation undermines the conditions of existence. The logic of capital contradicts the ecological approach but a socialist society will be built on social and ecological sustainability.
No. 94 | (Summer 2012)
The main topic of this issue of Eszmélet is (again) the oeuvre of István Mészáros, now based on lectures delivered at a chain of seminars held in Brazil discussing the global importance of the outstanding Marxist philosopher, and commenting his fundamental analysis of the structural crisis of the capital system. The wave of 2011 rebellions over the globe was a reaction to this crisis, reflected in a block of essays from radical left-wing authors also from Latin America. Based on the seminal contributions of Giovanni Arrighi, the future of the attempt of China to reach a hegemonic is also analysed, addressing a key question for the future development of the capital system. Concerning the "decline" of Eastern Europe, including Hungary, the official misinterpretation of history plays an important role but also resistance develops in scientific circles, shows an essay.
The present issue is completed with a supplement the study by Tamás Krausz analysing the attitude of Hungarian history writers to Marxism, a thorough examination, hopefully igniting a debate.
Table of contents
- Carlos Antonio Aguirre Rojas : Popular Rebellions in 2011 – in Historical Respect
- Csala Károly : Seminars on Mészáros in Brazil
- Maria Orlanda Pinassi : István Mészáros, a Classic of the 21st Century
- Jorge Beinstein : At the Beginning of a Long Road: the Decline of Capitalism, Nostalgia and Hope in the 21st Century
- John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark : The Dialectic of Social and Ecological Metabolism: Marx, Mészáros, and the Absolute Limits of Capital
- John Gulick : The Long Twentieth Century and Barriers to China’s Hegemonic Succession
- Mitrovits Miklós : The Criminalisation of History. Lustration, Litigation and Compensation in the Czech, Polish and Hungarian Practice (1989-2012)
- Hegyi Gyula : Marx in the Cinema
- Szarka Klára : Talking Photos of Károly Hemző
- Tütő László : Who Cares about Józsi the Beggar? (To the Dilemma of the Less Worst and the First Best) Methodological Contemplation on Principles and Compromises
- Marsai Viktor : US Neoconservatives and the Securitization of Islam
- Mitrovits Miklós : EURO 2012 in East Europe. Remarks to a European Championship on the Semi-Periphery
- Bartha Eszter : Merlin and his Pupil. Interpreting a biography
- Mezei Bálint : Is life 900 day long? The History of the Leningrad Blockade in Hungarian.
- Krausz Tamás : The Hungarian Historiography and Marxism. Comments on the nature of the problem of Eastern Europe