系统故障和需要革命

Friday, October 17th, 2008 星期五， 2008年一十月17日

The most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression shows no sign of letting up.最严重的金融危机大萧条以来没有迹象。 The financial edifice of US imperialism is in danger of crumbling.金融大厦的美帝国主义是危险的崩溃。 The US ruling class is confronting what Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke describes as a crisis of “historic proportions”—and is hurriedly cobbling together desperate measures to prevent wholesale collapse.美国统治阶级所面临美联储主席伯南克形容为一场危机的“历史性的” ，是急急忙忙补鞋一起绝望的措施，防止批发崩溃。 Three of the largest independent investment banks on Wall Street have ceased to exist since April.三个最大的独立投资银行在华尔街已不复存在， 4月份以来。 The government had to assume a major stake in the American International Group (AIG), the world’s largest insurer, to prevent it from collapsing.政府必须承担的一个主要的股份，美国国际集团（ AIG ）是世界上最大的保险公司，以防止其崩溃。 Now the US Treasury is considering taking ownership positions in major US banks.现在，美国财政部正考虑所有权职位主要的美国银行。

This crisis is amplifying internationally.这场危机是国际上放大。 Western Europe is facing large bank failures and governments are engineering their own bailouts.西欧国家正面临大银行倒闭，政府的工程自己的救助。 The Russian stock market has intermittently suspended operations.俄罗斯股市间歇性暂停行动。 Financial markets in Asia have nose-dived.亚洲金融市场有鼻子假摔。 Mexico’s economy is wobbling, as its exports shrink.墨西哥的经济摇摆，因为其出口萎缩。

Two things stand out about this crisis.两件事情的立场了解这一危机。 First, there is the ferocity of its global shocks and the speed with which it has spread.首先是残酷的全球冲击和速度，它已经蔓延。 Second, unlike the debt and financial crises of the last 30 years, which were largely centered in the Third World, this crisis initially exploded in the US, the world’s leading capitalist economy, and is focused in the financial centers of world capitalism.其次，不同的是债务和金融危机过去30年中，大部分集中在第三世界，这场危机最初爆发在美国，世界领先的资本主义经济，是集中在金融中心的世界资本主义。

US-led finance, which plays a dominant and shaping role in the global capitalist order, has taken a huge body blow.以美国为首的资金，其中起着主导作用，并塑造在全球资本主义秩序，采取了一个巨大的身体沉重的打击。 This will have enormous repercussions, not just for the stability of the world capitalist system but for power shifts and rivalries within it.这将产生巨大的反响，不仅有利于世界的稳定的资本主义制度，但对权力的变化和内部竞争。

Many progressive commentators have put the blame for this crisis on fraud and greed, or on lax regulation.许多进步的评论家归咎于这场危机的欺诈和贪婪，或疏于监管。 All of which are certainly in play.所有这些都在一定发挥。 But these explanations do not get to the essence of what is happening, to the cause of the problem.但这些解释没有得到本质正在发生的事情，对问题的原因。 This crisis is the outcome of the fundamental workings of the capitalist system.这场危机的结果的基本运作的资本主义制度。

The analysis that follows is framed by these core points:的分析，以下是这些框架的核心点：

There is an essential relationship between the vast enlargement of the financial sector in the US, and the general phenomenon of financialization, and the deepening globalization of capitalist production of the last 15 years.有一个基本关系广大扩大金融部门在美国，和一般的金融化现象，以及全球化的深化资本主义生产在过去的15年。 And central to this dynamic has been the relationship between US imperialism and China.和中央对这个充满活力一直是关系美国帝国主义和中国。
Through the course of this growth and expansion, severe imbalances have built up between the financial system—and its expectation of future profits—and the accumulation of capital, that is, the structures and actual production and reinvestment of profit based on the exploitation of wage-labor.通过这一过程中增长和扩大，严重不平衡已建立起之间的金融体系和其预期未来的利润和资本的积累，这就是结构和实际产量和利润再投资的基础上开发的工资劳动。
A “dirty little secret” of this crisis is the enormous weight of militarization of the US economy.一个“肮脏的小秘密”这场危机是巨大的重量军事化的美国经济。
This crisis is a concentrated expression of the anarchy of capitalist production—the fact that production is not carried out according to any conscious, rational plan at the society-wide level, much less at the international level.这场危机是一个集中体现无政府状态的资本主义生产的事实，生产是没有进行任何根据意识，合理的计划在全社会的水平，更不用说在国际一级。

Background to Crisis危机的背景

In the early 2000s, in the aftermath of the collapse of high-tech stocks, the US Federal Reserve Bank sought to stimulate lending and growth. 2000年初，在以后的崩溃，高科技类股，美国联邦储备银行寻求贷款，以刺激增长。 It lowered interest rates and pumped funds into the banking system.它降低了利率和资金注入到银行体系。 Banks had access to cheap and plentiful credit.银行获得廉价和充足的信贷。 And through deceit and aggressive marketing, they pushed mortgages on people.并通过欺骗和大力推销，他们将按揭贷款的人。 The Federal Reserve continued to inject low-cost funds into the banking system—helping to prop up loans and to fuel a long-term speculative housing bubble.美国联邦储备委员会继续注入低成本的资金进入银行体系，帮助扶植贷款和燃料的长期投机性房地产泡沫。

Banks sold these mortgages to investment banks.这些银行出售抵押贷款的投资银行。 The investment banks in turn bundled these loans together with other loans, created complex financial products, and sold them to large investors—in the US and in other parts of the world, especially Western Europe.该投资银行把这些贷款捆绑在一起的其他贷款，创建复杂的金融产品，并出售给大投资者，在美国和世界其他地区，特别是西欧。 These mortgage-backed securities, as they are called, circulated in financial markets and became the basis for other loans.这些抵押贷款支持证券，因为他们是所谓的，分发的金融市场，并成为基础的其他贷款。 The ultimate collateral for this chain of borrowing and lending was the original mortgage loans.最终的抵押品，这一连串的借贷，是原来的按揭贷款。 So when housing prices fell, and as growing numbers of mortgage holders found themselves unable to pay back housing loans, much of this original collateral became nearly worthless.因此，当住房价格下跌，以及越来越多的抵押贷款持有人发现自己无法支付住房贷款，但这个原始抵押品成为近一文不值。

This whole process is an obscene example of how under this capitalist system something as basic as human shelter becomes a financial instrument and object of speculation.这整个过程是一个淫秽的例子，说明根据本资本主义制度作为基本的东西作为人的住房成为一个金融工具和对象的猜测。 This has led to a situation today where 1 in 6 US homeowners owe more on a mortgage than their home is worth; where 1 in every 65 households in California is in some phase of foreclosure; and where a disproportionate number of Black and Latino families who have been victimized by predatory lending have experienced incredible losses of what little wealth they had.这导致了今天的局面，其中1 6美国房主欠更多的抵押贷款比他们的家庭是值得;其中1每65个家庭在加利福尼亚州在某些阶段的排斥; ，而一个不成比例的黑人和拉美裔家庭谁一直受到掠夺性贷款经历了难以置信的损失是小的财富他们。 ¹ ¹

AIG had made enormous profits internationally by selling insurance to investors who held many of these mortgage-backed securities.美国国际集团已取得巨大利润的国际销售保险的投资者谁举行了许多的这些住房抵押贷款证券。 These investors would be repaid by AIG, in the event that the loans that were bundled into these financial packages they had purchased were defaulted on—could not be paid back.这些投资者将予以偿还由AIG ，如果贷款被捆绑到这些财务软件包，他们购买了被拖欠，不能返还。 But by mid-September, AIG could neither cover massive loan damage nor borrow sufficient funds on the financial markets to keep itself afloat.但是， 9月中旬，美国国际集团既不能用于大规模的贷款损失，也没有足够的资金借贷的金融市场，以保持本身的预料之中。 AIG was so interconnected with other major financial players that if the company went under, it would likely have taken others down.美国国际集团是相互联系，以便与其他主要金融球员，如果该公司下了，很可能会采取其它下来。

In the face of mounting financial crisis, the imperialist state intervened.面对越来越多的金融危机，帝国主义国家的干预。 It acted as the representative of capital and as the guardian of the interests of capital.它担任代表的资本和作为监护人的利益资本。 The US ruling class was faced with a two-fold danger: mounting losses and bankruptcies in the financial sector; and the choking up of lending channels, which could send the economy into a rapid downward spiral.美国统治阶级面临着双重危险：越来越多的损失和破产的金融部门;和令人窒息的融资渠道，这可能给经济进入快速螺旋式下降。

The government basically took over AIG.政府基本上接管了美国国际集团。 And on September 19, the Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson announced a $700 billion bailout.并于9月19日，财政部长保尔森宣布了一项7,000亿美元的破产案。 The essence of the rescue package was that the government would buy the troubled mortgage-backed securities sloshing about in the financial system and through this get lending going again.的本质的一揽子拯救计划是，政府将收购陷入困境的按揭证券晃动的金融体系，并通过此获得的贷款去了。 But the announced bailout did not unblock credit markets or calm stock markets.但是，宣布纾困没有打破信贷市场或平静的股票市场。 Nor has it restored international confidence in the US economy.它也没有恢复国际对美国经济的信心。

Taking a Step Back考虑后退一步

This crisis broke out in the banking system.这场危机爆发的银行体系。 Its more immediate trigger was the popping of a speculative real estate bubble, cascading losses in the financial sector, and the inability of stricken financial institutions to raise capital and the unwillingness of others to lend capital.其更直接的触发是出现了投机性房地产泡沫，层叠的损失在金融部门，和无力受灾金融机构筹集资金和其他人不愿提供资本。

At a deeper level, this crisis is the outcome of a particular trajectory of world capitalist growth.在更深的层次，这场危机的结果是某一特定轨迹的世界资本主义的增长。

There has been a massive new wave of globalization. One of the most significant features of world growth and expansion of the last 15 years has been the deepening integration of the world capitalist economy.出现了大规模的新的全球化浪潮。一个最显着的特点世界经济增长和扩大过去15年里一直是深化一体化的世界资本主义经济。 This is happening both on the level of production and trade—like the parts that go into a computer being manufactured in different parts of the world; and in the case of an iPod being totally manufactured in China.这是发生在两个水平的生产和贸易类的零件，进入计算机制造的世界不同地区的;和的情况下一个iPod完全在中国制造的。 And it is happening on the level of finance—where banks operate globally and are more tightly interlinked with one another through chains of borrowing and lending and even, as in the case of AIG, insuring risks of lending.这是发生水平的金融，银行和全球经营的相互联系更加紧密与其他通过链的借贷，甚至，如美国国际集团，保险风险的贷款。

This new wave of globalization has involved direct productive and financial investments abroad.这种新的全球化浪潮已直接参与生产和财政投资国外。 It has involved the expansion of outsourcing and subcontracting.据参与扩大外包和分包。 And central to all of this has been the fuller integration of export producing countries of the Third World into the world capitalist market—and the forging of a globally-integrated, cheap-labor manufacturing economy.和中央所有这一切已经充分地融入生产出口第三世界国家融入世界资本主义市场和建立一个全球范围内整合，廉价的劳动力制造业为主的经济体系。 ² ^二

40 percent of the imports coming into the US are accounted for by US transnational corporations—and this does not even include the subcontracting done by companies like Walmart.百分之四十的进口进入美国占美国跨国公司和这不，甚至包括了分包所做的公司如沃尔玛。 30 percent of US corporate profits are generated overseas.百分之三十的美国企业利润产生的海外。 China, which has evolved into the high-profit workshop/sweatshop for international capitalism, has been at the epicenter of this recent surge of globalization.中国，这已演变成的高利润讲习班/血汗工厂的国际资本主义，一直处于震中最近激增的全球化。 ³ ^三

From the standpoint of the needs of profitable globalization, various elements of deregulation—for instance, the lifting of barriers to rapid shifts and transfers of capital—were functional.从角度的需要，有利可图的全球化，各种要素的放松管制，例如，取消贸易壁垒的快速变化和转移的资金有功能。 This is why both Republicans and Democrats have promoted deregulation.这就是为什么共和党和民主党已放松管制促进。 Indeed, the Clinton administration in the 1990s played a decisive deregulating role.事实上，克林顿政府在90年代发挥了决定性的放松管制的作用。 It negotiated so-called free-trade agreements with Third World countries and helped to loosen strictures on US banking and telecommunications.它通过谈判所谓的自由贸易协定与第三世界国家，并帮助放松狭窄的美国银行和电信。

The trajectory of capitalist growth of the last 15 years has also involved heightened financialization .轨迹资本主义增长在过去15年中也涉及金融化加剧 。 On this platform of more globalized production and exploitation, the financial services sector in the advanced capitalist countries mushroomed.在这个平台更多的全球化的生产和开发，金融服务业在发达资本主义国家如雨后春笋。

On a turbo-charged global playing field of ever-more mobile and massive flows of investment capital—where the stakes of winning and losing are enormous—capital requires all kinds of risk management.在涡轮增压的全球竞争环境的时候，更多的移动和大规模投资的流动资本的利害关系的胜负是巨大的资本要求的各种风险管理。 Investment banks and other financial institutions provide such financial services to “hedge” against interest rate variations, currency fluctuations, and other sources of volatility and loss.投资银行和其他金融机构提供这种金融服务，以“对冲”对利率变动，货币波动，以及其他来源的波动和损失。 At the same time, financial activities became a greater source of short-term and speculative profits.与此同时，金融活动成为一个更大的来源，短期和投机利润。 In an intensely competitive atmosphere for financial market share, investment banks were creating ever-more complex and exotic financial products.在一个激烈竞争的气氛，金融市场份额，投资银行创造更加复杂和异国情调的金融产品。 Global financial assets increased from $12 trillion in 1980 to nearly $200 trillion in 2007, far outstripping the growth of world output or the expansion of trade.全球金融资产增加从一二零零零零零零零零零零零零美元在1980年的近二百万点零零零亿美元在2007年，远远超过世界产出的增长或扩大贸易。 ⁴ ^四

Growth in the advanced capitalist countries over the last 15 years became increasingly finance-led and credit-driven.生长在发达资本主义国家在过去15年里变得越来越财务领导和信贷驱动的。 The US has been at the epicenter of this process of heightened financialization.美国一直在震中位于这一进程高度金融化。 By 2005, the manufacturing sector of the US economy had fallen to 12 percent of the US gross domestic product (the production of goods and services), while the financial services sector made up of finance, insurance, and real estate had grown to 20 percent.到2005年，制造业对美国经济已下降到百分之十二，美国国内生产总值（生产的商品和服务），而金融服务部门组成的金融，保险，房地产已增加到百分之二十。 In 1982, the financial sector’s share of total corporate profits was just over 5 percent; in 2007, the financial share of corporate profits had skyrocketed to 40 percent!在1982年，金融部门的份额总额是企业利润刚刚超过百分之五;在2007年，金融股的公司利润上升到百分之四十！ ⁵ ^五

Contradictions of Development矛盾的发展

These interrelated processes of globalization and financialization ultimately led to unsustainable imbalances and instabilities.这些相互关联的全球化进程和金融化最终导致不可持续的不平衡和不稳定。 The dynamics that fueled growth have generated new barriers to profitable accumulation of capital.在动力燃料的增长产生了新的障碍有利可图的资本积累。 Strengths have turned into vulnerabilities.长处变成弱点。

These include:这些措施包括：

Bloating of the financial sector relative to the productive base.腹胀金融部门相对于生产基地。
Huge run-up of debt and US trade and government deficits in the US necessitating massive and uninterrupted inflows of capital from around the world, with the central banks of Japan and increasingly China holding huge amounts of US Treasury debt.巨大的助跑的债务和美国的贸易赤字和政府在美国需要大规模和不间断的资本流入来自世界各地，与中央银行的日本和中国举行日益庞大的美国国债。
Billions upon billions of dollars of paper assets that cannot be transformed into real, productive and material, assets.经数十亿数十亿美元的资产文件，不能转化为真正的，生产和材料，资产。
US consumption and borrowing stimulating China’s growth but China’s breakneck manufacturing growth further fueling US trade deficits and intensifying competitive pressures throughout the world economy.美国的消费和借款刺激中国的经济增长，但中国的惊人的制造业增长进一步加剧美国的贸易赤字和加强竞争压力整个世界经济。
The expansion of credit spurring growth but heightening global financial fragility.扩大信贷推动增长，而且加剧全球金融的脆弱性。

We are seeing things turn into their opposites.我们看到的东西变成他们的对立面。 Financial institutions attempted to reduce risk and to profit from risk by dispersing more varied financial instruments over a wider field of investors internationally.金融机构试图减少风险和利润的风险分散更加多样化的金融工具在更广泛领域的国际投资者。 But this process has drawn investors, these very institutions, and now governments into a vortex of vulnerability and crisis.但是，这一进程已提请投资者，这些机构，现在政府成为一个旋涡的脆弱性和危机。 The heightened globalization of production and markets, the closer intertwining of economies, has created conditions for faster and even more extensive ripple effects of crisis throughout the world.在提高生产全球化和市场，更密切的经济相互交织，创造了条件更快和更广泛的连锁反应的危机在世界各地。

A Knot of Contradictions疙瘩的矛盾

A strategic concern of the US ruling class is the international strength of the dollar.战略关注的美国统治阶级是国际美元的坚挺。 The dollar is the world’s leading currency for settling transactions, clearing debts, and holding foreign exchange reserves (trade and investment earnings that become part of the reserves of foreign central banks).美元是世界领先的货币结算的交易，清算债务，并持有的外汇储备（贸易和投资获利的一部分储量外国中央银行）。 The dollar has been a linchpin of US global supremacy and of the whole current global economic order.美元一直是关键美国的全球霸权和整个现行的全球经济秩序。

The dollar is also an investible commodity—major currencies are bought and sold and traded on international currency markets.美元也是一个投资的商品主要货币的买卖和交易的国际货币市场。 The value of the dollar rises and falls in relation to other currencies, and in response to international political and economic trends and developments.美元的价值上升和下降，相对于其他货币，并响应国际政治和经济趋势和发展。 If foreign central banks and investors were to significantly shift away from dollar holdings, this could set off a global monetary crisis and/or strengthen the position of rival currencies (like the euro) and rival powers.如果外国中央银行和投资者大大偏离美元资产，这可能引发一场全球性金融危机和/或加强的立场竞争对手货币（如欧元）和竞争对手的权力。

These are uncharted waters for US policymakers: in the scale and complexity of the crisis…in the magnitude of the rescue operations required to prevent financial breakdown…and in the rapidity with which this crisis is unfolding.这些都是未知的水域为美国的决策者：在规模和复杂性的危机...在巨大的救援行动所需，以防止金融崩溃...在迅速而这场危机正在展开。 A Harvard research economist put it this way: “like the sorcerer’s apprentice, we have created things we do not understand and cannot easily control.”哈佛大学研究的经济学家这样说： “像魔术师的学徒，我们已经创造的东西我们不理解和不能轻易控制。 ” ⁶ ^6日

US imperialism has limited maneuvering room.美帝国主义一直回旋余地有限。 The US is already the largest debtor country in the world.美国已经是最大的债务国在世界上。 It is waging costly wars for greater empire in Iraq and Afghanistan.这是发动战争的代价更大的帝国在伊拉克和阿富汗。 And both John McCain and Barack Obama are committed to America’s global “war on terror”—the umbrella under which the US is waging these wars for empire.两个参议员麦凯恩和奥巴马都致力于美国的全球“反恐战争”的保护伞下，美国发动战争的帝国。

US imperialism has attempted to parlay its superior military strength into a new world order and to lock in its global supremacy for decades to come.美帝国主义一直试图的Parlay其卓越的军事实力进入了一个新的世界秩序，并锁定在其全球霸权在今后几十年。 Defense and defense-related spending totaled more than $1 trillion in fiscal 2008.国防部和国防有关的开支总额超过1万亿美元的2008财年。 ⁷ ^7日 And military-related production and research have long been deeply embedded in the US economy.与军事有关的生产和研究长期以来一直深深植根于美国经济。 The whole imperialist system rests on the domination of vast swaths of the globe through savage force, with the US military colossus playing a special role.整个帝国主义制度在于统治大片全球通过野蛮的力量，与美国的军事巨人发挥了特殊的作用。 The costs of forcibly preserving and extending the US empire is one of the dirty little secrets of the dynamics of this crisis that scarcely gets talked about.费用强行维护和扩大美国的帝国是一个肮脏的小秘密，这种动态的危机，几乎没有得到谈论。

Here an important dialectic comes into play.这里一个重要的辩证发挥作用。 “US military dominance,” writes Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund, “has been one of the linchpins of the dollar.” “美国的军事优势， ”写作者Kenneth Rogoff ，前首席经济学家对国际货币基金“ ，一直是关键的美元。 ” ⁸ ^8日 But this military dominance and the wars the US is waging have increasingly come to depend on the steady inflow of foreign capital into the US (to the tune of $3 billion a day).但这种军事优势和战争，美国正在发动越来越来依赖于稳定的外国资本的流入到美国（对调整为30亿美元一天）。 For this to continue requires that the US economy and dollar remain stable.为此，继续要求美国经济和美元保持稳定。 This is a major contradiction for US imperialism.这是一个重大的矛盾，为美帝国主义。

US imperialism is facing new competitive challenges and the emergence of potential rival constellations of imperial and big powers—vying for market shares, control over energy resources, and geopolitical position.美帝国主义正面临着新的挑战和竞争的出现，潜在的竞争对手星座帝国和大国，争夺市场份额，控制能源资源和地缘政治地位。

Emergency Capitalism紧急资本主义

People are losing their homes.人失去家园。 Retirement savings plans since the middle of 2007 have lost 20 percent of their value with the stock market sinking.退休储蓄计划自2007年中已失去百分之二十的价值与股票市场下沉。 Funding for vitally needed social programs and services at state and local levels is being pinched by the financial crisis and economic slowdown.资金急需社会程序和服务在州和地方各级正在捏的金融危机和经济衰退。 In much of the Third World, food prices soared over the last year, this is partly related to financial speculation, and hunger has spread.在许多第三世界国家，食品价格上涨在过去的一年，这是部分有关金融投机，和饥饿已经扩散。 ⁹ ^9日

While the futures of millions are in jeopardy, what is the paramount concern of those at the top of the pyramid of economic and political power?虽然未来的数百万人处于危险之中，什么是关注那些顶端的金字塔的经济和政治权力？ It is the protection of a financial system that sits atop a global system of exploitation; it is the rescue of the owners and investor beneficiaries of that system.这是保护金融体系，位于环太平洋一个全球性剥削制度，它是拯救业主和投资者的受益者，这一制度。

This is not “socialism for the rich” or a bailout for the people.这不是“社会主义的丰富”或救助的人。 It’s emergency capitalism for the capitalist class: injections of funds and guarantees, government takeovers, cost-cutting, selective liquidations, restructuring of regulations; and it’s more brutal capitalism for everyone else: austerity, more intense international exploitation, and more misery for people throughout the world.它的紧急资本主义的资本家阶级：注入资金和担保，政府收购，降低成本，有选择性的清理，调整规章;和更残酷的资本主义的每个人：紧缩，更激烈的国际剥削，和更苦难为世界各地人民。

The official story line is that this crisis issues from particular flaws and malpractices that can be corrected: “excessive greed,” “Wall Street irresponsibility,” “outdated” or “ unenforced regulations.”官方的故事是，这场危机的问题，特别是缺陷和不当行为，可以予以纠正： “过分的贪婪” ， “华尔街不负责任的行为” ， “过时”或“执行的法规。 ”

The truth is that this crisis has deep structural causes in the very nature of the system—in the quest for profit, not the satisfaction of human need, and in the anarchic workings of world capitalism.事实真相是，这场危机有着深刻的结构性原因非常性质的系统在对利润的追求，而不是满意的人的需要，并在运作的无政府状态世界资本主义。

We are seeing how the means through which capitalism expands and “innovates” have led to new barriers and to gales of “creative destruction”—with trillions of dollars of asset values destroyed in the market turmoil.我们看到如何通过哪些方法资本主义的扩展和“创新”已导致新的障碍和大风的“创造性破坏” ，与数万亿美元的资产价值摧毁了在市场动荡。 Through these convulsions, the imperialists seek to wrench new freedom, promoting further consolidation and monopolization.通过这些抽搐，帝国主义寻求新的自由扳手，促进进一步巩固和垄断的问题。 Bank of America absorbs the giant investment bank Merrill Lynch.美国银行吸收巨头美林投资银行。 Lehman Brothers is forced into liquidation.雷曼兄弟公司被迫清盘。

Whoever wins the presidential election will be inheriting a battered financial system and huge government deficits.谁赢得总统选举将是继承了被殴打的金融体系和庞大的政府赤字。 This will not be an era of expanded social spending, but one of more direct government intervention in financial markets and cutbacks in social spending.这将不是一个时代的社会支出的扩大，而是一个更直接的政府干预金融市场和削减社会福利开支。

A Status Report现况报告

This rolling and intensifying financial crisis serves as a profile and status report on capitalism in the 21st century:这轧制和加强金融危机充当形象和地位的报告，资本主义在21世纪：

A once-thriving subprime mortgage market…had been linked to the ability of US financial institutions to market securities to European banks and of the US Treasury to draw in export earnings from China…earnings generated in sweatshops…tied into subcontracting networks of Western corporations….曾经繁荣的次优抵押贷款市场...一直联系在一起的能力，美国金融机构向市场证券，欧洲银行和美国财政部制定的出口收入来自中国...盈余产生在血汗工厂...并列到分包网络的西方公司... 。

Real estate markets tank….房地产市场坦克... 。 The “smart money” looks for “safe places” to shift its capital…. “聪明钱”寻找“安全的地方” ，以改变其资本... 。 Some of it heads for commodity futures like rice….它的一些负责人对商品期货大米等... 。 So food prices spiral upward in response to the investment stratagems of people who know and care nothing about food needs and food production….因此，食品价格螺旋上升的响应投资策略的人谁知道，毫不关心粮食需求和粮食生产... 。 In countries like Haiti, women who can no longer afford basic staples are feeding their children mud-cakes….在国家，如海地，妇女谁可以再基本主食是他们的孩子喂泥饼... 。

A French bank, with its assets plunging in value, and the chain of global capitalist finance snapping all over, now finds itself with “non-performing loans”….法国银行，其资产价值下降，以及链资本主义的全球金融抢购全完了，现在发现自己的“不良贷款” ... 。 It must “improve its balance sheet” and faces pressures to reduce or eliminate trade credits to a country in Africa that depends on imports for food, and where people already spend 50 percent of their incomes for food.它必须“改善其资产负债表” ，并面临着压力，以减少或消除贸易信贷的国家在非洲，依靠进口粮食，而人们已经花费百分之五十的收入用于食品。

Despite staggering advances in technology and human knowledge, despite the fact that the development of human society has brought humanity to a historic threshold where it is now possible not only to overcome scarcity and exploitation but also to forge social arrangements where human beings can truly flourish—despite all of this potential, social and economic life are under painful duress and the ecosystems of the planet gravely threatened.尽管有惊人的技术进步和人类的知识，尽管事实是人类社会的发展带来了人类的一个历史性的门槛，在里面现在有可能不仅要克服缺水和剥削，而且还建立社会安排在那里的人才能真正蓬勃发展，尽管这一切潜力，社会和经济生活是痛苦的胁迫下的生态系统和地球构成严重威胁。 It is not for lack of resources or knowledge.这不是由于缺乏资源或知识。

All of what has been described in this article is the result of the relations and domination of capital, the result of the workings of a system driven by vicious competition and the blind accumulation of profit based on exploitation—and backed by massive military force.所有已本文中所描述的原因是关系和支配的资金，由于运作的系统驱动的恶性竞争和盲目的利润积累的基础上开发和支持的大规模军事力量。

In the heartland of capitalism, there is financial meltdown.在资本主义的中心地带，有金融崩溃。 In the Third World, millions are already suffering the ravages of a global food crisis.在第三世界，数以百万计已经遭受破坏的一个全球性的粮食危机。 This system is a horror and a failure.这个系统是一个恐怖和失败。 Is it necessary for humanity to live this way?是否有必要对人类生活的这种方式？

The October 10 edition of The Washington Post carried an article with the title and question “The End to American Capitalism?” In forums and in the media, leading bourgeois policymakers and analysts have discussed whether this crisis, careening beyond control and threatening greater economic calamity, suggests that there is something fundamentally amiss about capitalism.在10月10日出版的华盛顿邮报的一篇文章的标题和问题“的终结美国的资本主义？ ”在论坛和媒体，资产阶级领导的决策者和分析家们讨论了是否这场危机，身体无法控制，并威胁更大的经济灾难表明，有一些根本上对资本主义不对劲。 And the emphatic answer given is the same: “the system may not be working optimally, but there is no alternative, only gradations and variations of capitalism.”和有力的回答是相同的： “该系统可能无法工作最佳，但有没有其他选择，只有等级和资本主义的变化。 ”

But there is another way.但是，还有另一种途径。 It is possible to take hold of the productive resources of society and to develop and deploy them in a rational, planned, and society-wide way to meet human need and to safeguard the planet.这是有可能的把握生产性资源的社会发展和部署在一个合理的，有计划，有全社会的方式，以满足人的需要和维护这个星球。 It is possible to establish a radically different kind of state power and to create a society and institutions that unleash people’s creativity and that promote initiative and diversity in an atmosphere that brings out human community.这是能够建立一个完全不同的一种国家权力，并建立社会和机构，发挥人民群众的创造力，促进主动性和多样性的一种气氛，带出人类社会。

The question of socialism, of communism, of revolution could not be more relevant…and more urgent.问题的社会主义，共产主义，革命不能更多相关...和更加紧迫。

To be clear, revolution is not a catchword for lots of new things or lots of change.必须明确，革命不是一个口号的很多新事物或大量的变化。 Revolution has very specific meaning: the people getting rid of the system; depriving the old ruling class of their political-economic-military power; and creating a new power with new aims and objectives and the means to enforce those aims and objectives.革命非常特殊的含义：人民摆脱系统;剥夺了旧统治阶级的政治，经济，军事实力和建立一个新的动力与新的目标和目的的手段，强制执行这些宗旨和目标。

As serious as this crisis is, with all the havoc it is wreaking, the system will not automatically collapse of its own weight and disorder.由于严重的危机，因为这是所有的破坏是造成，该系统将不会自动崩溃，其自身重量和障碍。 Absent revolution, capitalism will put itself back together—in its own image and at unimaginable social cost.如果没有革命，资本主义本身将重新走到一起，在自己的形象和在难以想象的社会成本。

And for all the agony that crisis inflicts, this will not automatically and spontaneously translate into progressive, radical, and revolutionary sentiment and consciousness.和所有的痛苦，造成这一危机，这将不会自动和自发地转化为渐进，激进和革命情感和意识。 Other forces are in the field doing ideological and political work: reactionary populists like Lou Dobbs (“blame the foreigners and illegal immigrants”) and Sarah Palin whipping up a social base for religio-fascism.其他部队都在外地做好思想政治工作：反动的民粹主义像楼多布斯（ “指责外国人和非法移民” ）和莎拉帕林鞭挞了社会基础的宗教法西斯主义。 The Obama candidacy is channeling disenchantment and the thirst for change right back into the political system’s suffocating embrace (“change we can believe in” is nothing other than change acceptable to the powers that be).奥巴马竞选的是窜觉醒和渴望改变落后的政治体制的令人窒息的拥抱（ “改变我们可以相信”没有什么变化以外的其他可接受的权力，是）。

This is a highly fraught situation.这是一个非常充满局面。 Things can change very quickly.事情可以改变非常快。 The system is revealing much about its basic nature.该系统是揭示许多关于它的基本性质。 Bigger jolts may come and outrage may suddenly grow and give rise to resistance from all kinds of quarters.更大的震动可能会和愤怒可能会突然增加，引起抵制各种四分之三。 We have to grasp the potential of the situation.我们必须把握的潜力情况。 We have to be out there bringing forward understanding and bringing forward a vision of a liberatory world.我们必须有提前的了解和提前憧憬一个liberatory世界。 We have to rise to new political and ideological challenges in the belly of the beast.我们必须上升到新的政治和意识形态的挑战肚子的野兽。

ENDNOTES 结束语

1. 1 。 Data from James R. Hagerty and Ruth Simon, “Housing Pain Gauge: Nearly 1 in 6 Owners ‘Under Water,’”数据詹姆斯R.哈格蒂和露丝西蒙， “房屋疼痛计：近1比6业主在水， ” Wall Street Journal, October 8, 2008华尔街日报， 2008年十月八日 ; RealtyTrac, “Foreclosure Activity Up 14 Percent in Second Quarter,” ; RealtyTrac ， “赎活性高达百分之十四的第二季度， ” Realtytrac.com , July 25, 2008. 7月25 2008年。 A study published earlier this year estimates the total loss of wealth suffered by Black, Latino, and other minority households on account of bank subprime-lending of the last eight years to be the greatest loss of wealth for people of color in modern US history (United for a Fair Economy,发表的一份研究报告今年早些时候估计总损失的财富遭受的黑人，拉美裔和其他少数族裔家庭的银行帐户次级贷款在过去8年来的最大财富损失的人的颜色在现代美国历史上（联合国建立一个公平经济， Foreclosed: State of the Dream 2008排除：国家2008年的梦 ). ）。 [ back后面 ]

2. 2 。 Among informative studies of the origins and development of a globally integrated cheap labor manufacturing economy, see Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order (Quebec: Center for Research on Globalization, 2003); and on globalized manufacturing in relation to financialization, see William Millberg, “Shifting Sources and Uses of Profits: Sustaining US Financialization with Global Value Chains,” Economy and Society , Vol.在翔实的研究起源和发展的全球一体化的廉价劳动力的制造业为主的经济体系，见米歇尔Chossudovsky ， 贫穷的全球化和世界新秩序 （魁北克：研究中心的全球化， 2003年） ;和制造业的全球化与金融化见威廉Millberg ， “移来源及使用情况的效益：保持美国金融化与全球价值链， ” 经济与社会 ，第二卷。 37, No. 3 (August 2008), pp. 37 ，第3号（ 2008年8月），页。 420-451 . [ 420-451 。 [ back后面 ]

3. 3 。 Data from Milberg, “Shifting Value Chains…” [数据米尔贝格， “移价值链... ” [ back后面 ]

4. 4 。 Jeffrey Garten, “We Need a New Global Monetary Authority,”杰弗里加藤， “我们需要一个新的全球金融管理局” Financial Times, September 25, 2008金融时报， 2008年9月25日 . 。 On financialization as a means also to contain financial disorder and to impose profit maximizing discipline on capital, see Christopher Rude, “The Role of Financial Discipline in Imperial Strategy,” in Leo Panitch and Colin Leys, eds., Socialist Register 2005: The Empire Reloaded , London: Merlin Press, 2004.论金融化作为一种手段也包含金融混乱和对利润最大化的资本纪律，见克里斯托弗粗鲁， “中的作用财政纪律，帝国战略” ，在永华Panitch和科林利思合编。 社会主义登记册的2005年：帝国重装上阵 ，伦敦：梅林出版社， 2004年。 [ back后面 ]

5. 5 。 Kevin Phillips, Bad Money (New York: Viking, 2008), p.凯文菲利普斯，恶钱（纽约：维京， 2008年），页 5; Robert Wade, “The First-World Debt Crisis of 2007-2010 in Global Perspective,” Challenge: The Magazine of Economic Affairs , July-August 2008, p. 5 ;罗伯特韦德， “第一世界债务危机的2007-2010年在全球的角度来看， ” 挑战：杂志经济部， 7月至8月2008年，页 33. 33 。 [ back后面 ]

6. 6 。 David Dapice, “Bad Spell on Wall Street,”大卫Dapice ， “坏拼写华尔街” Policyinnovations.org, January 24, 2008 Policyinnovations.org ， 08年1月24日 . 。 [ back后面 ]

7. 7 。 Leaving out the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, defense spending has doubled since the mid-1990s.离开了伊拉克和阿富汗战争，国防开支增加了一倍自20世纪90年代中期。 See Chalmers Johnson, “Why the US has really gone broke,”见查默斯约翰逊说： “为什么美国真的发生了， ” mondediplo.com (English edition), February 5, 2008. （中文版）， 08年2月5日。 [ back后面 ]

8. 8 。 Kenneth Rogoff, “America Will Need a $1,000bn Bail-Out,”作者Kenneth Rogoff ， “美国将需要1万亿美元挽救” Financial Times, September 17, 2008金融时报， 2008年九月十七日 . 。 [ back后面 ]

9. 9 。 On the global food crisis, see “The Global Food Crisis and the Ravenous System of Capitalism,”在全球粮食危机，见“全球粮食危机和贪婪的资本主义制度” Revolution #128, May 1, 2008. 革命＃ 128 ， 08年5月1日。 [ back后面 ]

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Chomsky: Anti-Democratic Nature of US Capitalism is Being Exposed 乔姆斯基：反民主性质的美国资本主义正受到 The October Surprise: Global Panic 10月的惊喜：全球恐慌 Democracy Now Follows Up on NSA's Illegal Spying and War Crimes 民主现在采取行动，国家安全局非法窃听罪和战争罪	Charles Andrew 查尔斯安德鲁 commented on: 评论： Prison interrogation techniques in Israel 监狱的审讯技术在以色列 I OWNED A VALUABLE STUDENT APARTMENT BUILDING IN STATE COLLEGE PA. 本人拥有一个宝贵的学生公寓楼州立大学巴。 THIS IS THE HOME OF... 这是家中... Continue Reading & Reply 继续阅读及回复 Leona P 利昂娜P commented on: 评论： Holes in the wall to see PINs in our eyes 孔在墙上看到码在我们的眼睛 Hiya, just meandered in. God love yahoo, nice site. Hiya ，公正meandered英寸上帝爱雅虎，漂亮的网站。 Thanks. 谢谢。 Continue Reading & Reply 继续阅读及回复 ZingPao ZingPao commented on: 评论： The October Surprise: Global Panic 10月的惊喜：全球恐慌 Great story, thanks for posting. 伟大的故事，感谢张贴。 People need to act. 人们需要的行为。 Where have “WE THE PEOPLE” gone????? 凡有“我们人民”了????? Continue Reading & Reply 继续阅读及回复 R Dujour R Dujour commented on: 评论： Democracy Now Follows Up on NSA’s Illegal Spying and War Crimes 民主现在采取行动，国家安全局非法窃听罪和战争罪 Why do I find myself yelling at the radio, “ask the follow up... 为什么我发现自己骂电台“ ，要求采取后续行动... Continue Reading & Reply 继续阅读及回复

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System Failure and the Need for Revolution系统故障和需要革命