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Red Shimshon: An Interview With Shimshon Bichler (שמשון האדום)
Get PDF“Zionism is long dead …The Israeli state functions mostly as a tax shelter to the business elite … All of Israel’s wars served the interests of U.S.-based oil and armament groups … The rich and their political servants benefit from the recession that helps them retain their power.
Human Security, Consumer Confidence, and the Future of Neoliberalism
Get PDFThe two opening shots have been fired. On September 11, 2001, someone orchestrated an unprecedented suicide attack on the World Trade Centre in New York and on the Pentagon in Washington DC. The U.S. government immediately laid the blame on Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda organization. It announced a total ‘war on terrorism,’ imaginatively nicknamed ‘infinite justice,’ and quickly moved to retaliate. On October 7, together with British forces and the blessing of many countries, it launched its first retaliation, bombing targets in Afghanistan, where bin Laden allegedly hides.
Much has already been written on the background and causes of these developments, and no doubt more will be coming. But so far, there has been little attempt to understand the possible consequences for contemporary capitalism. There is a real likelihood that these two events will mark the beginning of a global cycle of violence, with military operations, terror attacks, retaliations and counter-retaliations becoming the hallmark of the new century. And yet, could this type of warfare coexist with neoliberal capitalism? Can the ideology of ‘consumer sovereignty’ survive the reality of human insecurity? How might the new reality of terror affect the accumulation of capital? Will it engender a conflict within the ruling capitalist class? And if so, could such conflict open alternative possibilities for a less violent future
Regimes of Differential Accumulation: Mergers, Stagflation and the Logic of Globalization
No full textThe paper offers a new approach for analysing capitalist development and crisis, tying together mergers and acquisitions, stagflation and globalization as integral facets of accumulation. The framework builds on the concept of differential accumulation, emphasizing the power drive by dominant capital groups to beat the average and exceed the normal rate of return. Four regimes of differential accumulation are articulated: internal breadth by amalgamation, external breadth through green-field investment, internal depth via cost-cutting, and external depth through stagflation. The complex relationships between these different regimes, as well as their broader societal implications, are analysed in light of the US experience over the past century. Several broad conclusions emerge. (1) Of the four regimes, the most important are amalgamation and stagflation, which tend to oscillate inversely to each other. (2) Over the longer haul, amalgamation grows exponentially relative to green-field investment, contributing to the stagnation tendency of modern capitalism. (3) The wave-like pattern of mergers and acquisitions reflects the progressive break-up of socioeconomic ‘envelopes’, as dominant capital moves through successive amalgamation at the industry, sectoral, national, and, finally, global level. In this sense, the current global merger wave is an integral facet of differential accumulation. (4) Periodic lulls in amalgamation tend to be compensated for by stagflation, which appears as a crisis at the societal level, but which contributes significantly to differential accumulation at the disaggregate level. An end to the present worldwide merger boom could therefore trigger global stagflation. (5) Stagflation crises have been previously 'resolved' when dominant capital broke its existing envelope, pushing to amalgamate within a broader universe of takeover targets. Given that there is nothing more to conquer beyond the global envelope, future stagflation crises may prove much more difficult to tame
From War Profits to Peace Dividends (מרווחי מלחמה לדיבידנדים של שלום)
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עדיף לקרוא את המהדורה המורחבת ומתוקנת מ-2007
http://bnarchives.yorku.ca/229/
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אחרי שנים רבות הגיע הניצחון הגדול. המשק השתחרר מידם העריצה של הפוליטיקאים והפקידים. סוף סוף ניתן לחיות בארץ הזאת. כוחות השוק החופשיים מנצחים בכל מקום.
מי הם כוחות השוק החופשיים הללו? מי הם המנצחים החדשים? האמנם חדשים הם? ומהו סוד נצחונם? תשובות על שאלות אלה הן נושאו המרכזי של הספר. זה הסיפור על התגבשותו של המעמד השליט בישראל.
החברה הישראלית עברה שינוי עמוק בעשור האחרון. ממשטר של כלכלת מלחמה מתמדת, נעה ישראל לעבר 'כלכלת-שוק' ו'דמוקרטיה ליברלית', משטר המוכתב על ידי סדר עולמי חדש. הספר מבהיר את השינוי החד הזה בדרך חדשה ולא מקובלת.
הספר מתמקד בקפיטליזם הישראלי שכבר מתחילת דרכו היה משולב בהתפתחות הקפיטליסטית בעולם. בהתפתחות זאת היו שלבים שונים, ובהם נשענו קבוצות ההון הדומיננטיות על רווחי מלחמה, ובשלבים אחרים על 'שלום של שווקים'.
הספר מציג ראייה אלטרנטיבית למדעי החברה הקונבנציונליים בישראל. הוא מביא תמונה שלמה של תופעות הנחשבות על פי המוסכמה נפרדוֹת ומפוצלות להתמחויות ול'דיסציפלינות' שונות. כאן מוצגים באור חדש תהליכי הריכוזיות במשק, התגבשות אליטת הכוח, עלייתה ושקיעתה של האינפלציה, התפתחות המיליטריזם והמלחמות המחזוריות במזרח-התיכון, יחסי ישראל-ארה"ב, צמיחת 'התחרות' וה'היי-טק' ושקיעת 'המשטר הישן' בישראל.
מחברי הספר הם יהונתן ניצן ושמשון ביכלר, מרצים לכלכלה-פוליטית באוניברסיטאות בקנדה ובישרא
The Return of the Weapon Barons (שובם של ברוני הנשק)
Get PDFהכלכלה העולמית משמשת כזירה לדו-קרב בין אלה שמרוויחים מעסקי המלחמה לבין אלה שנהנים מהשלום העולמי. האם המלחמה באפגניסטן מסמנת את שירת הברבור או את חזרתן של קואליציות הנשק והנפט בעולם
Israeli Capitalism and Globalization (הקפיטליזם הישראלי והגלובליזציה)
No full textAn alternative theoretical approach to the 1990s transition of the Israeli political economy
Computers or Aircraft Carriers? (מחשבים או נושאות מטוסים)
Get PDFהכלכלה העולמית משמשת כזירה לדו-קרב בין אלה שמרוויחים מעסקי המלחמה לבין אלה שנהנים מהשלום העולמי. האם המלחמה באפגניסטן מסמנת את שירת הברבור או את חזרתן של קואליציות הנשק והנפט בעולם
Going Global: Differential Accumulation and the Great U-turn in South Africa and Israel
No full textThis paper offers a new theoretical approach for comparing the current political-economic U-turns in South Africa and Israel. Our principal focus is on a revised notion of capital, emphasizing the central role of differential accumulation by dominant capital groups. We further distinguish between an antagonistic “depth” regime in which differential accumulation is achieved via stagflation, and a less conflictual “breadth” regime where redistribution occurs through growth. Within this framework, we argue that both the recent transition in the two countries, as well as their former regimes, were greatly affected by global developments. Until the 1980s, accumulation in both countries depended largely on depth, characterized by a marked disparity between deepening crisis on the one hand, and rapid differential accumulation on the other. In South Africa, the large companies benefited disproportionately from the impact on gold profit of global inflation, and were therefore reluctant to abandon apartheid. Similarly, Israel’s leading firms recorded spectacular gains riding the global arms race and regional conflict, and hence voiced little opposition to the continuation of a war economy at home. Recently, however, these global forces went into reverse, triggering in both countries a shift from depth to breadth. The disinflation associated with rapid globalization undermined gold profit in South Africa, while the end of the Cold War pulled the rug from under the global arms race, drying up the flow of war profit in Israel. In these new conditions, dominant capital groups in the two countries can sustain their differential accumulation only by investing outside their own borders. Capital mobility, though, requires political-economic stability, hence the support of these groups for democracy in South Africa and to regional reconciliation in Israel
Conflict, Militarism and Global Markets (YorkU, GS6230 3.0, Graduate)
No full textDoes capitalism require peace and stability? Is armed conflict alien to markets? Do capitalists suffer from militarism and war? With the cold war over and liberalism being triumphant, many believe the answer is yes. Capitalism, so it seems, thrives on, and therefore promotes peace and stability. This view, though, stands in sharp contrast to the history of capitalism. In fact, over the past several centuries, the expansion of markets and capitalism was accompanied by an exponential increase, not decrease, in armed conflict and militarism. Have we now passed the peak of this process? Is the end of the cold war the beginning of true ‘capitalist peace’? Are ‘peace dividends’ here to stay? Perhaps. But it is also possible that conflict and militarism are not antithetical to capitalism, and that under certain circumstances, they may even be essential for its survival.
The seminar tackles these questions within a broader analysis of capitalist development, focusing primarily (though not exclusively) on the twentieth century. Drawing on various examples from around the world, it covers issues such as the connection between capitalism and war, political economy of military spending, socio-political aspects of militarism and institutionalized waste, peace and war as phases of accumulation, militarization and ruling-class formation, and the international political economy of the arms trade.
Views on these issues can be delineated along ideological lines. Mainstream approaches, geared primarily toward prediction and decision making, tend to follow the realist framework, separating economics from politics and accentuating the significance of formal structures and state officials. Critical theories of political economy, on the other hand, view the tension between markets on the one hand, and conflict and militarism on the other, as part of wider social context. The seminar traces the evolution of such theories from the early Marxist and institutionalist writings, through the post-war emergence of the Monopoly Capital school and Military Keynesianism, to research on the Military Industrial Complex and ‘peace dividends.’ The globalization of military industries, the arms trade and prospects for disarmament are assessed in light of theoretical debates
Transnational Ownership and the Palestinian Uprising
Get PDFThe recent Palestinian uprising should hardly be a surprise. When “peace” means being harassed and humiliated by an occupation force, having no job and becoming poorer and poorer, people often rebel – with or without their leaders’ consent. The Israeli response to the uprising, on the other hand, is puzzling. Prime minister Barak has been using force, threatening Arafat with deadlines, and declaring the immanent death of the peace process. Yet his actions seem confused, indeterminate, and above all lacking a clear goal. What is it exactly that Barak wants to achieve, and how does he think he can get there? Why does he insist on peace, while at the same time being unwilling to create the minimum conditions to make such peace viable