No Rational Way Out

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Canitalist heads of state looking for a way out Even while waiters cleared up the wine glasses and cigar ash after the . Economic Summit meeting in Bonn, the capitalist crisis gave unmistakeable signs that it cannot be wished away through the pious formulae of capitalist politicians.

By Tuesday of last week the US dollar had plummeted below the critical price of 200 yen.

By Friday a report by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development pointed to the prospects of a further "growth recession" and even higher unemployment.

And by the end of the week the weakness of the dollar and uncertainty on currencies in general had led to a new jump in the market price of gold to over $200 per ounce.

Meanwhile within the United States itself Federal Reserve Board chairman William Miller, referring to the rising inflation rate, pointed to the dangers of a recession unless the present 11.7% annual inflation brought under control.

The OECD • report suggests that its gloomy predictions might not be fulfilled if the verbal pledges to expand the major capitalist economies that were made by the capitalist heads of state in Bonn were actually carried out. • But the latest turn in the crisis of US capitalism demonstrates that Carter is certainly in no position to implement his undertakings -which included the implementation of his hugely unpopular energy policy in a bid to cut that part of the US balance of payments deficit which is due to oil imports.

increases The policy energy. involves substantial increases in petrol and oil prices within the USAprompting a massive round of increases in the prices of all commodities.

This in turn would further fuel the militancy on wages building up within the American working class in the wake of the miners strike.

And by raising costs and prices it would further weaken the position of US capitalism in its struggle to compete against Japanese and European capitalists for a share of the world market.

Although the fall in the value of the dollar means continuing instability throughout the world money market, US capitalists are not entirely dissatisfied with its fall against the Japanese yen.

They hope this fall will help them cut the level of Japanese imports into the USA and, by making it artificially cheaper to buy American goods assist their efforts to penetrate the Japanese and European markets.

There are already some signs that this is taking place -thus throwing into - - Г er question even the deliberately vague series of proposals for economic expansion drawn up at the Bonn summit, which all depended upon moves to stabilise the value of the dollar.

As the world-wide crisis of capitalism lurches from problem to problem it becomes more and more nhvious that as an anarchic. contradictory system, capit alism cannot be stabilised by any "rational" or "cooperative" measures, or by summit meetings.

As any one national section of capitalists attempts to iron out its domestic problems, the measures taken rebound on other, rival groups of capitalists and serve only to intensify the crisis as a whole.

This is why the reality: behind the smiles and vague phrases at the Bonn summit was the inescapable drive towards increasingly open trade war between the major capitalist powers, with each national bourgeoisie attempting to avoid confrontation with its working class at home by foisting off its problems onto its competitors.