The Global Economic Crisis and the Global Accumulation of Capital

• Main Author: Wojciech Błasiak
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: University of Finance and Management, Warsaw; Vistula University 2010-06-01
• Series: Contemporary Economics
• Online Access: http://ce.vizja.pl/en/download-pdf/id/154

The article presents a thesis that the current global economic crisis is the Second Great Depression, after the First Great Depression of the 30s. This is a global crisis of capital accumulation, which is caused by insufficient global demand. The author analy - ses the theoretical output of John Maynard Keynes, Michał Kalecki, Paul Baran and Paul Sweezy. The post-war „Golden Age” of the capitalist economy ended in 1973 with a de - ep stag flation of the 70s and 80s. Capitals searching for profitable investment, started to be invested in financial speculation, growing since the 80s. This speculation was enabled on a global scale by the Washington Consensus in the 90s. The explosion of financializa - tion of the global economy began. The author presents the analyses of Paul Sweezy and Harry Magdoff, who argued that this was financialization of global accumulation of ca - pital in a form of world financial speculation. This process was completed by the finan - cial crash in 2008, which was the implosion of global speculative balloons. Economics and global economic policy faced challenges of creating new world economic order.