Capitalism, crisis, and the politics of austerity

'Neither slaves, nor masters' (top left side), Photograph: Dimitris Messinis [seattlepi.com]

The working class’ wages have been attacked by neoliberal policies. The resulting profits were invested in finance because capital is driven by the need to accumulate ever more profits and financial speculation promised high returns. The volatility of the economy steadily increased, which resulted in a big explosion in 2008. The result was more of the same: hyperneoliberalism, which means the intensification of neoliberalism. Banks were bailed out with taxpayers’ money, which means a bailout by taxes predominantly paid by employees because companies hardly pay taxes. The discourse of austerity wants to make people believe that they have lived beyond their means, that austerity is necessary because states have spent too much money, etc. The circumstance that profits have been growing, wages shrinking and that companies have hardly paid taxes is not mentioned in the dominant ideology. The working class was first exploited by capital and the reaction to the crisis is an intensification of exploitation and the attempt to legitimize this form of exploitation, which works by redistribution from workers to companies, cuts of public expenditures, wage cuts, tax support for banks and companies. The working class is constantly being dispossessed of the wealth it produces. Austerity measures bring much more of the same.

Fuchs, Christian, and Sandoval, Marisol (2014) Introduction: Critique, Social Media and the Information Society in the Age of Capitalist Crisis, in Fuchs, Christian, and Sandoval, Marisol (eds.) Critique, Social Media and the Information Society,  London: Routledge, p. 29