The paradox, however, is that the social relations which are at the heart of capitalism also sow the seeds of the systemic crises which are then inherent in capitalism. Afghanistan, for instance, is the case which set off a ripple effect throughout the global capitalist system which then ended up touching even the United States through the rise of populism. Initially, the social relations between capital and labor were forged through a “social contract.” But given the very basic nature of the social relations between capital and labor, that social contract breaks, and when the social contract breaks, one is left with a systemic crisis. Ambition can no longer check ambition. Desire can no longer check desire. One then enters into a “Hobbesian state of nature” or a “war of all against all.”
All of this then leads us to the question of whether there are any alternatives to capitalist social relations. Are there primitive or pre-capitalist social relations which can replace the social relations of capitalism, given that the social relations at the heart of capitalism are what cause the cyclical and systemic crises of capitalism? One should note that capitalist social relations are solidified first and foremost through hoarding and usury. Government contracts in the United States, the nexus between Wall Street and the Pentagon, for instance, and the manufactured global financial crisis come to mind when we consider how capitalist social relations were solidified in recent times through hoarding and usury. It is hoarding and usury which “centralizes” monetary wealth to borrow from Marx.
It is primarily through usury that the usurer replaced the land-owning aristocracy of the past and in turn brought about the establishment of liberal bourgeoisie power. Hence, this historicism which is embedded in Marxist thought. The modern “mode of production” and usury went hand in hand in order to establish liberal bourgeoisie power. The “old exploiter” – namely, the land-owning aristocracy – ended up getting replaced by “a hard, money-grubbing upstart.” It follows that bourgeoisie liberalism is interchangeable and synonymous with plunder and theft. What is “immanent” in bourgeoisie liberalism is plunder and theft.
Credit is then extended in order to create more capitalists. Credit can be extended to a person with no means, given that “a man without wealth but with energy, determination, ability and business acumen can transform himself into a capitalist in this way”; in a sense, the “rule of capital” is perpetuated in this manner. To borrow from Marx: “The more a dominant class is able to absorb the best people from the dominated classes, the more solid and dangerous is its rule.” Creditors also embrace the idea of interest-bearing capital instead of turning away from it. But in order for commerce to thrive, interest has to be kept as low as possible, and as a result, commercial and industrial capital must somehow “subordinate” interest-bearing capital in order for the whole of the global economy to thrive, as Marx highlighted.
The modern struggle, in a sense, is the struggle against hoarding and usury. It is from this struggle where the notion or even the possibility of pre-capitalist social relations emerges in the first place. Another noteworthy point which Marx made was that the banks, through their centralization of monetary wealth, end up becoming a “social function” in the sense that banks “become the most powerful means for driving capitalist production beyond its own barriers and one of the most effective vehicles for crises and swindling.” Yet another paradox, in the sense that the banks end up having to carry out a social function which they incline towards undermining through their manufactured crises and swindling.
Adam A. Azim 