FFS 2012: The Yo-Yo That is The Global Economy

BBC News 24 has described the world economy as a yo-yo. Anyone still doubting the onset of a world-wide depression brought about by neo-liberal policy should be feeling decidedly sheepish, what with oil now at $108 per barrel and rising. The pattern of oil prices over the last month has been “three steps forward, one step back”, making huge leaps forward only to recede by a pitiful margin before bounding forward again to new highs.

The current slew of blogs and articles on the price of fuel bear out this assessment; a week ago our correspondents laughed at the idea of fuel strikes, now people on-line are “mad enough to fill [their] tanks with spit”. A week ago the idea of middle-class unrest was a joke; today, the middle-classes are foaming at the mouth over the price of running their 4×4s.

So, if the Capitalist Global Liberal economy is a yo-yo, it has simply been “walking the dog” for the past four decades and is now back to its preferred natural state of careering up and down. Over the next few months of bouncing up and down, the economy will likely do a number of tricks to convince onlookers that all is well, but sooner or later it is inevitable that the yo-yo master will lose his grip on the string.

If that metaphor is too much; Capitalism is failing, just as all its detractors have always said it inevitably would. Marx himself predicted the short-term dialectic victory of Capitalism before it was consumed by the next arising development of human society. Thanks to a combination of ecological, economical, societal and political inevitability, the Capitalist train is running out of track.

Contrary to anything you might think, what with your fuel and food bills rising daily, this is good news. The long night is drawing to its end the dawn of the 21 st century approaches. On Dec 31 st 1999 we all celebrated the dawn of a new millennium, but since then we’ve continued living in the 20 th century. The years 2000 to 2012 will mark the longest night of the human race, the long night of denial before the new day. Well we’re past midnight now, the time is 0330 and by 0400, the long night will have reached it’s lowest ebb, the darkest hour before the dawn. It’s going to get bloody cold before the sun rises, but the new day is coming.

Only when the deserts are dry of oil and the melting Antarctic has given up its last drop of black gold will the madness of the night be ended. Then, by the new light of dawn, humanity will have to clear up the wreckage of the longest party we’ve ever known and face the global hangover from the excesses of the past fifty years.

The dull throb pain from rebuilding our society will be complemented occasionally by acute pangs as some madman or another suggests we crack open another oil barrel and partake of the “hair of the dog”, but pretty soon we’ll be back to ourselves, clean and sober, gorged on our excesses and humbled by the collective agony, ready to begin a new chapter for better or for worse.

The longer we cling to the old ways the more we will suffer in the morning to come.