Roberts, of course, presents his petty-bourgeois pessimistic view, in which capitalism is in a long recession. In fact, in the period after 1999, it was far from being in any such recession. I have set out previously why GDP is only a measure of new value created, and even then has to be modified for the effects of the tie-up or release of capital. It is not a measure of total output, and so also GDP growth figures are not a measure of actual output growth either. However, with that caveat, in 2000, world growth was 4.5%, in 2001, 2.0%, in 2002 2.3%, in 2003 3.1%, in 2004 4.5%, in 2005 4%, in 2006 4.4%, and in 2007 4.4%. Only in 2008/2009, as a consequence of the GFC, did world growth fall sharply, but then, in 2010, rose again sharply to 4.5%.
Its true that in the period since 2010, the growth has been anaemic, with 3.3% in 2011, 2.7% in 2012, 2.8% in 2013, 3.1% in 2014, and 2015, 2.8% in 2016, 3.4% in 2017, 3.3% in 2018, 2.6% in 2019, falling sharply by 3.1% in 2020, as a result of lockdowns, but rising by 5.9% in 2021, as those lockdowns started to be lifted. In short, the average up to 2008, was around 4%. What accounts for the slower growth after 2010? It is not, as Roberts maintains, some fundamental problem with the rate of profit – which has in any case been relatively high – but has been a deliberate attempt by the ruling class of speculators, and its state, to restrain that growth, which led to rising wages in the period prior to 2008, and also led to rising interest rates that caused the huge asset price crash of 2008. It shows that their interest is no longer coincident with that of capital itself, at least in the short-term.
Given that, after 2010, governments almost everywhere implemented harsh policies of fiscal austerity, which reduced aggregate demand, is it any wonder that growth rates fell? In fact, that austerity was not driven by a need to reduce borrowing to prevent interest rates surging to very high levels either. Even with the massive borrowing to bail out the financial sector after 2008, yields on government bonds were lower than they are today, and at historically low levels around 3%. The austerity was a deliberate attempt to slow growth, so as to prevent wages growing and to be able to reduce yields even from these historically low levels – even going down to zero and below – so as to inflate asset prices.
Moreover, not only did governments deliberately scupper economic growth with that austerity, but they also continued a policy of QE, pumping liquidity directly into those asset markets to goose prices, and they introduced other measures to inflate property prices by direct measures such as Help To Buy, and so on, all of which drained money and money-capital from the real economy into that speculation. When even that was not enough to restrain growth, which began to pick up again, they introduced the physical lockdowns of economies under cover of COVID.
Roberts also conflates crisis (overproduction of capital) with recession (stagnation), whereas these are two different things and phases of the cycle, as Marx describes in Capital. The period of crisis is the period of overproduction of capital, i.e. where capital has expanded relative to the available labour/social working-day, to a degree where any further expansion means that not only can absolute surplus value not be expanded (and may contract, as workers demand a shorter working-day), but also relative surplus value does not rise, and starts to fall, because a shortage of labour pushes wages higher.
The period of stagnation/long recession, follows such a period of crisis, and arises because capital responds to the crisis by innovation, introducing new labour saving technologies that create a relative surplus population, reducing wages and boosting profits, and also reducing the value of labour-power, raising surplus value, but also reducing the value of fixed capital via moral depreciation, so boosting the rate of profit. Its what occurred in the late 1920's and 30's, and again in the late 1980's and 90's. If we were in a period of stagnation or long recession, it would signify that capital has already gone through a period of crisis, preceding it, and would be seeing rising not falling rates of profit, currently. And, because such periods are characterised by this rising rate and mass of profit relative to capital accumulation, they are also characterised by falling rates of interest, as against the rising rates of interest currently being seen.
If we really were in such a period of stagnation/long recession, capital would not need AI or any other technology to provide a solution, because it would have already gone through that stage to overcome the crisis of overproduction of capital/profitability in the preceding period. In fact, that period occurred in the 1980's/90's. It was seen in the rise in unemployment and slower growth of employment during that period. But, that too, also illustrates a further fallacy in Roberts' argument, because, although it results in a rise in unemployment, and slower growth of employment, employment itself still grows, as capital also still accumulates. The difference is that the ratio of output to capital, and output to labour rises. It is also marked by the development of new spheres of production, themselves spheres in which the rate of profit is higher. The reason for the development of these new spheres is set out by Marx in his concept of the Civilising Mission of Capital.
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