Seven theses on crisis

Chris Saltmarsh - Doctoral Researcher, Department of Politics & International Relations and co-convenor of SPERI's Doctoral Researcher Network, University of Sheffield

Dillon Wamsley - Postdoctoral Research Fellow, SPERI, University of Sheffield

1. Towards a Structural (not structuralist!) Theory of Crisis

In Episode 1, we introduce the series with a review of ‘crisis’ in political economy literature and popular discourse. While open to a plurality of perspectives, we draw on historical materialist understandings identifying the endogeneity of crises in capitalist development which disrupt processes of accumulation and are resolved to forge a new regime. Throughout the series, constructivist perspectives (particularly Episode 3 with Colin Hay on 1970s Stagflation) productively challenged this impulse. Colin argues that Stagflation was a crisis in but not of capitalism, narrated as the result of trade union power and laying the basis for a neoliberal resolution, despite a more complicated reality. This is a prime example of how the construction of crises does have significant consequences for political economy. However, while the contingencies of politics and ideology should impel us to reject determinism, they should not obscure the status of historical crises as produced by what came before and productive of what came subsequently.

2. ‘Always Historicise!’

… to follow Fredric Jameson. A recurrent theme across the series is the basis of the contemporary issues in previous crises. Today’s crises have roots in the events of 2008 (Scott Lavery, Episode 5), including austerity as the dominant response (Clara Mattei, Episode 7). 2008, in turn, emerged from the resolution to 1970s stagflation as neoliberal policies including financialisation created the conditions for a housing market crash. The 1970s arose in part from the resolution of the 1930s Great Depression (Gareth Dale, Episode 2) as the postwar social compact empowered but also failed to placate discontented political coalitions. This, in turn, follows from the Long Depression of the late-1800s (Matthew Watson, Episode 6), which formed the basis of early ideas about ‘crisis’. Disorienting as the present conjuncture may be, locating it in history usefully applies some order to the current chaos.

3. Accumulation Crises as Threats to Capital

Across the series, we develop a conceptual distinction between crises of accumulation which pose serious problems for capitalism and crises of legitimation where accumulation functions as it should. Of the former, the 1930s, 1970s and 2008 are obvious totemic examples with world-historical consequences. We can also add the 1997 Asian Financial Crisis (Jomo Kwame Sundaram, Episode 4) as an early warning sign to the events of the subsequent decade. These accumulation crises combine a disruption to capital’s production of value (e.g. market crash) with wider social consequences (e.g. unemployment, stagnation). As such, crises must be resolved decisively to secure future accumulation by forging new frontiers and/or reorganising market relations.

4. Legitimation Crises as Threats to People

Crises of legitimation are related but conceptually distinct to crises of accumulation as the former increasingly develop lives of their own. The ‘housing crisis’ (Johnna Montgomerie, Episode 8) is a prime example. The term captures the array of injustices associated with the current housing system: unaffordable rents and house prices, stock shortage, insecure tenancies, and homelessness. Yet these problems do not represent a challenge for capital accumulation. In fact, they are symptoms of an enduringly profitable industry. Instead, the housing system appears as a crisis because its threat to people contravenes the liberal promise of dignity and security in homeownership as a trade-off for participating in the accumulation regime. We can identify similar themes in the cost-of-living crisis (Martijn Konings, Episode 9) and crisis of democracy (Michael Bray, Episode 10). These are crises of popular support for capitalism but not for its imperative to accumulate.

5. The Great Decline (post-2008)

This framework takes us a step further than polycrisis’ descriptive account of a concurrent multitude of problems. The current crises of legitimation emerged in large part from the 2008 crisis and its responses. Entrenched financialisation, austerity and quantitative easing gave the ‘neoliberal’ accumulation regime a lifeline but did not resolve its fundamental issues. However, they did produce a series of ever-deepening social problems which have only further undermined the regime's popular legitimacy. The Great Decline, from 2008 to the present, captures the systematic erosion of the basic conditions of a fair and well-functioning society. As Trump’s second Presidency begins, we query whether its upheavals represent a chaotic attempt to break with this period by reorganising global market relations while narrativising a resolution to legitimation crises.

6. A New Kind of (Climate) Crisis

The backdrop to all of this is the climate crisis (Jeremy Green, Episode 11). This crisis is unique because while it is produced by the process of capital accumulation (driving fossil fuel production) it cannot obviously be resolved within it (as fossil fuel production remains profitable). Furthermore, climate change currently manifests as a crisis of legitimation - as extreme weather drives up food prices, destroys property and displaces populations - while accumulation continues as intended. However, the climate crisis contains within it a new level of threat for accumulation in the future. Its erosion of the conditions of production (destruction of land, fixed capital and labour) will undermine accumulation fundamentally. Unlike other crises of either type, the climate crisis therefore threatens to end not just one regime of capitalism but the system as a whole.

7. Mass Politics Must Return

The current conjuncture is therefore characterised by the interplay between two major crises: the Great Decline of the post-2008 era and the climate crisis. In Episode 12, we conclude the series with a discussion of how we got into this situation and how we might break out of it. We argue that a crucial dimension of the neoliberalisation which followed the 1970s and 2008 is the smashing of mass politics: a symptom of the subordination of labour to capital, in class relational terms. The interminability of both the Great Decline and the climate crisis is substantially due to the absence of a popular social force capable of struggling to restrain capitalism’s destructive tendencies (as with the labour movement post-WWII). The absence of mass politics may appear to be a structurally inscribed feature of the present conjuncture, foreclosing possible alternatives, but the importance of politics and ideology in our structural theory of crisis affords some hope. A return to mass politics both in scholarly debates and activist practice is now necessary if we are to reverse the Great Decline and the existential threats posed by the climate crisis.

Crisis Point has been an invigorating intellectual exercise. We hope it is as enjoyable to listen to as it was to produce. We also hope that these theses can be the beginning of a useful contribution to popular understandings and scholarly debates around ‘crisis’ in the field of political economy and beyond.

Chris Saltmarsh and Dillon Wamsley are co-producers and co-hosts of Crisis Point, a limited series of the SPERI Presents… podcast.