General Law of Capitalist Forms of Accumulation

A talk and discussion with Daniel Campos

Daniel’s book The End of the Corporations traces the crisis of capitalism since August 2007, first in the U.S. with the fall of Bear Sterns, AIG, Lehman Brothers, and then with the crisis spreading out to affect the whole world. This book examines the political changes brought to the U.S., Europe and the Middle East. It also draws a comparison between the current crisis and the one in 1929, analyzes the subsequent evolution of capitalism in the twentieth century, the post-war “boom”, the rise of multinational corporations, and the crisis of the ’70s. Globalization, the emergence of multinational corporations, the evolution of financial capital, and the Investment Banks are also evaluated. Finally, the book shows an analysis of capitalism throughout history, which suffered major crises and its link to the social and political phenomena. Following the guidelines of Marx, The End of the Corporations follows the history of capitalism, from its birth, in order to examine the facts and laws that explain how it came about and where the current crisis will go. In the face of the magnitude of the historic character of capitalism’s current crisis, it may be well worthwhile to stop and ask ourselves: Has capitalism ever been through crises of similar importance? In what way have these crises been overcome? What political and social phenomena spawned the crisis? And on the other hand: what political and social phenomena did the crises produce?

This presentation will look at the General Law of Capitalist Forms of Accumulation and their relevance to the underlying global economic crisis that took place in 2007 and what tendencies there are for a similar or more profound crisis than that of 11 years ago.

Daniel Campos was born in Argentina. Previously he was the congressional representative of the United Left Block for the Province of Buenos Aires. Daniel has more than 35 years of uninterrupted militancy as a Marxist and the Argentinian left, along with a long background of trade union and political struggle, In addition, he has written a number of Marxist economic books including The End of the Corporations, Toward Theory of Crisis and The Imperialism Today. His next book The 21st Century American Revolution will soon be published, and is also author of diverse articles on politics, economy and history. Had given lectures and courses in the World Social Forum in Florence (Italy), the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre (Brazil), and different workshops in England, Scotland, Argentina, Italy, Chile, and Brazil. Currently is member of leadership of Reagrupamiento Hacia el PST de Argentina, and the Committee for Revolutionary International Regroupment (CRIR).

“Multinationals are a higher form of accumulation, containing and outperforming monopolies. With multinationals, capitalism went from a lower form of accumulation and concentration of capital to a higher one, but as we saw in Chapter I, this process was not peaceful. To move from one form of accumulation and concentration of capital to another, it took 30 years and 2 world wars, with the balance of millions dead, razed cities, and nations and infrastructure destroyed.” (The End of the Corporations, Chapter V: Forms)