{"resolved":true,"match_type":"uuid","source_type":"original_book","book_id":"4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","title":"Zombie Capitalism Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781608461042","requested_by":"printed_page","book":{"source_type":"original_book","book_id":"4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","id":"4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","uuid":"4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","title":"Zombie Capitalism Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx","normalized_title":"zombiecapitalismglobalcrisisandtherelevanceofmarx","author":null,"edition":null,"publisher":null,"year":null,"isbn":"9781608461042","isbns":["9781608461042"],"parsed":true,"ai_readable":true,"document_type":"book","page_count":426,"navigation_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","title_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/title/Zombie%20Capitalism%20Global%20Crisis%20and%20the%20Relevance%20of%20Marx","fixed_page_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/ai/book/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe/page/{printed_page}","path_api_url_template":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/book/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe/page/{printed_page}","read_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/read/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe","page_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe/page","search_url":"https://workshop.closeclaw.top/api/ai/books/4a3d22bd-c5b9-47a4-a022-bd35d44d9bfe/search"},"page":{"printed_page":149,"pdf_page":149,"physical_index":149,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"84ae5c99f4301c5304a90c2243c5d9dac7fea40bcc4d1c5368c2e5ca0acf8060"},"chapter":"Zombie Capitalism Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx","content":"Problems in each country impacted on those in others. There had already been an outflow from Germany of some of the American funds associated with the Dawes plan before the Crash. It now became a torrent as hard-hit American institutions recalled their short-term loans from Germany, creating difficulties for German industrialists who had been relying on them to finance their own industrial overcapacity. Austria's biggest bank, the Creditanstalt, went bust in May 1931. Britain was hit by the withdrawal of foreign funds from its banks, and broke with the world financial system based on the gold standard. This in turn created vastly exaggerated fears in the US where the Federal Reserve Bank raised interest rates, and there was \"a spectacular increase in bank failures\"29 and industrial production slumped even more.\n\nThe proliferating impact of the crisis made it easy for people to confuse effects with causes. Hence the contradictory interpretations from mainstream economists, with some blaming too much money, some too little; some central bank interventions, some lack of intervention; some excessive consumption, some too little consumption; some the gold standard, some the turn of states to protectionism and competitive currency devaluation; some the rapidity of the growth of investment, some its tardiness; some the forcing down of wages, some their \"stickiness\" in falling; some the scale of indebtedness, some the refusal of the banks to lend.30\n\nYet amidst the contradictory interpretations there was an occasional partial glimpse that something fundamental was causing havoc to the system to which all the mainstream economists and politicians were committed. The two economists usually thought as representing polar opposite attitudes, Keynes and Hayek, both stumbled on the same factor but in such a way that neither they nor their apostles took it seriously.\n\nThe main theme running through Keynes's General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money was that saving can exceed investment, opening up a gap that reduced the effective demand for goods, and therefore output, until the reduced level of economic activity had cut saving down to the level of investment. This could be overcome, he argued, by cutting the rate of interest (\"monetary measures\") and putting more money in people's pockets by tax cuts and increased government spending (\"fiscal measures\"). But he recognised that these measures might not work, since people and firms might still decide to save rather than spend. In particular he was \"somewhat sceptical of the success of a merely monetary policy directed towards influencing the rate of interest\" .31 He is best known for explaining the weakness of investment on the crowd psychology of speculators-\"when the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the j ob is likely to be ill done \" 32-and the flagging \"animal spirits\" of entrepreneurs.33 But at points in the text he threw in another factor. He argued that the very process of expanding capital investment led to a decline in the return on it-in \"the marginal efficiency\"-and therefore to a blunting of the spur to further investment. 34\n\nThe Great Slump\n\n149","previous_page":148,"next_page":150}