{"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":209,"pdf_page":209,"physical_index":209,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"c1b58963d09c02037a151e2af44f22da0516f6f8112aee3305d28f7567eebaeb"},"chapter":"Zombie Capitalism Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx","content":"Those running the enterprises did not know how to cope with the wave of protests from below apart from making concessions which raised money wages, and they had even less of an idea about what do about the shortages of inputs needed to maintain the level of production. Stagnation gave way to economic contraction-the beginnings of a slump-in the second half of 1989.\n\nThere were calls from economists who claimed that only greater competition between enterprises, and eventually direct competition between firms inside Russia and those elsewhere in the world economy could force managers to be efficient and to produce the things that were needed. But they had no more idea than the ministries at the centre as how to find the resources to complete the investments that were meant to provide the outputs that would restore balance to the economy. The economic collapse continued regardless of what the government did, leading to ever greater discontent and political upheaval. An attempt by Gorbachev to take a hard line to restore central control in the spring of 1991 produced a new wave of discontent which forced him to retreat. A coup against him by those who hankered after a return to the past in August 1991 fell apart, lacking support from the most important generals. There was no popular constituency for trying to return to the old order. But those who preached reform did not have a way forward either, despite the brief popularity for \" 100-day\" or \"300-day\" programmes promising miraculous economic recovery.\n\nSuch programmes were utopian in the extreme. The collapse of central control left the giant Soviet enterprises in a monopolistic or semi-monopolistic position. They were able to dictate to the market and to produce what they wanted rather than what was needed by the economy as a whole; they were in a position to raise prices and to simply ignore contractual obligations to other enterprises. There was no stopping the combination of deepening recession, inflation and acute shortages of consumer goods and food. Economists, planners and frightened bureaucrats began to look for any scheme to get them out of the mess, until finally they gave up attempting to control what was happening. When Yeltsin and the Communist leaders of the other national republics announced the dissolution of the USSR into its component republics at the end of 1991 they were only giving political expression to the economic fragmentation that was already under way, with the heads of each industrial sector trying to protect themselves from the general economic crisis by relying on their own resources. This was turned into a supposed economic strategy through \"shock therapy\" policies of Yeltsin's \"liberal\" ministers and Western advisers like Jeffrey Sachs. The assumption was that, left to compete with each other without restraints from the state, enterprises would soon be pricing goods rationally in a way that would lead the efficient ones to establish links with each other, and that this would restore stability. In fact, all it did was to provide governmental blessing to a slump already under way whose only precedent anywhere in the 20th century was that of 1929-33 in the US and Germany.\n\nThe End of the Golden Age\n\n209","previous_page":208,"next_page":210}