{"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":8,"pdf_page":8,"physical_index":8,"physical_index_base":0,"printed_page_status":"recognized","page_sha256":"32e67ac40a00c7f0709cfa12af2201dc15beaf19a20f2af08428aebd8319258b"},"chapter":"Zombie Capitalism Global Crisis and the Relevance of Marx","content":"Trade was going to obliterate hunger in Africa. Economic growth was draining the vast pools of poverty in Asia. The crises of the 1970s, 80s, 90s and 2001-2 were memories we could put behind us. There might be horrors in the world, wars in the Middle East, civil wars in Africa, but these were to be blamed on the shortsightedness of essentially honest politicians in Washington and London who may have made mistakes but whose humanitarian intervention was still needed to deal with psychopathic maniacs. The words of those who saw things differently were ignored, as the media poured out candyfloss layers of celebrity culture, upper middle class self-congratulation and senseless nationalist euphoria over sporting events.\n\nThen in mid-August 2007 something happened which began to sweep the candyfloss away to provide a glimpse of the underlying reality. A number of banks suddenly discovered they could not balance their books and stopped lending to each other. The world's financial system began grinding to a halt with a credit crunch that turned into a crash of the whole system in October 2008. Capitalist complacency turned to capitalist panic, euphoria to desperation. Yesterday's heroes became today's swindlers. From those who had assured us of the wonders of the system there now came one message: \"We don't know what has gone wrong and we don't know what to do.\" The man who not long before had been treated as the supreme genius overseeing the US economic system, Alan Greenspan, of the Federal Reserve, admitted to the US Congress that he still did \"not fully understand what went wrong in what he thought were self-governing markets\". 2\n\nGovernments have been throwing hundreds of billions to those who run the banks-and tens of billions to those who run the multinational car firms-in the hope that this will somehow stop the crisis. But they cannot agree among themselves how to do this and even whether it will work or not.\n\nYet one thing is certain. The moment any part of the global economy begins to stabilise they will forget the hundreds of millions of lives that have been shattered by the crisis. A few months when banks are not collapsing and profits are not falling through the floor and the apologists will be pumping out candyfloss once again. Their futures will seem better and they will generalise this to the world at large with renewed talk about the wonders of capitalism and the impossibility of any alternative-until crisis hits again and throws them into another panic.\n\n8\n\nIntroduction","previous_page":7,"next_page":9}