Acta Oeconomica 14. (1975)

1975 / 4. szám - Kozma Ferenc: Crisis Phenomena in the Capitalistic World and Some Questions of Socialist Strategy

Acta Oeconomica Vol. 14 (4), pp. 313 — 33 3 (1975) F. Kozma CRISIS PHENOMENA IN THE CAPITALISTIC WORLD AND SOME QUESTIONS OF SOCIALIST STRATEGY The polarisation, raw material exploitation and ecological crises afflicting the capitalistic world economy are “metabolic disturbances” of the society based on capitalist private ownership. The author investigates what important changes are expectable, as their consequence, in the capitalist system of world economy and what chances these have, in general, to stabilize the capitalist system and what should be, under these condi­tions, the strategy and tactics of the socialist countries in the world economy. In today’s world economy the development of contradictions has much acceler­ated. The technical basis of this phenomenon is, undoubtedly, the extension of inter­national economic relations — the highly developed state of the transportation and communication networks. However, neither trade, nor the development of commu­nication techniques can explain in themselves, why the technical means convey ex­actly “allergic symptoms” to the various points of the capitalist part of the globe and why these symptoms are worsening with such amazing rapidity. Power centres of the capitalistic world economy The problems of today’s world economy cannot be understood if the capitalist world economy is considered as a homogeneous whole. This is because the functional disturbances are usually the results of conflict between different capitalist interests. The most important centres of interest in today’s capitalist world economy are, to a certain extent with conflicting objectives, the following:. 1. The greatest economic power is represented by the North American centre, consisting of the economies of the United States and of Canada, the latter being largely integrated with the former. The exceptional power of this centre is due first of all to the fact that its economic potential has been developing in the course of history as a relatively uniform system within the framework of a strongly integrated state. Secondly, as a result of its exceptionally favourable development conditions, it has a very large sector with highly advanced technology which is in close inter­action with the whole of the economy : it draws on accumulation resources (and mostly resources centralized through the budget) which are efficiently increased by the highly developed productive forces. Thirdly, an exceptional liquidity, i.e. capital reserves capable of huge manoeuvres at home and abroad, which helps the centre to influence considerably other sectors of the world economy without getting into a dependent Acta Oeconomica 14, 1975

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