Acta Oeconomica 14. (1975)

1975 / 4. szám - Szentes Tamás: Nature, Background and Effects of the Unfolding Crisis Phenomena in International Capitalism

Acta Oeconomica Vol, 14 (4), pp. 335—354 (1975) T. Szentes NATURE, BACKGROUND AND EFFECTS OF THE UNFOLDING CRISIS PHENOMENA IN INTERNATIONAL CAPITALISM The author focusses his investigation onto the reallocation process in the interna­tional capitalist economy, and the disturbances of the capitalist state regulation system of economy, as the background factors of the recent crisis phenomena. As to the former he analyses why and in what sense the “colonial” pattern of international division of labour has changed, and what consequences this change has caused. As to the latter, he points to the growing contradiction between the national framework of the Keynesian system of state intervention and the internationalization process of capital and production. The present crisis phenomena of international capitalism are — in my opinion — of different nature, level and complexity than those of the “classical” cyclical crises before the Second World War. They seem to be, on the one hand, products of the culmination of some long-run processes, which started in the past and have been unfolding recently, interfusing also with cyclical movements and, on the other, con­comitant features of the beginning of a new period. Substantially — apart from a few secondary factors — they can be traced back a) to the crisis and reorganization of the “colonial-type” of international division of labour, i.e. a reallocation process and a modification of the centre-periphery relations, and b) to the crisis of the “Keynesian” system of state monopoly capitalism. 1. The crisis and modification of the colonial division of labour As a matter of fact, the colonial pattern of international division of labour with the known functions of the dependent periphery (as raw material supplier, sheltered market for manufactured commodities and monopolized sphere for highly profitable investments) has been operating with increasing troubles, difficulties, disturbances and facing a crisis for a long time, since almost the Second World War, and partic­ularly since the late fifties. Its crisis manifested itself extremely obviously in the inter­national economic and political events of the last few years, particularly in the energy — “crisis” — even if the 1973-74 price increases of raw materials seemed to promise again “comparative advantages” also to the countries specialized in primary pro­duction. While the former period between the mid-fifties and sixties, of worsening terms of trade for primary exporters proved “only” that this one-sided specialization with cumulative disadvantages cannot indefinitely be maintained, the oil-embargo and price increases showed already the signs of the end (or the beginning of the end)

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