Hundreds of millions jobless, suicide rates spike, hunger, starvation. . . everywhere the increasing misery of workers meets with "austerity schemes" of government. It leads us to the bitter realization that capitalism advances through crisis. And then it dawns on us that this capitalist crisis allows the working class to advance the fight for communism too. In most cases the cause of the crisis lies in overproduction and a fall in the rate of profits. More goods are produced than the working class can afford to buy, and therefore more than the bosses can sell at a profit. These crises destroy inefficient enterprises. They then concentrate capital into larger, more powerful groupings and open up wider markets in which the surviving enterprises can realize their profits and grow again. Capitalism advances. Certainly that is what happened when the world was gripped by the last major crisis in the late 1960s. It emerged from it in the 1980s and began a record-breaking expansion. Between 1982 and 2007 the world economy tripled in size. This is even more remarkable because the previous period of growth from the end of World War II until the late 60s has been termed the "Golden Age" of capitalism. Wages rose, productivity grew and memories of the Great Depression and World War II faded.

GROWTH ENDS IN CRISIS
Then the new crisis began in the late 60s. It too was a crisis of overproduction. Bretton Woods (the International Monetary Conference that set up the US-dominated monetary system) and the post-WW II monetary agreements began to fall apart. Socially and politically, the youth of the world exploded in protest against both versions of capitalist relations of production – socialist (state capitalist) and market economies. 1968 saw the Prague Spring in Eastern Europe, May '68 in France, the student uprising in Mexico City, the Cultural Revolution in China and so on.
World capitalism was reorganized. In the 1980s it emerged from crisis, searching to re-establish a "reasonable" rate of profit by massive investment in East Asia, especially China. The Chinese "Communist" Party saved world capitalism. Through cuts in entitlements, it prompted the mass migration of hundreds of millions of farm workers from the country to the cities. It created a workforce of 150 million Chinese migrant workers who can't live "legally" in the cities and had to submit to the tyranny of the factory or starve. Production took off and profits grew.
Between 1990 and 2005 the working class of East Asia increased nine-fold--from 100 million to 900 million. To-day more than half the world's workers live in South and East Asia. In fact, at 750 million strong, China's working class is 1.5 times larger than that of the 30 richest countries combined.

GROWTH ENDS IN CRISIS AGAIN
But every capitalist expansion ends in crisis - a crisis usually connected to a crisis in overproduction and a falling rate of profit. This crisis, starting in the USA in 2008, is no different. In 2012 China produced 716 million tons of steel - almost half the world's production - but its steel industry has the capacity to produce 900 million tons! "From chemicals and cement to earth movers and flat screen televisions," the Financial Times (6/17/13) pointed out, "Chinese industry is awash with excess capacity that is driving down profits inside and outside the country and threatens to further destabilize China's already shaky growth."
What we are describing may be a problem in China but it is not a Chinese problem. When China fights overproduction by closing down some steel mills, miners in Brazil, Australia, South Africa and other countries are laid off, because China consumes 60% of the world's iron ore imports. Other major manufacturing industries will experience similar scenarios.
The scope and scale of the present crisis suggests that it is far from being worked out. In form it is a crisis of over production (the likes of which capitalism has resolved in the past). In content (its size) it points to a period of sustained instability where the impulse for mass movements - whether fascist or communist - will gather urgency.
The masses move against the attacks, looking for a solution to their problems. The bosses try to win them to nationalism and racist attacks on other workers. But given the alternative, workers will fight against capitalism and for communism. Never in the history of capitalism has the industrial working class been so huge. We are entering a revolutionary period. It won't be easy but we have a share-and-share alike communist world to win.

Next issue we will discuss the size of the problem and the dangers of war.