In Defence of Marxism

A rising euro and soaring commodity prices are weakening business "confidence" across Europe, according to recent surveys. UBS European economist Sunil Kapadia said that, "Over the past few days business confidence surveys have surprised on the low side in all the major euro area countries." In key countries like Germany and France business confidence is deteriorating more than expected. The same is true of "Belgian business confidence".

Lavinia Santovetti, an economist at Lehman Brothers explained that these were not exceptions, but reflected a generalised state of the EU economies. She said,

"The message coming from the release of the business confidence indicators is unanimous across the main euro-area countries. At the start of the second quarter the outlook for the manufacturing sector has deteriorated substantially. In addition to the continued deterioration of the international environment, surging oil prices, the strong euro and slowing world demand probably explain these developments."

Profit margins of European companies are increasingly feeling the pinch, and now they are looking to the European Central Bank to help them with a cut in interest rates, but the gurus of the ECB seem to be more interested in keeping down inflation, although they don't seem to be doing a very good job of it.

Every time such reports are published the "experts" express surprise. They have spent so long believing their own propaganda about the end of the "boom and bust" cycle that they can't believe what is happening now. We Marxists, on the other hand, are not surprised at all. Marx explained it all a long time ago.