Comrade:Cassette/notes/Communist party of canada

My notes from their program

The Development of Capitalism in Canada

What was the basis for imposing early colonial structures

• Mercantile capitalism through the trade of fish, fur and timber with the colonies and France and Britain.  

Mercantile capitalism eventually gave way to?

• larger-scale operations, especially in forestry and shipbuilding, were started.

Who's capital was Canada dominated by at first and who did that change to?

• Canada was under the domination of British capital. Early in the 20th century however, trade and debt dependence on Britain was gradually replaced with an even more debilitating dependence on U.S. capital and technology.  

Which economic structures did US gain control of

• Manufacturing and natural resources

What did this result in?

• Canada becoming more integrated into and more dependent on the U.S. economy than any other developed capitalist country.  
• The growing presence of U.S. and other transnationals increased pressures for the exploitation of Canadian natural resources. It has also led to a massive and growing outflow of profits, interest, fees, and other transfers, stifling new development, jobs, and research, and easing the political and cultural penetration of U.S. imperialism.

State Monopoly Capitalism

What is state monopoly capitalism?

• merging of the interests of finance capital with the state

What does finance capital use the state for?

• to provide orders, capital and subsidies, and to secure foreign markets and investments

Monopoly capital supports the expansion of the state sector – both services and enterprises – when that serves its interests, and at other times it uses the state to cut back and privatize.

How does state-monopoly capitalism undermine bourgeois democracy?

• Big business openly intervenes in the electoral process on its own behalf, and also indirectly through a network of pro-corporate institutes and think tanks. It uses its control of mass media to influence the ideas and attitudes of the people, and to blatantly influence election results. It corrupts the democratic process through the buying of politicians and officials. It tramples on the political right of the Canadian people to exercise any meaningful choice, thereby promoting widespread public alienation and cynicism about the electoral process.

What does International finance capital also require?

• Institutions of regulation ratified and supported by the imperialist states to protect and advance their interests. It has amplified the role of existing international capitalist institutions – the World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Bank – to enforce its global hegemony, as well as numerous regional economic blocs to protect the interests of the respective imperialist centres. These powerful international structures undermine national and state sovereignty, thus giving rise to new conflicts and contradictions in the system of monopoly capitalist regulation.

Canadian Capital and the TNCs

What does Canada have the highest level of among imperialist countries

• Foreign ownership

What is Canadian finance capital largely interlocked with?

• U.S. transnationals and international finance capital in general

What has intensified this process of capitalist integration under U.S. domination?

• Imposition of neo-liberal policies especially under the free trade agreement

Canadian monopoly groupings control many sectors of the economy and control the Canadian state, but international finance capital – primarily U.S.-based TNCs – control substantial parts of the resource, manufacturing and service industries

What does this result in?

• Important decisions on investment policy, technological change, plant closures and layoffs are made outside our borders. No sector of Canada’s economy is free from U.S. and other transnational influence.

Capitalism Generates Crises

What led to Keynesianism being implemented?

• widely implemented during the prolonged post-W.W.II economic boom to stabilize capitalist economies, weaken and deflect the militancy and internationalism of working class movements and weaken the powerful attraction of the socialist alternative.

What was the impact of these policies

• Keynesian prescriptions helped capitalist governments to temporarily ease the worst effects of cyclical crises but ultimately failed to prevent them. It also tended to inhibit international capital flows and TNC activity, and in general submerged the capitalist state in staggering public debt, the servicing costs of which were borne primarily by working people.

What brought us out of Keynesianism?

• By the mid-1970s, finance capital turned towards neoliberalism. Under the slogan of a “return to the free market,” capitalist governments in Canada and elsewhere began to impose a vicious, pro-corporate and anti-people agenda which included liberalized or “free” trade, deregulation and privatization, corporate tax cuts, an intensified assault on labour and democratic rights, and various measures to drive down real incomes and living standards of working people to the benefit of the banks and monopolies.

What were the consequences of this?

• It was successful in temporarily halting and reversing the decline in the rate of profit, and accelerated the accumulation and concentration of wealth in the hands of the ruling capitalist elite. This forced a decline in the purchasing power of the vast majority of the people which led to a decline in aggregate demand for commodities and services.

How was the decline in the purchasing power handled?

• Extending cheap credit which increased the debt load borne by households and governments alike.

What did this debt bubble lead to?

• the “great economic meltdown” of 2007-08 – the largest, most widespread and protracted capitalist crisis since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Production and international trade collapsed, and mass unemployment and poverty soared in the U.S., Europe, and elsewhere around the world. The ruinous consequences of neoliberalism stood fully exposed.

Since the ruling circles of finance capital have refused to change course and turned to being bailed out, austerity measures and wage cuts which has resulted in?

• real economic growth in GDP has remained stagnant, while government and household indebtedness have grown even larger than 2007-08 levels, setting the stage for another, even more devastating capitalist crisis.