The Great Recession

Abstract

Looking for a cause is scientific. But dialectically there can be causes at different levels, the ultimate (essence) and the proximate (appearance). The ultimate is found from the real events and then provides an explanation for the proximate. The crisis of 2008-9 like other crises has an underlying cause based on the contradictions between accumulation of capital and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall under capitalism. That contradiction arises because the capitalist mode of production is production for value not for use. Profit is the aim, not production or consumption. Value is created only by the exertion of labour (by brain and brawn).