Global Capitalist Crisis and the Second Great Depression: Egalitarian Systemic Models for Change: author, Armando Navarro
Review by Jose Angel Gutierrez
For years Armando Navarro has produced quality books but this new product is monumental. In the 9 chapters allocated into three parts, Navarro has condensed a political history of economic crises in the United States since 1920 to the present depression. And, he does not stop there. He posits solutions, sweeping in scope and breathtaking in advocacy. He argues that capitalism is at the historic root of the economic problems faced by the country and the globe; and, a democratic socialist system is the answer.
In the first two chapters, he analyzes the economic crises of the 1920s, 30’s, 40’s and the subsequent rise of neo-liberalism as the ideological mainstay that created the new world order. In chapters 3 and 4, he examines the events leading to the global economic crisis in the last decade and he criticizes the Obama Administration’s policies aimed at bolstering a failed capitalist system resting on entitlements; welfare capitalism he terms it. In chapters 5, 6, and 7, he begins to weave a tapestry of what he calls a democratic socialist society. Understanding clearly the problems socialist regimes have had he calls for a new commitment to activism for social change. He couples material well-being with human rights in his new praxis paradigm. He lists and details the six requisite variables that must be addressed in order to build the new movement (p. 283-300).
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| Armando Navarro |
Toward the last chapters, in a style reminiscent of Lenin’s What is to be Done?, he lays out a plan for the building of an egalitarian society given what is on the horizon. In chapter 8, he critically dissects the Obama’s administration policies and their role in exacerbating the global economic crisis and their acceleration of the US depression of 2011. And, in chapter 9, he makes his forecasts of a deepening crisis and a second worse depression by 2013. Here Navarro is on thin analytical ice for the U.S. scenario because the president has been re-elected, more Democrats were elected, the Tea Party group is wrecking the Republican Party, unemployment is declining, and business is making a comeback.
Latinos overwhelmingly voted for the Democrats; ignoring or at least turning a blind side to the record number of deportations of Mexican people by Homeland Security in the past four years. The only immigration reform that was advanced was for some students under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) directive and the promise to hold off on prosecution for undocumented presence is good only for two years. Globally, however his predictions may bear fruit; little has changed for the better on the world capitalist framework.
As a result of the failures of capitalism he envisions the demise of U.S. global hegemony, to be sure by the end in this century. In this last prediction, he is not alone many other scholars have made the same forecast. Time will tell and Navarro will be remembered as a either a prophet or just another doomsayer.
If there is any shortcoming to this volume it is in the lack of more analysis of the changing economic face and political culture of China, Cuba, Vietnam and Venezuela, for example; these countries seem to be moving toward state capitalism perhaps a new version of socialism.
The book is certainly a challenge not only in length but in detail. Navarro is exhaustive in documentation and citation. It is as if one is not reading but instead listening to Navarro lecture. The read is like a fine meal with red wine; intake must be slow and digested even slower. The reference to Lenin’s title above is purposeful in that Navarro is already busy at work on his next title which he mentions in the Preface (p.ix) is titled tentatively What Needs to be Done: Mexicano/Latino Politics and Struggles for Self-determination in the 21st Century. I look forward to this book.
Jose Angel Gutierrez, Ph.D, J.D., is a professor of political science at the University of Texas-Arlington.A biography of Gutierrez, written by Raul Caballero of Fort Worth, Texas, was featured recently in Somos en escrito. Navarro’s book is available through Lexington Books, New York, and other venues.