The Sunset of the Era of the Market Economy

In: Vestnik Tomskogo Gosudarstvennogo Universiteta: naučnyj žurnal = Tomsk State University journal of economics. Ėkonomika, Heft 55, S. 237-252

Abstract

The article substantiates the assertive flaw in the theoretical platform of the market economy, proves the inevitability of the historical degeneration of both itself and the consumer society created on its foundation. The author characterizes the insoluble contradictions of the market economy – between labor and capital, exchange and use value of the technosphere and the biosphere; reveals the essence of the fetishization of money and the mechanism of functioning of the banking system as the legal successor of usury; substantiates the state of the limit of capitalism as the final phase of its development. The author emphasizes that commodity-money relations create an objective impossibility of harmonizing the interests of all members of society and lead to the dominance of the plutocracy class, which has subordinated all its natural, financial and labor resources. The author shows the unsightly role of the state in the decorum: it concentrated all its efforts on supporting the wealthiest strata of the population and actually left its least socially protected part to the mercy of fate. Attention is drawn to the fact that the transformation of money into capital, which increases simultaneously with the growth of the size of commercial activity, led to a complete alienation from labor and doomed workers to poverty and misery. The author shows that, under the conditions of private ownership, the utilitarian purpose of the goods, which is expressed in use value, is replaced by the parameter of its prestige, reflecting mainly exchange value, which distorts the normal balance of supply and demand in society, and is a source of unproductive consumption. The article proves the inefficiency and social injustice of distribution relations in the field of environmental management, which leads to the concentration of rent payments in the hands of the oligarchy and the elimination of the institution of public consumption funds. The abrasion of the market economy is substantiated, within which the internal contradictions accumulated over time cannot be resolved and lead to a breakdown of the model of production relations.