Agitación en las Bolsas Preparémonos para un arduo camino

Marxist Analysis · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The central thesis is that the February 2018 global stock market sell-off was not a temporary correction but a harbinger of a deeper, systemic crisis rooted in the unresolved contradictions of the 2008 crash. Rob Sewell argues that the post-2008 "recovery" was built entirely on artificial life support — quantitative easing, near-zero interest rates, and massive state intervention — and that the withdrawal of this support (through anticipated interest rate rises and the end of cheap money) is now exposing the underlying fragility of the capitalist economy. The claim is that the system has reached its limits, that another depression is inevitable, and that the coming crisis will be worse than 2008 precisely because all the ammunition used to fight the last one has been spent.

Theoretical Grounding

The analysis is grounded in the Marxist theory of crisis, specifically the understanding that capitalist crises are not external shocks or policy errors but inherent, periodic expressions of the system's internal contradictions. Sewell draws on the classical Marxist distinction between the financial sphere (fictitious capital, stock markets, bond markets) and the real economy (production, investment, employment). The argument that the "recovery" was never based on anything solid but on "elements of cycle" reflects the Marxist insight that booms under capitalism are always temporary and carry within them the seeds of the next slump.

The article sits firmly within the Trotskyist tradition's emphasis on the permanent and deepening character of capitalist decay. It rejects the notion that the 2008 crisis was resolved through reform or regulation, instead insisting that the underlying contradictions — overaccumulation, the falling rate of profit, the growing weight of fictitious capital — were merely papered over. The reference to 1929 is not rhetorical but analytical: it signals the Marxist understanding that financial crashes can trigger generalised depressions when the real economy is already weakened.

Conjunctural Relevance

This article was written in February 2018, at a moment when mainstream commentary was still celebrating the "synchronised global recovery" and Trump was boasting about stock market records at Davos. Sewell directly counters this euphoria by pointing to concrete data: the Dow Jones losing 1,175 points in a single day, the S&P 500 suffering its worst percentage drop since August 2011, Asian markets falling 5-6%, and the VIX (volatility index) spiking. The article identifies the specific trigger — fear of higher interest rates and the return of inflation — and connects it to the structural dependence of the entire system on cheap money.

The piece is also prescient about the US fiscal position: it notes that Trump's tax cuts would increase the deficit, forcing the government to borrow more, which would in turn put upward pressure on bond yields and further destabilise markets. This is precisely the dynamic that played out over the following years, with the US national debt soaring and the Federal Reserve forced into repeated U-turns on monetary policy.

Where the Argument Continues

The article leaves several threads open. It does not develop a detailed analysis of the specific mechanisms by which a stock market crash would transmit to the real economy — the role of corporate debt, the fragility of the shadow banking system, or the exposure of pension funds and insurance companies. It also does not explore the political consequences of a new depression: the rise of the far right, the breakdown of the European Union, or the prospects for revolutionary intervention.

These questions are taken up elsewhere in the IDOM corpus. The broader analysis of the long-term crisis of capitalism — including the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, the growth of fictitious capital, and the exhaustion of neoliberal policy tools — is developed in articles by Alan Woods and others on the Marxist.com site, particularly in the series on the global economic crisis. The political implications, including the critique of reformism and the strategy for building revolutionary parties, are addressed in the RCI's programmatic documents and in episodes of Against the Stream.

Connections

This article should be read alongside:

• Alan Woods, The Global Economic Crisis: A Marxist Analysis — for the theoretical framework on crisis and the falling rate of profit.
• Rob Sewell's other economic commentaries on Marxist.com, particularly those written during the 2020 COVID crash and the 2022-23 inflation crisis, which trace the same dynamics forward.
• The RCI's The Death Agony of Capitalism and the Tasks of the Fourth International — for the strategic conclusions drawn from the analysis of capitalist decay.
• Ernest Mandel's Late Capitalism — for the theory of long waves and the structural crisis of the post-war boom.
• The Financial Times articles by John Authers and Gavin Davies cited in the piece, which provide the mainstream confirmation of the Marxist diagnosis.

Key Quotes

1. "Los problemas que señaló la crisis de 2008 nunca se resolvieron. Por lo tanto, esta 'recuperación' siempre iba a llevar a una caída posterior."

2. "La mejora económica global no se ha basado en nada sólido, sino en elementos de ciclo que no van a durar."

3. "Con toda la munición que se ha gastado en combatir la última crisis, este nuevo crash puede ser incluso peor que el de 2008. Esto es lo que aterra a Wall Street y al establishment capitalista."

4. "El hecho de que el sistema capitalista hoy día ha llegado a sus límites está claro. Tarde o temprano el sistema entrará en otra depresión, que destruirá una vez más cualquier esperanza de alcanzar la estabilidad económica o política."

5. "Los años de calma relativa en los mercados han llegado al final. Preparémonos para un arduo camino."