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Time is running out

Marxist Analysis · 2026-05-13

Core Argument

The central thesis is that the apparent health of the major capitalist economies in mid-2005 is a fragile illusion masking deep and worsening structural imbalances. Roberts argues that the "Anglo-Saxon model" — the claim that higher inequality, lower taxes on capital, and reduced social spending produce superior growth — is about to face a "nasty shock". The article identifies a triple crisis in the making: the US current account deficit is on an unsustainable trajectory; European stagnation is structural, not cyclical; and the UK economy is already faltering under the weight of household debt, falling house prices, and rising interest rates. The claim is not that immediate collapse is imminent, but that "time is running out" for the configuration of global capitalism that emerged from the 2001-02 recession.

Theoretical Grounding

This article sits within the Marxist tradition of conjunctural economic analysis — the attempt to read the internal contradictions of capitalism through the concrete data of the present moment. Roberts draws implicitly on Marx's theory of crisis, particularly the insight that capitalism's periods of expansion contain the seeds of their own reversal. There is no explicit deployment of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall here, but the analysis is consistent with it: the boom of 2002-05 is presented as profit-led and wage-suppressing, with real wages falling even in the US, and corporate profits already showing signs of peaking.

The article also reflects the Marxist critique of "models" of capitalism — the idea that institutional differences between Anglo-Saxon, European, or Asian varieties can permanently suspend the law of value. Roberts treats the Anglo-Saxon model not as a genuine solution but as a particular form of crisis management that shifts the burden onto labour, only to generate new contradictions in the form of household debt, trade imbalances, and asset bubbles.

Theoretically, the piece belongs to the tradition of Marxist economic journalism associated with the In Defence of Marxism school — empirically grounded, polemically sharp, and oriented toward demonstrating the bankruptcy of bourgeois economic orthodoxy from within its own data.

Conjunctural Relevance

The article is anchored in the specific conjuncture of mid-2005. Key data points include:

  • The OECD's downward revision of growth forecasts for all leading economies, with Eurozone growth at just 0.5% in Q1 2005 and Germany at zero.
  • The US current account deficit projected to reach $900 billion (6.7% of GDP) by 2006.
  • UK GDP growth falling to 0.5% in Q1 2005, industrial production declining, and unemployment rising for three consecutive months.
  • The defeat of the EU constitution in the French referendum, interpreted as a working-class rejection of a "pro-business, anti-labour agenda".
  • The fall of the Schröder government in Germany, with the SPD losing its North Rhine Westphalia stronghold for the first time in 40 years.
  • The puzzle of low US bond yields (4.1%) despite apparently strong growth — interpreted as evidence that investors themselves do not believe the expansion is sustainable.

Politically, the article identifies a pattern across the major economies: governments pursuing austerity and pro-business reforms are facing electoral punishment, but the alternative on offer — the Christian Democrats in Germany, the right in France — is worse. This is a classic Marxist conjunctural observation: the crisis of bourgeois politics is not a crisis of capitalism itself, but a crisis of its management.

Where the Argument Continues

This article is an early statement of themes that Roberts would develop extensively over the following decade. The analysis of global imbalances, the unsustainability of the US current account deficit, and the fragility of the Anglo-Saxon growth model recurs in his later work, particularly in The Great Recession (2009) and The Long Depression (2016). The article's implicit argument that the 2002-05 expansion was a credit-fuelled, profit-led recovery built on suppressed wages and rising household debt anticipates the analysis of the 2008 crash that Roberts would develop in subsequent IDOM articles and in his blog, The Next Recession.

Readers should look to Roberts's later work on the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, which provides the theoretical framework that is only implicit here. The article also connects to the broader IDOM corpus on the political economy of the Eurozone, particularly the analysis of German export surpluses and the contradictions of the single currency — themes that would become central to Marxist analysis of the 2010-15 Eurozone crisis.

Connections

  • Marx, Capital Vol. 3 — the theory of crisis and the tendency of the rate of profit to fall, which underlies Roberts's later work.
  • Roberts, The Great Recession (2009) — the full development of the argument that the 2008 crash was a classic Marxist crisis of overaccumulation.
  • Roberts, The Long Depression (2016) — the argument that the post-2008 period is not a recovery but a prolonged depression.
  • IDOM articles on the Eurozone crisis — the analysis of German export surpluses and the contradictions of monetary union.
  • Against the Stream episodes on global imbalances — the podcast series where Roberts and other RCI members discuss the conjuncture in real time.
  • Harman, Explaining the Crisis (2008) — a companion text from the same tradition, analysing the 2008 crash from a Marxist perspective.

Key Quotes

  1. "Behind all the optimistic talk about the health of world capitalism from Bush, Blair etc, the more serious analysts are worried. In its semi-annual report, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development announced that it is cutting its forecasts for all leading economies. It may not happen this year, but the huge imbalance in the world economy is going to crack."

  2. "You see how incentives work under capitalism: it's the carrot for those who already have carrots and it's the stick for those who already have been beaten! You see the rich appreciate more and the poor appreciate less."

  3. "A very low bond yield means that investors are not confident that economic growth will be sustained. Instead they think the economy is going to slow and they expect lower returns on their investments."

  4. "The benefits of growth have all gone to big business in profits and tax cuts."

  5. "It may not happen this year, but this huge imbalance is going to crack. It can only be righted by the dollar falling sharply (but that would mean Europe and Japan going into economic recession) or by the US economy slowing towards zero growth (and that too would be bad news for the UK, Japan and Asia, in particular). It will probably be a combination of the two outcomes."