This was originally published on May 25, 2020 by the founder of InfraWiki, originally on ProleWiki.
During the 1929 Great Depression, the elites sought to rescue their plummeting profits by outright destroying usable inventory, such as livestock and grain. Aggregate demand fell because the commoners had less money to spend, so the only way to salvage profitability was to reduce supply, thus increasing prices.[1]
The same is true of the current crisis. So far in 2022, 16 major food industry facilities in the U.S. have mysteriously caught fire. In Canada, 43 train cars of potash, an important input material for feritlizer, mysteriously derailed.[2] And more.[3]
It sounds a lot like the capitalist system is trying to again reign in the productive forces in a dying last-ditch effort to push back against the Tendency of the Rate of Profit to Fall.