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Fine, CF. I'll shut up for another five days and listen.
Better would be to comment on what's already been said, allowing for the possibility that it might be true. Or at least uttered aloud.
Look CF, I'm not John Lanchester. and I have not said that anything should not be spoken about; quite the opposite.
Over and out.
Yes the mornings. Some people might like to look forward to experimenting with a little less greed in their daily lives, just for the heck of it. It's been mentioned quite convincingly in the historical and contemporary discourse that the familiar elements of greed and corruption should no longer present a question in term of a supernatural good vs. evil bipolar debate. However; they appear to have existed long before capitalism as we've understood it for the last 100 years at least. Where did they come from then? If not from the spiritual or from 19th Century Capitalism, up to and including today's experience with it, from which economic model did greed and corruption originate from. Back to the far earlier models indicated on parchments, clay tablets and cave drawings? It doesn't appear that we know where greed and corruption comes from exactly, except for some vague and suspect references to evolutionary traits.
Heh.
In Origins of the Family, Private Property and the State, Engels speculates that patriarchy and class oppression have their roots in the progression of human production, specifically when civilizations were technologically advanced enough to produce a surplus of food. Men seized control of the surplus which shifted control of the home from women to men. To protect societies from famine and future shortfalls, the surplus was "entrusted" to a ruling class, who could then exercise their power over the serf/farming classes to defend the state from invading groups, or wage war against weaker states to seize their surplus. This sounds to me (among others) that greed as such is produced by the economic situation in which human society finds itself. All affects are socially determined--why should greed be any different?
I dunno, CF. I've heard that human beings are born just plain bad, something to do with this ancient couple eating fruit from a tree of knowledge after having received a very specific memo prohibiting such snacking. And then, of course, once humans are evil, human society would exhibit those traits accordingly, no?
Your Marxist thing seems to put the cart before the snake.
Likewise, where has pure laissez-faire capitalism worked anywhere in this hemisphere since 1929 America and Canada, or even 1985 Chile? It hasn't.
Today one would have to travel to the democratic capitalist third world to really get a feel for leave everything to the market capitalism. There is very little socialism in capitalist India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bangladesh or Haiti, the "freest trading nation in the Caribbean" according to Washington ideologues.
Economic systems certainly haven't helped to alleviate the baser instincts, but I think they were already present. A situation similar to a hot branding iron before its application to a cow's rear end packed with pain receptors. As societies developed power and economic relations, they carried forward and exacerbated the human propensity to be concerned primarily with ones own condition or one's own immediate circle of intimates and followers. It's fair to say that Capitalism consistently reaches new pinnacles in bringing these human characteristics forward into the modern era as part of its sustaining endeavor. One day if people are lucky enough to finally crawl out from underneath the smoking ruin of Capital, this might be widely regarded as its prime legacy, preying upon our primal instincts. Aside from leaving behind an uninhabitable planet that is.
Yes, I noticed that this morning. Sorry. I hate it when people do that to me. (I don't have time to read, obviously. Maybe later. Carry on.)
"b/c they control the modes of production"
Further to that excellent graphic, it kind of surprises me that a man who apparently doesn't understand what Marx meant by "the bourgeoise" would presume to write a critique of Marx. But, really, I've seen enough that I shouldn't be surprised at all. Lanchester seems to believe that Marx was referring to what people in America and the UK (non-Marxists) call 'the middle class'; he believes that the majority in 'the West' are 'the bourgeoisie'. I suppose it's two related things: a failure to understand Marx and having succumbed to the dominant propaganda, i.e., he is, as Proyect asserts, a liberal.
Everything seems to be done in the name of our peace, security, and our right to consume. The western middle class in the context of the world's population, the majority working class when taken as a whole, resembles the bourgeoise because ownership of the global means of production and global resources are undertaken and enforced on our behalf, as the story goes. We may not agree with it because in actuality it isn't true, being just another lie, except for the consumption part, but that is the framework that they've built this shit called Capitalism on.
The most overated thinker in perhaps all of history
Capitalism is proven to be a threat to living things in general.
Marx was right, capitalism is a nightmare.
Overall I think no serious reading of Marx can come away with anything less than an impression of brilliance. He laid down a compelling blueprint after all in an attempt to deliver workers from underneath the arbitrary will of the contemporary owners of the means of production. What he wasn't as clear about is how easy it is to switch from owner to central committee member, to oligarchy to owner once again. He didn't see that the market, and more specifically the levers of control, have the ability to adapt and can reconfigure themselves in chameleon fashion as the need arises. When under threat for its very existence, there are certain levels that the ownership class is willing to consist in, until the time is right to once again cast away the slogans dealing with worker emancipation, and to reveal themselves in their more traditional form by standing openly on the terrain of class warfare.
He may not have been entirely ascetic, but to comment on his eating habits is really rather to lower the level of the discussion, don't you think?
@ SJ
But aside from Marx leaving out a few of the details, and the fact that those sneaky capitalists can exploit anything, you expect it's all going to wind up the way he said it will?
I would say the details revealed themselves at a later stage, as the experimentation and application of various economic models were rolled out, rather than a 'leaving out' as it were. I don't actually know how things will unfold, only that this generation and those who follow are undoubtedly the beneficiaries of having had both systems painstakingly vetted through practice.
@ SJ
That makes perfect sense to me, since the more equitable control of resources and business would seem to be a natural progression.
Where I am not so sure is in the idea that private business - even some big business - and private ownership will fade away entirely. I just don't see it happening, especially since that ability to adapt that you mention is not just a negative but also a positive attribute.
And again, the argument I often hear - that the problems that have come up with many socialist and communist experiments have to do with their co-existence with capitalist structures - would seem to be a major hurdle. Dare I say, it is one of apocalyptic proportions. And based on the record of past revolutions, collapses and power struggles, I think we are looking at fairly long odds.
It would, but we now seem to be at the speed of stone in that regard.
How do you qualify the global commodity's ability to adapt as a positive? Or at least point to some general indicators so that I might go and have a look.
Long apocalyptic proportions either way. It's been shown more than once that when the respective bloodbaths are done, and as soon as it becomes necessary to once again mediate consumer demand as is the prerequisite for an economy, you require a set of rules and administrators to monitor compliance, a central authority in other words. Everything that went away or suffered to be reasoned with came back even stronger under a new and improved banner, selling Che Guevara tees, default swaps and securities.
The constant simmer of revolt on the backburner served in certain European jurisdictions, including Greece for many years before globalization and integrated currency, to even things out somewhat between economic growth and the population. We barely have a simmer of anything, including an opposition. $114B Cdn to the banks during the last few years says the CCPA, and not a peep out from under the political cone of silence that the opposition benches appear to have fashioned into hats.
Not global commodity, SJ. Private business.
I am a staunch supporter of public ownership of many resources, and utilities, and public services, and I think public ownership is for the most part more equitable and cost-effective.
But it is also true that in some things private business is far more flexible when it comes to moving on opportunity, and adapting to change. I think both systems will always play a role. That's why I bring it up; not as a slam against public ownership so much as an argument for a middle way.
And yes, things are changing in Europe. Wht is not so clear is which way they will go.
I don't think this is accurate, actually. I think, on the contrary, that capital's capacity to relentlessly revolutionize the means of production is essential to Marx's critique. For example:
I don't really understand this comment, since Marx was quite pointedly not prophetic. He wasn't speculating about a post-capitalist world. He simply understood capitalism in such a deep and comprehensive way that we are still seeing the richness of his analysis today. It's difficult to look at the spectacular stock market and real estate crash and the austerity response adopted with breathless obsession by capitalist states world wde without looking back on Marx's work with awe.
Your comments, Winston, on public and private ownership are doubtless interesting, but they have virtually nothing to do with Capital or any of Marx's writings with which I am familiar.
So I gather, from what SJ said.
On the other hand, there is no shortage of people who have extrapolated on his work and made such predictions. And in the context of these various articles talking about his relevance, and the fact that so many attempts at alternatives to capitalism have wound up being thwarted or co-opted, I think the question of possible change is a fair one.
Plus, I'm not just talking about a post-capitalist world, because I doubt that we will ever see a world completely free from it. When we look at some of the ways these different economic models, government-managed systems and business forms have changed since his time, how well do his ideas still work?
(my guess is pretty well)
The only limitation I see is that his way is only one way of looking at these systems. That is, there are other dynamics at play - like that small matter of greed and power which we disagree on. And another would be that not all business is based on competition, nor even squeezing the most work for the least pay.
I think you will find few socialists who will disagree with you on the effectivenss of markets to create "wealth" and distribute goods and services most efficiently.
But capitalism and especially the new liberal capitalism of the last 30 years has worked to consume the world's natural resources at an unprecedented frenzied pace. World wildlife preservationists and scientists are pointing out to us that capitalism is run amok. With neoliberal capitalism we are ultimately reducing future choices for humanity with respect to everything from threatened extinction of hundreds of types of mammals to poisoning and destroying the environment of which all life on earth depends. It's as if self-interest in its most extreme form, greed, has been unleashed on the world. There is no incentive to conserve anything within a system driven by profit.
Essentially socialists say that human beings are capable of so much more than just self-interest. We can be motivated in other ways to achieve good things. We are capable of working toward a greater good and not just for the sake of the richest one percent.
Today's CEO can just as easily become tomorrow's revolutionary figure, and the case of Russia at the end of the Soviet era and today's China provides for the reverse. I don't know if the critique can be said to describe the ability of capital to revolutionize to that extent, to doff the top hat in favour of the beret, because if it is, what we'd have laid out in detail is a rescue plan for those occasions when the workers rise up, and a great way for cut throat business competitors to rid themselves of the other. Perhaps a caveat or two might have helped to inform Lenin's writing of the 'What is to be Done' pamphlet. I think revolutionizing the means of production deals with efficiency and re-invention from the perspective of traditional ownership.
ETA: We see elements of the previously unrecognized problem today. If we can't have socialism, here's social democracy instead. You can even have your own wing where all the old revolutionary penchants can be maintained on life support.
I think this time they have revolutionized capital itself. Finance capitalism has overthrown industrial capitalism by 1987 to 1991. Industrial capitalists would never be so stupid as to let that happen according to Marx. Finance capitalists would destroy capitalism if allowed to run things. And they have. Marx was exactly right. What a disaster it is all around us everywhere. The foundations of kapitalism are even weaker today than Marx predicted they would be.
We can certainly be grateful to Marx for setting into order the random thoughts of the working class of his era. I'm not so sure if his brand of romanticism as a foundation stone for what followed; the various traditional movements against capital from the late 19th Century onwards that is; constitutes an adequate response in today's circumstances. In the labour forum I posted an extract relating thousands of incidents where leaderless Chinese workers are rising up over their conditions without the benefit of a union to represent them, and getting what they want. Incidents that barely receive attention in the western press, and probably for good reason against the backdrop of the occupy movement. Certainly that particular working collective would know that sending forth an appointed leader of the disturbance to speak on everyone's behalf is the quickest way for everything to unravel. If you can't hold any one person responsible, or any group within the whole responsible, then power would have to consider everyone a threat and react accordingly, or submit to the demands. It's when power submits in those instances that a way forward might be revealed, because a closer analysis may reveal that power itself wears no clothes except for what the collective dresses it in. I think even a cursory review of the historical binary play between power constituted as an economy and subjects of the economy can remind us of a few characteristics that impact on the present. The Roman citizen turned to the early Christian dialectic as a literal means to escape it's lot, after which it didn't matter so much how power reacted against them. Constantine eventually succumbed to it himself, or perhaps co-opted it once the ideology had gained critical mass despite all attempts against it, and it was found they were needed after all in order to maintain the empire itself.
ETA: Today we're not exactly operating from an absence of explicit data where it concerns the study of an economic model under Capitalism vs the study of an economic model by applying a Communist treatment. What we seem to be lacking is a situational assessment of how the respective models would ultimately differ, that doesn't have to be gleaned and interpreted from out of the haystack of obscure material relating to the subject. It's almost as if the binary problem we're encountering has been left intentionally unresolved as far as the public domain is concerned.
As long as a market exists, even if everything is reset to public ownership of practically everything, and we recalibrate from there with the granting of licenses to the mom and pop candy stand ventures, we would ultimately need to once again contend with a global commodity. Mom and Pop would like to franchise their operation to locations where other customers live. Who do they have to convince to rezone an area, and how might they go about it? The constituents want their own candy store after all so they don't have to walk as far. Eventually you wind up with a nation of candy stores with the capital clout to purchase all sorts of exemptions from operating in the public good, in addition to eventually having to satisfy bondholders every quarter. Sugarcane and fructose production is too damn expensive. Where else can we produce it on the cheap?
@ Fidel #54
I agree with that, though for me I think the problem is when the wealth becomes the drive rather than the business, and when wealth is generated by simply turning everything into a commodities and futures markets, when it turns into a system that demands permanent growth, and when that power is used in artificial ways to control government and communities, and destroy other business.
There is a difference between a healthy business (and even investment) environment and the predatory monster we now face.
And I'm not just talking about the "mom and pop" cliche.
Catchfire, I offer SJ's comment at #58 as exhibit A of an imaginary view of capitalists (and of the world, and our ability to control it) that is completely removed from reality. As if all you have to do is drop a dollar in the hands of these poor mom and pops and they turn in to soulless capitalist monsters.
Again as a lay person, it's not Marx I mind dealing with so much, it is these flights of fancy that some people have spun his work into.
In response, I give you Harland David Sanders.