Capitalism, still the absurd systesm

Are we more capitalist today compared with the 1960s and 70s in Canada? I think we are, and the NDP wants to at least bring the economy back to the point where a strong public sector is capable of picking up the slack in times of ideologically induced collapse of the global capitalist system, like now.

The NDP realizes that social programs and public utilities can't be run like businesses since the neoliberalorama began in this country, which is basically laissez-faire baloney made new again by our two Bay Street-friendly parties in Ottawa. There is a cost of providing health care and education, electricity and water. Corners can't be cut for the sake of a buck wrt essential services or necessary investments in people. P3's and AFP's are Tory and Liberal Party inventions at provincial levels and designed to address their federal counterparts' starvation diet of reduced federal transfers since Mulroney and Chretien. What they are is crooked maneuvering to pawn off the family jewels and silverware to rich friends of the parties with a bit of kick-back on the side. It's been said that a little honest graft never hurt any politician, and this is especially true of the decay and rot in Canadian halls of power.

N.Beltov wrote:

Do you get fries with that?

What would happen if  Marxists were elected to govern by a phony majority in B.C. or Ontario today? I would expect a number of progressive reforms by as much as they are able to achieve within today's context of top-down federal neoliberalism. But my guess is they'd be thrown out of power after one term, maybe two if things went really well. But then it's back 180 degrees pushing in the opposite direction by the very next Liberal or Tory government. Most of the achievements at a provincial level would be undone by either of the two Bay Street parties in phony majority or coalition government.

You overlook some "facts", Ryan.  And  I don't know how you manage that, speaking from China, really.

Actually, Fidel, your reply was better than your original remarks that seemed to resemble a greasy burger. (Hence my reply, btw.) You seem to be supporting the view that the election of a government that carried out progressvie reforms would undoubtedly be undermined by the next regime. Therefore, it follows that substantial change and permanent progressive reforms requires extra-parliamentary organization and actions.

As in, actions NOT LED by parties in parliament (or, in this case, a legislature), e.g., the NDP, since they cannot accomplish these goals as you've so eloquently pointed out.

I realize that this may undermine any lingering idolatry of the NDP that you might have, and your head may well explode, but, rest assured, if you survive then it will be worth it.

Welcome to the dark, chocolatty, socialist side. It's much better over here.

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I'm a died in the wool NDPer an dhave been since I could vote.

Dead sheep don't vote.

[sorry, sometimes I just can't help myself]

I do medium tech science research in my spare time.  The areas I look at are totally ignored by capitalism because they cannot see the quick return from it. Wolfgang Scheffler is probably the most successful solar energy pioneer of all time. But not money wise.  He did it to help other people. You should see the size of his solar kitchens in India.  In fact they are spreading all over the world.  This came from outside the capitalist system and they have still not taken it over.

You compare his work to the entire apple computer company.   Which is a positive for society?   The non CO2 energy production of Scheffler or the junk music listening and texting  tech of apple?  The wheels keep going round and round, faster and faster  but you have to ask why.

Capitalism is a preditory system. You cannot achieve 5% return on capital unless you have war capitalism AND steal from the commons and generally rewrite the rules every year.  So now we have patented seeds, and massive loss of bio diversity everywhere.  In a few years, all brasicae, all household geraniums and many weeds will be owned by monsanto due to the imposibility of stopping pollen.  "hey mister farmer,  why you harvesting that wheat?  Have you got permission from US to cut down those wild raddish?"  " And those wild raddish contain our genes and you are growing those wild raddish ILLEGALLY",  "but I used your damn roundup to kill weeds and these shitty things still grew"

And the farmer will say "f%$# off" and the government and  courts will rule in favour of monsanto. The farmer will lose his farm or pay the fee.  (If he pays the fee he will still lose his farm, it will just take longer).   If people cannot figure out a steady state capitalism, then it is doomed.  So we can say right now, doomed!  They have no backup plan for steady state.  The biological carying capacity of the environment is a limit that capitalism is bumping up against.

Those limits are a little elastic so you can overshoot for a while.  But then the magic elastic flings society back a few thousand years. And there is nothing left to steal anymore.

Ryan1812 wrote:

I've obviously jumped into the fray here but I'm going to say that I like Capitalism. It's brought such cheap goods to my door step, made science what it is today and helped the advancement of new technologies. Without it, we wouldn't be nearly as developed. Competition drives advancement. How would that advancement be driven without the aspect of competitivness. I'm a died in the wool NDPer an dhave been since I could vote. I've been in the party in numerous ways. It's one weakness is it's realization that Capitalism cannot and will not be stopped. It's too adaptable. Marx didn't forsee it. As social democrats we need to move beyond the old paradigm and realize our current realities. We aren't the moral keepers of everything sacred and as such, we need to reach out across partisan lines to attempt to make things better. I left my idealism behind years ago. It's time to get real and deal with facts as they are.

Twelve per-cent, Brian. 12% used to be the capitalist's gold standard here in North America. They wouldn't lift a finger unless it cleared 12 in the civilian economy. They love the computer industry because it enables them to gamble away taxpayers money faster on the too big to be risky, bs stock market. And computerized WMD are real sexy, too. Unless the good idea has something to do with sex or technical capability for causing mega-death, yuo'll have to go cap in hand to the banksters. And they don't lend Canadians' savings to just anybody - they prefer to lend to US oligarchs for purposes of financing the ongoing US takeover of our Northern Banana Repooblica.

Well I was just wondering, how would a provincial Marxist government prevent the Neoliberal Liberals and Tories from rolling back anti-scab, like Mike Harris did with the NDP's progressive legislation?

Would a Marxist provincial government get away with raising corporate tax rates only in Saskatchewan or Manitoba? I don't think so. I think it's a move guaranteed to lose private sector jobs to larger economies East and West of them. And there have been thousands of shitty-scabby jobs created across Canada since the neoliberalorama began over 30 years ago. Very many Canadians depend on  crappy-scabby jobs to earn a living. Many have kids in tow, and now even those jobs will disappear with a provincial Marxist government restructuring of the economy during a first term. Socialism in one province?

But what about a Marxist government in Ottawa? Or even a first NDP federal government with the power to raise overall tax revs to just the OECD average as a percentage of GDP, and never mind raising them to so much as the EU-15 average, heaven forbid. The very idea of it happening, N.Beltov, scares the living daylights out of lackies in the two old line parties and their friends on Bay Street. Ever wonder why there is so much disdain for Europeans in general on this side of the pond? And they think Canadians are docile when it comes to politics. I think they're right.

Yep, that's the good part, Ryan.      And I have the idea that I'm better positioned (geographically) to get news of developing bad stuff.  But again, what you are doing rocks. 

And does the name Dr. Norman Bethune still resonate in the classrooms of China?... from a time when one could put more faith in humanity's good works being independent of the profit motive.

Bethune is considered a national hero in China. But here in Canada, we'd be hard-pressed to find a memorial to him in so much as a foyer of our local hospitals. Here it's the local clique who get their names on plaques for donating money, and they have plenty of it for propping up their own legacies.

I see tha tI have pulled this thread away from it's intent, which is to discuss capitalism. No one can argue that capitalism isn't flexible. As I've argued, Marx didn't forsee this and for this reason, capitalism has outmatched, and outpaced socialism. Ok, but can capitalism be "managed." I remember reading about Korean microeconomist Prof. Lee Joon-koodiscuss managed capitalism as a way to balance unrestrained management of capital on the back of ultra-high leverage. He argues that while this kind of capitalism in in decline, it still accounts for large bubbles in the market, which will inevitably grow and grow in good times and then burst to create the cyle of bust that we all know eventually comes.  Capitalism need sto be balanced and managed and can be if only our leaders were willing to admit that the trickel down Reaganomics of the 1980's failed. Unbridled capitalism isn't the way. Managed capitalism, in my humble opinion, is the best way to have our cake and eat it to.

UPDATED: I'd like to add that if Keyens were alive today, he'd be shaking his finger at us and saying "told ya so." :)

George Victor wrote:

And the late Kenneth Galbraith, who fought Keynes rearguard action against Naomi Klein's "boys from Chicago,"  would be chuckling about "conventional wisdom."

I take it nothing is said about strike actions by labour in China's manufacturing plants? Particularly following the 10th suicide resulting from despair of workers at their pay rate in one electronics plant?  Or the mass psychosis expressed by attacks on kids in classrooms?

IF recovery from the last "bubble" (which was really more a result of the absence of controls on credit expansion) is ever achieved, I believe we will be, by then, well advanced in a "survivor"  phase of capitalism, with increasing state involvement through pension funds.  It'll be interesting. 

But what sort of pensions are available in China?  I understand those folk lead the world in personal savings, but where do they go with their savings? 

I'm glad you mentioned the strike actions and the deaths at Foxcom. You'd be surprised, I bet, to learn that they do make the news. Actually, I foound the reporting on both of the incidence reminded me of CBC style journalism on foreign affairs i.e. necessarily objective. In regards the Foxcom suicides, there was mention of I agree about the survivor phase of capitalism. Without a Marshall Plan to spur investment in Europe  or super power politics I think the survivor state we are in will last longer, but capitalism has pulled out of it before and I'm sure it will be able to again. I can see this "survivor capitalism" crawling from the primordial ooze to just result in a more interventionist capitalism wherein, hopefully, corporate welfare is not the predominant driving force of our governments. But, I may be dreaming.

Well, yes, it is really all about cheap goods, isn't it?

One excellent article and one current news report that should be read in turn:

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The escalating processes of climate disruption, biotic impoverishment and toxification--which continue despite decades of warnings and earnest effort--are a severe indictment of capitalism. Capitalism as it is constituted today produces an economy and politics that are highly destructive to the environment. An unquestioning commitment to economic growth at any cost, powerful corporations whose overriding objective is to grow by generating profits (including profits from avoiding the environmental costs they create, from amassing deep subsidies and benefits from government and from continued deployment of technologies designed with little regard for the environment), markets that fail to recognize environmental costs unless corrected by government, government that is subservient to corporate interests and the growth imperative, rampant consumerism spurred by sophisticated advertising and marketing, economic activity so large in scale that it alters the fundamental biophysical operations of the planet--all combine to deliver an ever growing world economy that is undermining the ability of the planet to sustain life.

http://www.alternet.org/environment/146813/how_global_warming_and_capita...

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Research by the Canadian Index of Wellbeing suggests Canadians are increasingly sacrificing satisfying leisure time to attend to the pressing demands of work, childcare and looking after dependent seniors. A report issued by the Index on Tuesday says there is a need to strike a better balance.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/leisure-time-sacrificed-for...

George Victor wrote:

Great Gaia it's good seeing your postings regarding the need for - and possible means of achieving - revolutionary structural changes, sknguyII and FM. 

Developing the  MEANS of bringing about change will of course require arguments about the crying need - both atmospheric and social.

Perhaps it's scepticism or realism, but I do not think change will come. I believe that the neoliberal consensus that exists is unalterable, and infact too deeply engrained in transnational culture, to be dethroned. The chicago school has won out. Even China is converting, albeit slowly, to neoliberalism and the transnational order. The best way is for each of us to seek an existance within while attempting small degrees of change, both in our own lives, and in the lives of friends, family and fellow adherents, to make existance within neoliberalism possible, and infact, more tolerable.

Ryan1812 wrote:

Perhaps it's scepticism or realism, but I do not think change will come. I believe that the neoliberal consensus that exists is unalterable, and infact too deeply engrained in transnational culture, to be dethroned. The chicago school has won out. Even China is converting, albeit slowly, to neoliberalism and the transnational order.

China would be that Asian country which has converted the least to neoliberal ideology. They couldn't build the infrastructure they have and have expanded economically between six and ten percent for 22 years in a row by following Canada's neoliberal model for targeting two percent inflation and big six banks financing US takeovers of Canada with Canadians' savings. The CPC in Beijing would look at what's happened to Canada and likely conclude: Stoogeorama!

sknguy II wrote:

Ryan1812 wrote:

Perhaps it's scepticism or realism, but I do not think change will come. I believe that the neoliberal consensus that exists is unalterable, and infact too deeply engrained in transnational culture, to be dethroned. The chicago school has won out. Even China is converting, albeit slowly, to neoliberalism and the transnational order. The best way is for each of us to seek an existance within while attempting small degrees of change, both in our own lives, and in the lives of friends, family and fellow adherents, to make existance within neoliberalism possible, and infact, more tolerable.

Conformity, complacency to this realism is a dangerous thing. One should always be prepared for surprises because we can't truly be certain of what the future, under capitalism, has in store. There are likely more economic, and environmental, f-ups yet to surface. The one scary thing for me is how, as the decades pass, our standards of "normal" successively include fewer and fewer species, and less biodiversity. We need to learn that capitalism isn't normal and shouldn't be used as some standard measure of normal. That's oppressive. In terms of a social institution, it stinks... Sorry, I can't think of better descriptor for a system that idolizes inequality.

I agree that we can never be sure of what the future holds, but I contend that no system has been as flexible, adaptable, as capitalism. IT's ability to take hits, adjust, take more hits, adjust further and continue on is staggering when you consider the entirty of the 20th century. What a century for Capitalism it was. I'm not fan, it's true, but if you step back and consider how successful the system has been ad rope-a-doping crisis after crisis, one can truly be amazed at it's endurance.

Jacob Richter wrote:

Capitalism is not as revolutionary as you think.  Otherwise, we'd have plenty more pro-labour reforms than we've ever had.  Some have dared to raise the alarm of neo-feudalism as the real face behind the "liberalization" mask.

I think Capitalism is revolutionary for Corporations. What else allows them such freedom to procure capital at ever more increasing amounts. What else has allowed the Corporate class to concentrate so much wealth in decreasing hands.  As far as pro-labour, the pro-labour times existed only in so far as employers were willing to extend those benefits from pressure from governments. Once governmens found that they would benefit MORE from helping to concentrate capital in fewer hands, out came the knives and the pro-labour luxuries that were enjoyed for so long perished. Capital flexed, and pushed back the revolution at the gates when they offered up medical, dental, pensions, sick leave etc. Once the collective will was broken, it was only a mter of time before the other shoe dropped and we were shown how our complicity in the rise of capitalism meant our own downfall.

Frustrated Mess wrote:

Ryan1812 wrote:

I agree that we can never be sure of what the future holds, but I contend that no system has been as flexible, adaptable, as capitalism. IT's ability to take hits, adjust, take more hits, adjust further and continue on is staggering when you consider the entirty of the 20th century. What a century for Capitalism it was. I'm not fan, it's true, but if you step back and consider how successful the system has been ad rope-a-doping crisis after crisis, one can truly be amazed at it's endurance.

Yes and no. Capitalism did undergo a major crisis in the early to mid-20th century. In fact, capitalism was quite inflexible and remains so in terms of social and economic relationships. If it were not for the WWII and the post-war social contract, things may have turned out quite differently. What I have argued previously, however, and you I think concurs with you, is that consumerism is the perfect machine. If it is not stopped, there will be catastrophe. If it is stopped, there will be catastrope. It can morph into any shape. It can adopt the language of its critics and twist their words and images into a sales pitch. It can convince us we have more leisure time when we're working more hours than ever. It can persuade us that time in front of a screen being bombarded with messages is family time. It is truly remarkable to the extent that it has permeated every facet of our waking lives. But you see, it is not at all sustainable. Already we are reaching the limits of consumer capitalism.

Perhaps we are reaching the terminus of consumer mania, and I'm not saying we, but you can be certain that China isn't even close to starting theirs. I live here. I work here. I observe and have absorbed what most people are doing. They are, you may or may not be happy to know, taking up whatever consumer torch that some feel we in the west have deposited into the Capitalist waste bin of the 20th century. They are buing cars, electronics, new computers and whatever this-thing, that-thing their children desire. They are, ba-dap-ba-ba-ba, loving it.And their consumerism is evident along the trash strewn streets of any side-walk you meander.However, until companies like Apple and RIM have stock turn around towards the 10% percentile, I'll vote for Western consumer mania to continue at a fever pitch. Bring on Christmas and the Kinect.

Frustrated Mess wrote:

Ryan1812 wrote:

Frustrated Mess wrote:

Ryan1812 wrote:

I agree that we can never be sure of what the future holds, but I contend that no system has been as flexible, adaptable, as capitalism. IT's ability to take hits, adjust, take more hits, adjust further and continue on is staggering when you consider the entirty of the 20th century. What a century for Capitalism it was. I'm not fan, it's true, but if you step back and consider how successful the system has been ad rope-a-doping crisis after crisis, one can truly be amazed at it's endurance.

Yes and no. Capitalism did undergo a major crisis in the early to mid-20th century. In fact, capitalism was quite inflexible and remains so in terms of social and economic relationships. If it were not for the WWII and the post-war social contract, things may have turned out quite differently. What I have argued previously, however, and you I think concurs with you, is that consumerism is the perfect machine. If it is not stopped, there will be catastrophe. If it is stopped, there will be catastrope. It can morph into any shape. It can adopt the language of its critics and twist their words and images into a sales pitch. It can convince us we have more leisure time when we're working more hours than ever. It can persuade us that time in front of a screen being bombarded with messages is family time. It is truly remarkable to the extent that it has permeated every facet of our waking lives. But you see, it is not at all sustainable. Already we are reaching the limits of consumer capitalism.

Perhaps we are reaching the terminus of consumer mania, and I'm not saying we, but you can be certain that China isn't even close to starting theirs. I live here. I work here. I observe and have absorbed what most people are doing. They are, you may or may not be happy to know, taking up whatever consumer torch that some feel we in the west have deposited into the Capitalist waste bin of the 20th century. They are buing cars, electronics, new computers and whatever this-thing, that-thing their children desire. They are, ba-dap-ba-ba-ba, loving it.And their consumerism is evident along the trash strewn streets of any side-walk you meander.However, until companies like Apple and RIM have stock turn around towards the 10% percentile, I'll vote for Western consumer mania to continue at a fever pitch. Bring on Christmas and the Kinect.

I didn't say we are reaching the limits of consumer mania. I said we are reaching the limits of consumerism. That is we are reaching the limits of our planet's ability to provide. Your last two sentences say a lot about you. I hope you have small children and you live to witness the onset of their future; the future you have willed to them.

Chicken little eat your heart out. The sky is certainly not calling, and, we have not reached the limits of the planets ability to provide. As far as I'm aware, fossile fuels still exist, and then, I'm sure that corporations will find ways to use the water we have as a consumable product, as Andrew Coyne recently suggested in a Maclean's article. In other words, as canti-corporatist as I am, I do not discount the ability of corporations to find more things for us to consume to maintain their ability to aquire capital. Capital wants, and coporations are wanting.

Yeah. Andrew Coyne. That's where I go for science too. 

This, fellow babblers, is the level of the intellect that explains why as a species we are so badly fucked.

By the way, in parting, water is a consumable product. It is one of those consumable products so badly stressed and upon which all life depends. Fucking Idiocracy.

Blah, blah, blah. From such a person, all of that is a compliment.

RevolutionPlease wrote:

Thanks for speaking up FM.  Don't give up.

I think it's important to point out that my views and beliefs don't actually differe much from FM. However, unlike him and perhaps to my own detriment, I am extremly pecimistic as to the changing course of consumerism and the ability for Capitalism to plow ahead as it has done. For furture reference, and this can be found on any number of posts I have made, I hate corporations, nate the IMF and World Bank and loath the current consumer culture. Seeing what it is doing in China I feel that I have a first hand look that many at home likly do not. Be that as it may, I am a skeptic, a realist and belief, however unhappy it makes me, Capitalism will not, in the near or even distant future, be eliminated or even made to retrograde.

RevolutionPlease wrote:

Perhaps, your ideals are closer to reality but FM really gets to the crux of the point that needs to be done.