Capitalism, The Best Solution to Poverty

[Rum]

Re both the above posts. Marx nailed these issues too. He referred to a number of ‘internal contradictions’ and that capitalism would ultimately destroy itself. Surplus goods, automation, shrinking markets, the levelingbof differential markets, as they all settle into one massive one and so on.

I don’t think I’m actually a Marxist these days. I think things can evolve and the inevitability of some forces coming to a head is a bit of a myth (the inevitability of revolution for example).,you just have to look at Europe to see how much capital has been harnessed, if not actually tamed. One hopes some sort of model which accounts for sustainability, meaningful enterprise for most people and a tolerable standard of life can be achieved.

Course I could be living in cloud cuckoo land.

[rainbow]

Harpo remained strangely silent on the subject...

Ignore the Silent Majority at your peril!

[rainbow]

Is there a difference in emphasis between the terms "capitalism" and "free enterprise", or are they virtually interchangeable?

No. Free enterprise implies that all players in the market are able to sell their goods and services without restrictions. Prices are set by elastic supply and demand drivers.
Capitalism perverts this by controlling markets, restricting entry and competition, and creating a labour pool that is unable to take their skills to earn the best salaries. Effectively Capital is allowed to move freely, but Labour not so much. The end point of this is oligopolistic practices that are in direct contradiction of the free market idea.

For Marx, in his day and age, the ace up the sleeve of Labour was exactly that. All the working class truly owned was their labour and the power to withhold it should the need arise. This could strangle capital ultimately. Of course he couldn’t see the future, hard though he tried to and capitalism has even managed to more or less neutralise that ‘power’ too.

Automation presents a real issue here. Soon Capitalist won't need workers to build and/or distribute their stuff, but without workers with jobs who's going to be around to buy it?

Start a war. A tried and tested way of removing excess production and unemployed workers.

[Scot Dutchy]

Yep that's way to do it.

[Brian Peacock]

Why do we have to go straight to war? What's wrong giving fully automated luxury communism a go first?

[JimC]

At the risk of being attacked by leftists, we must always remember that the attempts to topple capitalist society, basically using "the ends justify the means" ended with massive violence, oppression and totalitarian societies...

Which doesn't change the valid points of describing the serious problems capitalism has brought...

Maybe it's just that homo sap is fucked...

[Brian Peacock]

With that in mind perhaps we can accept this apparent dichotomous conflict between those who think Capitalism is a good or bad idea as being essentially unproductive and divisive. Instead we can frame it as a balance of power issue, saying that rather than simply wanting to string Capitalism up from a lamppost (the kind of characterisation of opposition to Capitalism most often forwarded by Capitalists themselves) we just want to progress society towards a more equitable distribution of power to ultimately improve the material conditions of existence for everyone.

In this we might begin by acknowledging that something which generally distinguishes so-called Left and Right political thought is that the Left broadly want to improve the material conditions of themselves and others whereas the Right broadly want to maintain their own material conditions.

[rainbow]

At the risk of being attacked by leftists, we must always remember that the attempts to topple capitalist society, basically using "the ends justify the means" ended with massive violence, oppression and totalitarian societies...

To replace one ruling class with another doesn't mean that the Capitalist System has been replaced. If the condition of the ordinary people has not improved (and often got worse) then there is no Revolution.

Which doesn't change the valid points of describing the serious problems capitalism has brought...

Restrictive market conditions created to maintain the status quo of the ruling classes?

[rainbow]

Yep that's way to do it.

[Brian Peacock]

With that in mind perhaps we can accept this apparent dichotomous conflict between those who think Capitalism is a good or bad idea as being essentially unproductive and divisive. Instead we can frame it as a balance of power issue, saying that rather than simply wanting to string Capitalism up from a lamppost (the kind of characterisation of opposition to Capitalism most often forwarded by Capitalists themselves) we just want to progress society towards a more equitable distribution of power to ultimately improve the material conditions of existence for everyone.

In this we might begin by acknowledging that something which generally distinguishes so-called Left and Right political thought is that the Left broadly want to improve the material conditions of themselves and others whereas the Right broadly want to maintain their own material conditions.

Just to join the second paragraph to the first here...

When I say that the Right broadly want to maintain their own material conditions it follows that they want to, and seek to, maintain a power imbalance, while the Left want to, and seek to, redress that imbalance. This places the notion of political tension between Left and Right within a context of Politics (big 'P') as arguments and action forwarded on the basis of the distribution of power - rather than it being merely a technocratic or management domain. (At this point we should probably note that those political tensions don't just arise between the broadly Left and the broadly Right though: they can also be found within groups as well as between them).

In fact, when we think about it, it is the different ideas about the right/wrong, good/bad, best/worst ways to distribute power between various groups which identify those who we might label as boradly Left and broadly Right - and it is in defining political groupings on the basis of their ideas about the distribution of power that we might say that Politics is about the distribution of power along the lines of identity: specifically, who should have power (over themselves and/or others) and who should not.

Let's say that in a functional democracy every political party operates on the assumption that they have the best ideas about how to distribute power, and a free and fair electoral system attempts to create a level playing field by which the general population might choose who among these parties should be empowered to represent the public interest - until the next election.

In a dysfunctional democracy political parties operate on the assumption that the distribution of power should be restricted to certain groups; certain identities: which is to say that a democracy becomes dysfunctional when those with access to power seek to limit or exclude the access to power of others - specifically, of those who don't share their identity. A dysfunctional democracy then is one in which the general public are asked to engage not only on a playing field that isn't level but on one that is tilted in favour of some identity over others.

By this characterisation we might say that the assumptions and procedures of a democracy determine whether the distribution and the balance of power operates to represent the public interest (a concept which encompasses all identities) or operates to represent the interests of one identity or a limited range of identities over some others or all others. Which of these characterisations best reflects your own situation I wonder?

Some might think that his characterisation of dys/functional democracy as power im/balance is too simple, and perhaps it is, but a reading of Politics as the distribution of power along the lines of identity also offers another way to represent the differences between broadly Left and broadly Right political thought.

I would argue that broadly Left politics is basically, for want of a better term, identity inclusive whereas broadly Right politics is essentially identity exclusive.

A typical feature of Left-leaning politics is based around an acknowledgement that certain sections of society are not having their interests adequately or equitably represented. By the same token, a typical feature of Right-leaning politics is to look upon the same certain sections of society and say that these identities don't need or deserve to have their interests represented. Where the Left might say that marginalised and minority identities should have the same power over themselves as everybody else in society (but in order to do this certain power imbalances need to be ironed out), the Right might say that either these identities should be excluded from power or else that the Right itself is best-placed to exercise power over them 'for their own good' as it were.

Where the Left might say that in order for Poltics to operate in a functionally democratic way Politics should represent the public interest, which encompasses everyone in society including these marginalised and minority identities, the Right would basically say fuck that shit, and then go on to whinge about how the Left want to give marginalised and minority identities power over everybody who doesn't agree with them.

Not only is the Right wrong to say this, but in fact it can only say this because it is starting from the assumption that Politics involves wielding power over others rather it being about representing the public interest in the broadest possible way.

So where does the so-called Centrist sit in this characterisation? Where is the middle ground between a Politics that seeks to represent the public interest in the broadest possible way and a Politics which seeks to restrict or limit the distribution of power along the lines of identity?

[laklak]

The Have-Nots just want to change places with the Haves. It has always been thus. The first thing Lenin did was move into the Kremlin. He got to drink the Napoleon, the proles got the potato juice. There is nothing new under the sun, it's all fucking vanity.

[Rum]

‘Centrism’ I think arose out of the need, or at least the decision, not to try to overthrow capitalism, in Western Europe and particularly the UK. THe Labour Party went through utter convulsions in jettisoning the revolutionary imperative of Marxism, of course helped no end by a hysterical right wing media and the capitalists themselves of course.

One could argue that, in the UK anyway, centrists are simply toothless socialists who have compromised their ideals to get a few more crumbs for their constituents while all along the actual cake has remained in the same old hands.

Those who would share the cake evenly amongst ‘the people’ have essentially been invalidated and their views made to appear ridiculous, unrealistic and loony. Hegemony at work again.

[Brian Peacock]

The Have-Nots just want to change places with the Haves. It has always been thus. The first thing Lenin did was move into the Kremlin. He got to drink the Napoleon, the proles got the potato juice. There is nothing new under the sun, it's all fucking vanity.

The problem with that I think is not only that it kind of casts everybody as basically insincere when it comes to their politics, but also that it doesn't touch on the distribution of power or how the 'Haves' acquired and/or maintain their state of havefulship in the first place. Saying that marginalised and minority groups would benefit from a more equitable distribution of power doesn't mean that power is necessarily taken away from somebody else, as if there's only so much of it to go round and redistributing it more equitable basically dilutes the amount of power that everybody has. It just means that power is shared in such a way that more people would have more control over their own lives; that marginalised and minority identities would have the same as everybody else, and thus would no longer be marginalised or in a minority.

[Brian Peacock]

‘Centrism’ I think arose out of the need, or at least the decision, not to try to overthrow capitalism, in Western Europe and particularly the UK. THe Labour Party went through utter convulsions in jettisoning the revolutionary imperative of Marxism, of course helped no end by a hysterical right wing media and the capitalists themselves of course.

One could argue that, in the UK anyway, centrists are simply toothless socialists who have compromised their ideals to get a few more crumbs for their constituents while all along the actual cake has remained in the same old hands.

Those who would share the cake evenly amongst ‘the people’ have essentially been invalidated and their views made to appear ridiculous, unrealistic and loony. Hegemony at work again.

If that's basically right - and to some extent I think it's bang on the momey - then it means that our conceptions of a Left-Centre-Right (LCR) political environment is actually an idea that is weighted two-thirds in favour of the Right.

[Rum]

Yes. And they ‘own’ the language too of course.

The problem of course with the alternative - I.e. a movement whose goal it is to truly overthrow the existing system, is the amount of sheer mayhem, death and destruction that it would entail. The revolutions in Russia and China (not the societies Marx predicted would revolt of course - he reckoned on the UK!)..resulted in countless millions of deaths, not just in the revolutions themselves, but the chaos that followed and the attempts at utterly restructuring themselves. In today’s complex interconnected world the results would be unthinkable.

Which means tinkering at the edges is now the only game in town, unless real power decides the game is up, which they aren’t likely to until they are truly cornered.