Capitalism: the cause of and solution to all life's problems

[Moose-tache]

I see one big problem: education. You are allotted a bowling alley at 21, and you know nothing about bowling alleys. But maybe there's an easy fix: you learn what your allotment is at 18 so you have some years to prepare.

Pffft. Dude, my wife and I have tens of thousands of dollars in an index fund. We don't have the slightest idea what we own, let alone what skill sets would be necessary to run it. For all I know, I own 1/100000th of a bowling alley right now. This is the whole point of capital: it's not a job, it's a magic imaginary substance that spits out money for no reason. You're not supposed to roll up your sleeves and touch the business. That's what the managerial class is for. Under economic sortition, you might have a day job running a bowling alley that you had to qualify for by having a degree in, I don't know, bowliology. But your capital holdings might be tungsten mines in Outer Mongolia.

[Ares Land]

Along the same lines, I'm a big partisan of the government directly creating jobs. We have a fairly high unemployment rate in Western Europe, a clearly expressed mandate to put an end to it, and the market's only solution is blackmail and wage slavery. The solution is obvious.

Well, much more France than ot's neighbours, especially the overseas territories. Maybe if the education, job market, people's passions and the skills sets people already have had some more connection perhaps? Especially taking into account the latter two?

The problem is indeed worse in the overseas territories. But France isn't worse off than its neighbours: Spain and Italy have worse unemployment rates and our unemployment rate is close to the Eurozone average.
You're right of course about education, skillsets and peoples' interests. But people gain valuable skills (and a better idea of what they want to do) a lot on the job; the government providing jobs (whatever the exact means) would help a lot in that respect.

basic stuff, but marxists are all for getting something out of it when they work: in fact, our problem with capitalism is that you don't get your work's worth, cause they guy who is blessed by this particular fiction actually gets all of your work's outcomes and in returns gives you as little dosh as possible. profit is not the outcome of labour, but of property and this is why we treat it as a moral failure: it's workers who whip the milk and owners who get the cream.

I really don't disagree with that. But I think the question isn't really how to eliminate profits, but how to make sure the people who get some of it or those who actually work.

[MacAnDàil]

Along the same lines, I'm a big partisan of the government directly creating jobs. We have a fairly high unemployment rate in Western Europe, a clearly expressed mandate to put an end to it, and the market's only solution is blackmail and wage slavery. The solution is obvious.

Well, much more France than ot's neighbours, especially the overseas territories. Maybe if the education, job market, people's passions and the skills sets people already have had some more connection perhaps? Especially taking into account the latter two?

The problem is indeed worse in the overseas territories. But France isn't worse off than its neighbours: Spain and Italy have worse unemployment rates and our unemployment rate is close to the Eurozone average.
You're right of course about education, skillsets and peoples' interests. But people gain valuable skills (and a better idea of what they want to do) a lot on the job; the government providing jobs (whatever the exact means) would help a lot in that respect.

Ah yes, that's true on both points. For unemployment, I was thinking of Germany for example. It seems it's Southern Europe which is more affected than Northern Europe.

[Torco]

basic stuff, but marxists are all for getting something out of it when they work: in fact, our problem with capitalism is that you don't get your work's worth, cause they guy who is blessed by this particular fiction actually gets all of your work's outcomes and in returns gives you as little dosh as possible. profit is not the outcome of labour, but of property and this is why we treat it as a moral failure: it's workers who whip the milk and owners who get the cream.

I really don't disagree with that. But I think the question isn't really how to eliminate profits, but how to make sure the people who get some of it or those who actually work.

they're not profits if the workers get them, innit? but in the broad sense they do, thank god: capitalism isn't so bad that all of our work goes to capital, but the rate of exploitation is high: in chile it's something like 60% right now. workplace democracy is a good way to do it, to be honest. nationalizing capital and just assigning it to coops is another: the problem is that the market performs a function, i.e. coordinating work with need: hence planning.

[Ares Land]

How about making sure most people get some access to capital too? (One way or another: maybe through state investment funds that redistribute the profits, maybe through a basic capital grants; there are several methods that could be used in parallel.)

[Travis B.]

also it's not that bad if people don't start training for jobs at 8 years old, methinks: there's something to be said for children being children, as opposed to workers.

Of course to me programming was something I enjoyed as a hobby as a kid and still enjoy as a hobby to this day. To me it also being a future career was just natural but I did not see it as being merely early job training.

Agreed completely. To me the problem is not profit at all, but that workers do not get the product of their labor under capitalism, as the property owners at the top skim off the profits and throw the workers a pittance in return. (Of course taxes have to be taken out even in a socialist system, as much of society will require them for it to function.)

that's kind of what profit means, though: making money out of the delta between what the work is worth and how little you can get away with paying people by virtue of ownership. I agree that in regular speech profit can just mean make money, and this is why nerdy and old-fashioned reds use the word exploitation, which is not just lato sensu causing someone to be worse off for one's own sake but amongst socialists it's kind of a technical term meaning appropriation of surplus value.

marx should really have gone with technical terms instead of political ones, but then again german may just be confusing: pardon the sapir-whorf but few german thinkers of the age have the virtue of really clear nomenclature.

Profit as I understand it is the money left over after all expenses are taken into account, including money reinvested back into maintaining or expanding a business. It can be money skimmed off the top by the capitalist class, i.e. exploitation, or it can be money paid back to the workers in addition to their wages.

[zompist]

I see one big problem: education. You are allotted a bowling alley at 21, and you know nothing about bowling alleys. But maybe there's an easy fix: you learn what your allotment is at 18 so you have some years to prepare.

Pffft. Dude, my wife and I have tens of thousands of dollars in an index fund. We don't have the slightest idea what we own, let alone what skill sets would be necessary to run it. For all I know, I own 1/100000th of a bowling alley right now. This is the whole point of capital: it's not a job, it's a magic imaginary substance that spits out money for no reason. You're not supposed to roll up your sleeves and touch the business. That's what the managerial class is for. Under economic sortition, you might have a day job running a bowling alley that you had to qualify for by having a degree in, I don't know, bowliology. But your capital holdings might be tungsten mines in Outer Mongolia.

You mentioned nationalizing sole proprietorships as well as corporations, so your proposal amounts to a) spreading profit all over the population, and b) separating ownership from management except in the case of founders.

This is kind of the what the flaids came up with, but that's a discussion for elsewhere.

Because of the thorough redistribution, it's probably still a pretty good implementation of one aspect of Marxism— i.e., it socializes profit.

On the other hand, it ignores another aspect— worker control. You've basically got two classes of people taking a big share of the workers' labor here: the rentier class (redefined to be "everybody") and the managers. How well this system works probably depends a lot on how well managers are paid and trained, how separate they are from workers, and how inflexible the profit system is. (An owner has the option to reduce profits in bad times— rentiers generally want their cut no matter what, and that would probably be more so, not less, if it's "everybody".)

[Travis B.]

On the other hand, it ignores another aspect— worker control. You've basically got two classes of people taking a big share of the workers' labor here: the rentier class (redefined to be "everybody") and the managers. How well this system works probably depends a lot on how well managers are paid and trained, how separate they are from workers, and how inflexible the profit system is. (An owner has the option to reduce profits in bad times— rentiers generally want their cut no matter what, and that would probably be more so, not less, if it's "everybody".)

This system has the issue that however the managers are compensated may result in the same distortions one sees under present-day capitalism, e.g. executives making decisions that will inevitably result in companies being run into the ground so as to increase their own bonuses (e.g. making a temporary profit but ultimately mortgaging companies' futures by, say, firing the R&D department so as to avoid having to pay them). A system fundamentally based on worker control does not have this problem, because workers will be loath to make decisions that will cost them their jobs, either in the short term (e.g. by deciding to fire themselves), or in the long term (e.g. by sacrificing the company's ability to perform by firing the R&D department on which its long-term success relies).

[Travis B.]

Moving this discussion to the capitalism thread...

I don't know, having public ownership of business and market stuff but banning mergers is kind of the right hand working against the left one: mergers are not in principle bad, and if we had a capitalist system the way the old liberals envisioned it they'd be a great way to allocate resources to the guys who do whatever thing better and to increase efficiency: my thinking is more that we define by law how many different companies is enough in any given market (say, six for internet, seventy thousand for pizza) and if there's any less than that... for example you could have every one of them pay a big chunk of money to a fund, and that fund just straight up goes to starting another one, hopefully making it very easy for workers of those too-few-businesses to start a coop to compete with their former employers. that way the only mergers that happen are good ones, and you encourage de-mergers (splits?) too, which is also a good thing.

The thing is that capitalism never works as it is "supposed to". In reality, capitalism is all about merger after merger, with merged entities very frequently shedding jobs and locations along the way, not because things would necessary be better that way (after all, companies should exist to create jobs and provide goods and services, and this goes against both of these) but because it makes money for the capitalists in question, whether by monetizing their ownership of companies or by eliminating competitors, consolidating the market in their hands, taking over companies for their intellectual properly or particular assets while eliminating the rest of said companies, and so on.

[Torco]

I mean, I entirely agree: don't get me wrong, I'd just socialize all means of production in an orderly and well planned out manner and just get to some post-capitalist arrangement inspired by socialism and capitalism but also actually democratic and, therefore, unpredictable: but if we're gonna stick with capi, and it seems like we're gonna, the whole point of economic policy is to alter the incentive structure of it in order to get the outcomes we want despite it: making it less efficient seems like the wrong way to do it, and just banning merger it doesn't achieve the result we want anyway: it's competition and avoiding oligopolies that we want, not stasis.

[MacAnDàil]

Also, mergers are bad in principle in my opinion. It's just concentrating power in the hands of a few bosses, which always an awful idea.

[Torco]

Well, they're always bad qua increasing concentration, but there are more factors to consider here: we kind of want businesses who do whatever it is they do poorly to either change or cease operations <since, ceteris paribus, we want human labours to be performed as efficiently as possible, hopefully we produce in 20 hours what we used to in 30>, but when businesses close up a lot of things are wasted: people learned to make chairs, customers had memorized where to go to buy chairs, there are band saws and sandpaper and guoges and varnishes all in the same place: it's in a way better if those things are still employed at making chairs than it would be if those things just went back to market, the carpenters go to unemployment and all the rest of it: the thing is, we want there to be somewhat equal pressures towards merger and split so that across time the amount of businesses in an industry remains somewhat the same, or at least in an optimal band where it's not so many that we lose out on economies of scale, but not so few that they can make an oligopoly. if we had half a million auto manufacturers, it'd not be that big a deal if one bought another.

of course, problem is in real capitalism all we have is pressures towards merger, and so what we do get is oligopolies.

[sangi39]

So, it's been a bit, but, talking to a friend recently about the weather in mid-July here in the UK and what they're looking at now in Canada, and climate change more broadly... Is there any general "leftist" (communist, socialist, anarchist, etc.) line of thinking in how to contend with climate change that isn't, generally speaking, the result of looking at climate data and relating that data back to capitalism (I suppose excluding things like the "primitivist" movements)? Like, I see a fair few modern left communists saying that, were people, workers, able to directly negotiate and vote on how resources are used, and where they come from, and all that, that workers, in general, just wouldn't align themselves with in-work and out-work policies that would eventually lead to climate change (like the use of fossil fuels, for example), but then you look at soviet communism, Chinese communism, etc. which, fair, were/are largely state run and meant to "show that communism could be as good as capitalism" lead to the massive use of non-renewable materials as a fuel source.

So, I guess, what's going on? Are "green policies" inherently left-wing, or is the modern far left just suggesting that they're inherently left-wing because capitalist structures continue to drill the crap out of oil reserves beyond the point that it's "healthy" for the world?

Don't get me wrong, as I've mentioned in earlier posts, I'm all for democracy in the workplace and a more democratic political structure, but are "green" policies inherent to those structures, or a reaction to climate change? And if it's just a reaction... what else is wrong? (from what I can remember, for example, in earlier socialist movements, women, to varying extents, were excluded, and then some "native" movements were excluded from socialist/communist movements outside of the imperial core..)

(I guess, similarly, to what extent can communist inherently combat ableism - or rather address the social construct - and throughout history there have been many workers' movements that have been socially conservative, in part due to the underlying ideology and also due to the beliefs of the workers involved)

If communism, at its most basic level, derives from democratic control of the means of production and distribution, how might communist movements combat long-term negative effects that arise from that exact democracy?

[zompist]

So, I guess, what's going on? Are "green policies" inherently left-wing, [...] ?

No, unfortunately, but the contingent nature of polarization means that leftists are more likely to be green.

Climate change is not caused by "capitalism," and attempts to say so are progagandistic and ultimately self-defeating. It's kind of like those movies where the superheroes and supervillains team up to face a greater threat: it's to everyone's benefit that we preserve the ecosphere and its present friendliness to human beings. On an issue where we need everyone working together, demanding political purity actually makes things worse.

Climate change is caused by all of us, by our global industrial civilization. As you note, communist regimes were as destructive to the environment or more so than capitalist ones. The biggest contributor of carbon emissions right now is China; the second-biggest is the US. Communist oil drills and factories and cars and tanks and coal mines are not inherently more virtuous than capitalist ones.

Because climate change is not caused by "capitalism", eliminating capitalism would not solve it. Climate change is caused by carbon emissions; so it can only be stopped by greatly reducing emissions. For the US, that means re-orienting the entire economy away from gas-wasting cars. For China it means not ramping up coal burning. For everyone it means a serious switch to renewable energy; this is far more doable than it used to be, but it probably still requires a lot of R&D.

You're also quite right that communists have been slow or regressive on social justice issues; and this produces a major credibility problem today, because they can never admit that they were wrong about anything. Why should we trust a communist who admits abstractly that the USSR went wrong somehow, but can't explain exactly how, or what would be different next time?

As for democracy... well, it's way better than authoritarianism, but it has problems of its own. The people as a whole are often better than their leaders. On the other hand, the people as a whole can also be bigoted, or way too attached to destructive practices (like, oh, cars).

[Travis B.]

You're also quite right that communists have been slow or regressive on social justice issues; and this produces a major credibility problem today, because they can never admit that they were wrong about anything. Why should we trust a communist who admits abstractly that the USSR went wrong somehow, but can't explain exactly how, or what would be different next time?

Marxism-Leninism has never had the time of the day for social justice; some other portions of the left have overall been better, such as anarchism, but I remember when I was an anarchist social justice was called "liberalism", with a deliberately derogatory tone, because social justice people were seen as primarily concerned with identity issues at the expense of fighting the class war, for the worker and against capitalism (whether private or state) and authority.

As for democracy... well, it's way better than authoritarianism, but it has problems of its own. The people as a whole are often better than their leaders. On the other hand, the people as a whole can also be bigoted, or way too attached to destructive practices (like, oh, cars).

Democracy of course is a piss-poor form of government... except that all the alternatives are far worse.

[Ares Land]

Under totalitarian communism, of course, you can't mention any issues. There are no institutions that would allow feedback or criticism.

By contrast, capitalism gets a very efficient venue for criticism. Not only can you point out problems, you can make a comfortable living that way!
(I'm sure Chomsky is finding left-wing politics a lot less work and a lot more profitable than linguistics.)

The problem with capitalism and that everyone knows there's a problem with climate, but nothing gets done.
(Well, stuff gets done; but it's excruciatingly slow.)

What you get is complete denial of the problem or diversions. (Climate change doesn't exist! It's the poor's fault with their smartphones and Wifi!)
I think the problem is wealth inequality. The rich are in practice entirely above the law. We don't dare touch them, because they supposedly create jobs; they have enough resources to spread counter narratives (like 'Climate change doesn't exist and it's all China's fault anyway.'); more importantly, they hog enough resources that there's not much left to address the issue.

As for democracy... well, it's way better than authoritarianism, but it has problems of its own. The people as a whole are often better than their leaders. On the other hand, the people as a whole can also be bigoted, or way too attached to destructive practices (like, oh, cars).

I'm completely nonplussed by the way people vote. As one example, young people ('young' being, roughly, under 30) don't vote much these days. There have been of course, surveys, trying to explain this. Apparently the key factor is that they feel politicians aren't concerned enough about the environment which is totally fair... Except we had no less than four candidates that made it a major issue, and offered fairly ambitious platforms to deal with it.

Then again... In view of the dominant narratives, it makes complete sense. Generally we get the message that a) the government is there mostly to manage things, not to make any big changes, and if it can improve things it'll be at the margin. The economy is as it is, due to impersonal, mysterious forces and certainly not the product of collective decisions. b) as I think I mentioned here earlier, we get the message that, with respect to climate change, we're doomed anyway.

[Raphael]

Under totalitarian communism, of course, you can't mention any issues. There are no institutions that would allow feedback or criticism.

By contrast, capitalism gets a very efficient venue for criticism. Not only can you point out problems, you can make a comfortable living that way!
(I'm sure Chomsky is finding left-wing politics a lot less work and a lot more profitable than linguistics.)

The problem with capitalism and that everyone knows there's a problem with climate, but nothing gets done.
(Well, stuff gets done; but it's excruciatingly slow.)

I'm reminded of a quote by some Cuban dissident (sorry, I forgot their name) along the lines of "The Communist System and the Capitalist System both kick you in the ass; the difference is that, under the Capitalist System, you're allowed to scream, while under the Communist System, you're required to applaud."

That does, of course, only apply in cases where capitalism is combined with a kindasorta democratic political system; it doesn't apply under a right-wing dictatorship.

[zompist]

Under totalitarian communism, of course, you can't mention any issues. There are no institutions that would allow feedback or criticism.

By contrast, capitalism gets a very efficient venue for criticism. Not only can you point out problems, you can make a comfortable living that way!
(I'm sure Chomsky is finding left-wing politics a lot less work and a lot more profitable than linguistics.)

Good points! Except I'm not so sure about Chomsky's income. The man's been a tenured professor since forever, his books are required reading all over... if anyone makes money from linguistics it's him!

The problem with capitalism and that everyone knows there's a problem with climate, but nothing gets done.
(Well, stuff gets done; but it's excruciatingly slow.)

What you get is complete denial of the problem or diversions.

I feel like we're in the part of a history book where the reader keeps saying "Wait, how come they were so stupid?"

I don't see any inherent reason why these problems can't be solved. As recently as the 1990s, we had things like the ozone hole, and lo and behold, business and government cooperated to solve the problem.

One of Asimov's books has, I kid you not, huge stupidifying machines in space aimed at humans below. Maybe they started up around then.

[Ares Land]

I feel like we're in the part of a history book where the reader keeps saying "Wait, how come they were so stupid?"

I don't see any inherent reason why these problems can't be solved. As recently as the 1990s, we had things like the ozone hole, and lo and behold, business and government cooperated to solve the problem.

One of Asimov's books has, I kid you not, huge stupidifying machines in space aimed at humans below. Maybe they started up around then.

There are several things here.

First, we hid our heads in the sand a lot more. I think Limits to Growth was basically ignored; I don't know when we found out about the greenhouse effect, but I'm pretty sure it was well known in the 80s. So in a sense we're doing better now.

Second, the ozone layer was comparatively an easy fix. You could switch from CFC to other coolant gas relatively easily. Switching to electric cars or trains is a lot more expensive, because you need to rebuild a lot of infrastructure.

However, you're still right in saying the government and corporations were better at cooperating to make things suck less.

My theory is that it's due to the Soviet Bloc. When the bad guys next door promise universal prosperity, you kind of have to do the same -- and deliver, because you don't know if they're bluffing or not. A few examples:
a) The Soviets were in part influential in decolonization or the Civil Rights movement -- they never stopped rubbing the West's nose in its racism.
b) General prosperity in the post-war US had links to the Cold War. When Soviets and American leaders were competing to see who had the biggest kitchen at the World Fair, some of the bragging had to be implemented somehow.
c) In France we got a lot of nice things for the very simple reason that the Communists were right there and ready to take over. De Gaulle was a reactionary general with links to both paramilitary groups and the mob, but he was smart enough to realize we were one recession away from a communist takeover.
d) It's long been noted that West Germany was very prosperous and had, overall, a very reasonable business class. But these guys had lived through a totalitarian takeover, and the alternative to being very reasonable was right next door in East Germany.

Now countries can be led by A) Reactionary plutocrats (Europe, the US) B) Outright fascists as in China or Russia... There's not much of an incentive from group A to do better, eh?

[alice]

One of Asimov's books has, I kid you not, huge stupidifying machines in space aimed at humans below. Maybe they started up around then.

He was prescient. These things are nowadays known as "television", "Twitter", "Facebook", "Tabloid newspapers", and so on.