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Capitalism - A Marxist Perspective.

OP

gideon2000uk

All we are pointing out is that you fail to understand that the cornerstone of capitalism is free people making voluntary exchnges.

It is perfectly possible witihn a capitalism economy to go back to growing all of your own food and living a subsistance lifestyle, or indeed, to work for yourself and employ others who also freely contractually oblige themselves to you.

Your critique also fails to give a viable alternative.

I don't see capitalism as it exists as being characterised by 'free people' making 'voluntary exchange'.

My OP identifies how in capitalism many people are deprived of control over their means of production rendering them only capable of sustaining themselves by participating in the wage-labour requirements of the capitalist. The wage-labourer is 'free' only to sell their labour and sell it in terms which suits the capitalists. The exchange is one in which the wage-labourer has no options but to make with one capitalist or another. The removal of the means of production from an individual in a capitalist system means the labourer is neither free in his ability to sustain his existence nor in any reasonable sense exchanging voluntarily. Moreover, the nature of the work undertaken is itself determined entirely by the capitalists needs - if the markets no longer need your skills (the ones you've developed to suit the needs of the capitalists) you have to suffer unemployment or develop a new set of skills. Given what I've just said I can't accept that 'free people' or 'voluntary exchange' are central to how capitalism actually works.

Only people with sufficient capital can 'revert' to a self-sustaining existence.

My OP doesn't offer any alternative, let alone a viable one, but that's not the intention of the post. My intention is solely to explain and critique capitalism - this is an entirely viable exercise in itself, in my view, regardless of whether or not there are 'viable alternatives' as you put it. Indeed, it's not impossible that capitalism is the most viable system, or even the only viable one, either as it is now or subject to modification, but I'm not addressing that. By all means criticise my critique but it's a little unfair to cricise something I'm not talking about - either my OP offers reasonable explanations of capitalism or it doesn't, regardless of whether there are any viable systems.

Reply 41

Oswy

OP

15

The problems with your line of reasoning start at the beginning and continue from there. Here you decide to define capitalism not as a consistent philosophical concept, but just whatever policies the "ruling classes" enact. This means that things like mercantilism and feudalism and the aspects of those systems that have survived into the modern era (the 19th century if you're taking a purely Marxist perspective). In fact capitalism (or 'free market liberalism', as I could more correctly term it) had a very clear and specific definition at the time Marx was writing, and that was founded essentially on the principle of self-ownership, from which everything else is derived. Now society in 19th century Europe was not consistently a 'free market liberal' place, but free market liberalism was largely responsible for the progress society had made starting in the 18th century and continuing to this day. Collingwood.

My critique was of capitalism pretty much as Marx defined it. I’m happy for you to criticise the definition. Otherwise, everything you’ve said here is a wordy attempt to redirect the object of my critique. Nice try.

Defining capitalism as you did, and not as a system founded on self-ownership, along with an ignorance of history, is what leads you to misunderstand what is going on here. The means of production had not been removed from the workers. Not only had the workers never historically owned their farms in even in the agrian economy, but the new means of production of the 19th century (ie. factories) were just that - new. They had only ever belonged to their present owners, built on debt at the owners' risk. As such, the working classes did not lose anything at all - they had never owned the factories and, if they had wanted, they could have continued with their agrian lifestyles. Collingwood.

This is irrelevant. I don’t accept capitalism as being a matter of ‘self-ownership’, there’s a definition in my OP for a reason. As for history, pre-industrial British society was one filled with customary rights wherein self-sustenance, combined with co-operative sustenance, was a widespread phenomenon. Maybe you should look up the enclosure movement too? Lots of capital was accrued in farming as a result of the widespread ‘redistribution’ of land and it being enshrined in a more overt sense of ‘ownership’.

The question we must ask ourselves is: why didn't they? If you adopt a Marxist outlook this is hard to rationalise - why would someone willingly subject themself to "alienation" and "exploitation" by someone who would only ever pay them a subsistence wage? Marx decides to rationalise this by claiming that the workers had somehow been made into kinds of serfs, but this is not true. Due to the principle of self-ownership that pervaded at that time, factory owners did not have the power to coerce people into working in their factories. The working classes were desperate for factory jobs because they provided a better wage than any other occupation open to them. Collingwood.

More irrelevancies. I’m not critiquing a phenomenon as you define it.

This is why we witness the European population explosion beginning in the 18th and 19th century, and why London becomes the largest city on the face of the earth. Living standards, whilst low compared to modern standards, were better than they had ever been. Marx lived at a time of great increase in living standards, but while if he had a scientific mind he could have examined the evidence and seen this, he instead chose to blindly deny it was happening. Collingwood.

Actually the mortality rates in towns and cities was much higher than in the countryside until late in the 19th century. Look it up if you want. Accelerating enclosure forced many off the land and an increasingly capitalistic approach to farming needed fewer labourers.

You diverge from Marx's thought by claiming the contrary, probably because you realise how stupid you would look today if you followed the Marxist line to the letter, but your rationalisation is also based on your misunderstanding of the capitalist system - in a society where everyone has self-ownership, competition for labour is not just an incidental, temporary process that will eventually give way to the reduction of all wages to subsistence level as predicted by Marx all along, but a natural and unavoidable process. Both the owner and the worker are free agents, and neither can compel the other to work for him - it is in the interests of both for the workers to work in the owner's factory. It is true that it is in the owner's interests for the workers to work for nothing, but equally it is in the workers' interests for the owner to pay them all the profits - what actually happens is something in between, dependent on how many other factories and how many other potential workers there are. Collingwood.

I’m not even sure what you’re saying here.

If workers were indeed the only component of a successful economy then they could simply build and operate the factory themselves. The reason that they don't - and instead work for someone else who built a factory on his own - is that workers are not the only components of a successful economy. How, then, can it be claimed that factory owners do not provide anything of economic value? Collingwood.

Factories are built with capital which has accrued through the use of wage-labourers. Labourers do build factories – they just don’t own them. The owners organise the capital and get results, sometimes spectacular results, but it is the labourer that actually produces stuff or provides services which in turn is converted to capital.

Formula 1, Big Brother and other leisure activities cost money to produce. Would you rather that the funding for them be extorted from people at gunpoint by the government than funding be provided by freely as part of a mutually acceptable exchange? Or would you rather they just be banned? I don't understand what you are trying to say here. Collingwood.

I was pointing out how leisure and leisure time – the time we are supposed to be free from capitalism’s demands - are themselves infused with capitalism’s demands. Leisure is cringingly capitalised in Formula One Racing which is why I though it an especially good example.

Further errors as a result of your skewed definition. Capitalism is a system that gives everyone self-ownership, not one that gives special power to some sort of "overclass". Of course employers want to pay workers as little as possible, but workers want to be paid as much as possible. Since neither of them can force the other to do what they want, they have to enter a mutually acceptable exchange, which is why we have actually observed rapidly rising living standards throughout the time capitalism has been the dominant economic system in the world, rather than the plateauing of living standard that your theory predicts. Collingwood.

There’s no mutually acceptable exchange, there’s an exchange which suits the stronger party, almost always the capitalist. Presumably you’re unfamiliar with low-wages, inhumane or dangerous working conditions, casual redundancy and unemployment. Living standards have risen in the advanced-capitalist west, but I think there’s plenty of evidence to show that this is in some measure a result of less praiseworthy activities of capitalism in a global context – as I’ve highlighted already capitalism is a global system and has to be judged in contemporary terms globally.

The environment is damaged as a result of all industrial activity, not just capitalist industrial activity, and people (even communists, believe it or not) place more importance on the enhanced living standards industrial activity brings than the prosperity of often beautiful but ultimately useless wildlife. Environmental damage has been even worse in the Soviet Union and other planned economies of the kind Marx advocated, although admittedly as a result of the inefficient and backward nature of the industry these economies have created, rather than any intentional attack on the environment. Capitalism, meanwhile, disallows the damage of others' property without their consent. Collingwood.

I’ve not been defending communism, an error made by other posters. The fact remains that much capitalist activity has been environmentally damaging and that capitalism as a system does not value the environment.

In the sense that if you sit in the middle of the road people won't bring you food and clothes and a house, yes you have to work. You don't have to work for someone else, nor do you have to work for just one potential employer. People often prefer working for others because it is easier than entrepreneurship, but that is not the same, nor is it true to say that just because of someone's inclination to work for an employer (if you accept that lack of inclination to work for themselves is equivalent to coersion on the part of the system) they are in any sense forced to work for any individual employer. The market does represent the value of your labour to others - what measure of value would you use? Collingwood.

In a capitalist system it is the capitalist which determines what wage-labour they require. It follows that the wage-labourer’s ‘value’ is the capitalist’s value, not his own. Where a wage-labourer has developed skills to suit the availability of work he is then at the mercy of the continuation of that work. When rendered unemployed the wage-labourer might easily find that the labour skills which the capitalists had valued they no longer do and a new set of skills (to fit the needs of capitalists) are required.

Yes, you quite clearly realise that the only way you can possibly defend your "people don't have a choice what work to do" claim is to widen your scope from just the capitalist west to include poorly developed and socialist countries as well. I don't see how that demonstrates the failings of capitalism, which is not implemented consistently across the globe. Collingwood.

Capitalism is now very much a global system, it must be judged in this respect.

In so far as class even exists, it is perfectly possible in the capitalist world to become very rich starting from any level. It is certainly possible for the vast majority to achieve a comfortable standard of living. Collingwood.

There are exceptions to prove the rule, but clearly not everyone can escape wage-labour status and become capitalist masters. Moreover, not everyone may want to become a capitalist, but the capitalist paradigm requires that we exist somewhere within its process.

Capitalism did not cause racism or sexism - both are far older concepts that have been gradually eroding throughout the time capitalism has existed. Collingwood.

I agree that capitalism didn’t cause racism or sexist, but it went some way to exploit and amplify these things.

So why aren't they the fruits of capitalism? Is it just a coincidence that all of these things are concentrated almost exclusively in the capitalist west? Collingwood.

The fruits of capitalism are real, and often spectacular, but they are the product of labour turned into capitalism. The exploitation of the wage-labourer - whose means of production has been appropriated by the capitalist – is the root of capitalism’s ‘gories’.

Employers don't feed workers like pets, as you magnanimously proclaim, but as a result of a mutually acceptable exchange. In Marx's day, when the residue of the feudal system meant that most of the factories were owned by aristocrats, this was a more defensible proposition, but nowadays when many employers were originally "working class" it just sounds ridiculous. Collingwood.

Again, I refer you to consideration of capitalism as a global system. And I also direct you to my earlier refutation of capitalism as one entailing ‘mutually acceptable exchange’.

Finally, let me thank you for the opportunity to work through some of my points, much appreciated!

Reply 42

RawJoh1

14

DrunkHamster

First of all you're confusing a moral act with an enforcible moral act. Would it be immoral to refuse food to a starving person if you had plenty? Probably. But should it be enforcible? Should the starving person be able to seek redress for this immoral action? That's a whole other question. But this is a different situation from, say when a mugger robs someone's wallet at knifepoint. Is the mugger acting immorally? Probably. Should the victim be able to seek redress for this immoral action? Absolutely, because his rights have been violated. I don't see how you can say the rights of the Vietnamese worker have been violated by someone refusing to engage in a co-operative transaction with them...

Secondly, I honestly don't see your point about jumping in front of bullets. Surely under your twisted conception of morality, if it was in my power to jump in front of the bullet I would morally have to do so, else I'm as guilty as the person who pulled the trigger. Can you explain why this absurd conclusion doesn't follow?

I don't see where I've confused an immoral act with an enforceable moral act. I haven't argued that we should change the economic system, have I? I have made no comments whatsoever on what is enforceable.

Instead of talking about enforceable moral acts, I was talking about the free-choice of those who work in sweatshops. If my alternative to working in a sweatshop is starvation or living further below the poverty line, then damn straight I'm going to elect to work in a sweatshop. But that X is preferable to Y is not evidence of a 'free choice' as shown by my mugger counter-example. I can't see a relevant reason that would make handing my wallet over unfree, yet being a wage-slave free. In both cases, I do not have a real choice due to barriers erected by other agents (be they the mugger, or the numerous agents who enforce a particular system of property relations).

My point about bullets was expressed crudely, as I was in a hurry. If I was to be more precise, I would say use something similar to Singer's principle (I've replied to you in that thread by the way, sorry about taking ages). This gets round prima facie unreasonable moral demands such as the man in America that Gideon uses as a counter-example.

DrunkHamster

Exactly, that is precisely the point of property rights - to own x is to be the one person with the right to freely use x according to taste. But I know of no conception of property rights which would allow someone to say "this half of the island is mine and this half is yours." There has to be some Lockean mixing of labour in the process.

In which case you agree with me that private property relations limit the freedom of those without the property. Now, that doesn't make private property bad, but we ought to at least care about those who don't own the property.

FIMN

And I believe Bis studied economics at LSE.

Egg on my face!

Reply 43

DrunkHamster

8

Oswy

My critique was of capitalism pretty much as Marx defined it. I’m happy for you to criticise the definition. Otherwise, everything you’ve said here is a wordy attempt to redirect the object of my critique. Nice try.

You're attacking a strawman in that case. No one is arguing for a system of mercantilism, just a society where people have self-ownership, property rights and freedom of exchange. Most of modern capitalism follows from that.

This is irrelevant. I don’t accept capitalism as being a matter of ‘self-ownership’, there’s a definition in my OP for a reason.

You can define what you like as you like, that doesn't change the facts. Capitalism as practiced in the 19th century was about as much of a distortion as, say the policies of North Korea are from communist teachings now.

As for history, pre-industrial British society was one filled with customary rights wherein self-sustenance, combined with co-operative sustenance, was a widespread phenomenon.

What does this sentence actually mean?

Maybe you should look up the enclosure movement too? Lots of capital was accrued in farming as a result of the widespread ‘redistribution’ of land and it being enshrined in a more overt sense of ‘ownership’.

Again, nobody here is going to stand up and defend enclosure as practiced - you're attacking a strawman.

Actually the mortality rates in towns and cities was much higher than in the countryside until late in the 19th century. Look it up if you want. Accelerating enclosure forced many off the land and an increasingly capitalistic approach to farming needed fewer labourers.

THIS IS NOT CAPITALISM. This is tyranny and oppression of poor people by the government and people who run the government, which has always happened.

Factories are built with capital which has accrued through the use of wage-labourers. Labourers do build factories – they just don’t own them. The owners organise the capital and get results, sometimes spectacular results, but it is the labourer that actually produces stuff or provides services which in turn is converted to capital.

You really do just have a fundamental misunderstanding of economics if that is what you think. If the owners are entirely useless, why is it that they exist as a class? Surely a worker run company, like for example the Co-op, would put everything else out of business? Why has this not happened?

Also, anyone is free to become a capitalist. All you have to do is have a good idea and pitch it to the right people. Alternatively, any worker has the ability to save enough money within a few years of working to start their own business and become one of the evil, exploitative capitalists and make loads of money. Why do so few do it?

The answer to all this is that, of course, capitalists are essential. They provide expertise, capital, and most importantly the willingness to risk that capital by investing it in businesses which pay off in the long term, rather than go for short term satisfaction.

I was pointing out how leisure and leisure time – the time we are supposed to be free from capitalism’s demands - are themselves infused with capitalism’s demands. Leisure is cringingly capitalised in Formula One Racing which is why I though it an especially good example.

I honestly don't understand where you're coming from. Are you saying that people are forced to watch Formula One against their will? Obviously if you don't like it, you have the power to switch channels or switch off. I really can't imagine the arrogance you must have to think you know how people should spend their leisure time better than they do.

There’s no mutually acceptable exchange, there’s an exchange which suits the stronger party, almost always the capitalist. Presumably you’re unfamiliar with low-wages, inhumane or dangerous working conditions, casual redundancy and unemployment. Living standards have risen in the advanced-capitalist west, but I think there’s plenty of evidence to show that this is in some measure a result of less praiseworthy activities of capitalism in a global context – as I’ve highlighted already capitalism is a global system and has to be judged in contemporary terms globally.

All exchange is mutually acceptable, otherwise it would not take place. I don't understand how you don't see this. Why do you think we have such good working conditions in the West at the moment? Let me give you a hint, it's nothing to do with the government or any socialist intervention. It's because the competition for jobs is such that companies need to offer good conditions in order to attract workers in the first place!

I’ve not been defending communism, an error made by other posters. The fact remains that much capitalist activity has been environmentally damaging and that capitalism as a system does not value the environment.

Because we all know the Soviet Union was a great friend of the environment, just as China is now...

In a capitalist system it is the capitalist which determines what wage-labour they require.

No, it is a mutually agreed transaction. If the worker does not think they are receiving enough for their time, they don't have to work.

It follows that the wage-labourer’s ‘value’ is the capitalist’s value, not his own.

No, it doesn't. I'd love to hire a personal servant for 20p an hour. Why can I not do this (even assuming there was no minimum wage)? Because no worker would agree to the transaction.

Again, I really want to press you on what the hell you mean by value here. There is no such thing as an objective value of someone's labour, the only value we can determine is the value people put on it. So when someone works for £5.00 an hour, it shows that they value an hour of their time less than £5 and that their employer values an hour of their time more than £5. And this is exactly why no-one will work as my personal servant for 20p an hour.

Where a wage-labourer has developed skills to suit the availability of work he is then at the mercy of the continuation of that work. When rendered unemployed the wage-labourer might easily find that the labour skills which the capitalists had valued they no longer do and a new set of skills (to fit the needs of capitalists) are required.

So what you're saying is that if someone has a skill which is no use to anyone else, he won't get paid for using it? No ****... I don't see how this is a bad thing in any way at all...

There are exceptions to prove the rule, but clearly not everyone can escape wage-labour status and become capitalist masters.

Clearly not! But according to you, all the capitalists do is provide the money. Why don't people save up for 10 years then put all their money into a business and get rich? Of course because it's not that simple, and capitalists do perform an essential role.

The fruits of capitalism are real, and often spectacular, but they are the product of labour turned into capitalism.

Again, you don't understand economics. The fruits of capitalism would not have happened had capitalists not been around. The capitalist does the essential job of taking the risk of investing in the future himself, while guaranteeing his workers a wage in the process. The workers are free to do this if they want, it just happens that often they value short term satisfaction like a new car or TV set more than saving for the future. And why should they not, if that is what they want to do? The point is that only a few people are sufficiently patient (in economics we say have a low enough time preference) to choose to spend their money in search of long term returns rather than short term satisfaction.

The exploitation of the wage-labourer - whose means of production has been appropriated by the capitalist – is the root of capitalism’s ‘gories’.

Again what the hell are you talking about when you say the worker is exploited? Under the definition you gave, the workers are equally well exploiting their employer.

Again, I refer you to consideration of capitalism as a global system. And I also direct you to my earlier refutation of capitalism as one entailing ‘mutually acceptable exchange’.

As far as I can see you have refuted absolutely nothing...

Finally, let me thank you for the opportunity to work through some of my points, much appreciated!

No problem! Just in case you're interested, have a read of this post from another forum on the nature of capitalism: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Board=scimathphil&Number=5472902&fpart=&PHPSESSID=
(the following discussion is also pretty interesting)

Reply 44

Bismarck

13

phawkins1988

The Vietnamese sweatshop worker makes a "voluntary exchange"? Well, if you're going to dress it up like that, then I guess it does sound rather nice and fluffy. Unfortunately (for the Vietnamese person) it ain't nice and fluffy.

Of course they do. They're free not to work at the sweatshop. And the sweatshops pay 2-3 times the local rates, and have better working conditions (still awful by our standards, granted). Are you honestly claiming that a Vietnamese worker can't refuse to work for a multinational?

Where did you do your economics degree, Bismarck?

Does it really matter? I'm not asking Oswy for a formal degree; I'm asking him to read about the basics of economics. You can't critique an economic system if you don't know economics.

ForeverIsMyName

What a silly analogy.

Everyone must work in society, I don't see anyone claiming otherwise. The job we choose is dependent on valuation of benefit. Unless you're advocating a system where we choose our own wage and conditions, I fail to see your argument.

And I believe Bis studied economics at LSE.

Nope, economics at City University of New York; IR at LSE. It's hardly relevant though. Oswy is lacking the degree of economic knowledge that could be gained from reading the first chapter of an intro to microeconomics book.

Reply 45

DrunkHamster

8

Bismark, seeing as you have had some formal economics education I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the Austrian school (i.e. Von Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Kirzner, Hoppe etc). As far as I can tell most mainstream economists dismiss them as crazy because of their opposition to excessive mathematical methodology in economics. Do you know much about them?

Reply 46

Bismarck

13

DrunkHamster

Bismark, seeing as you have had some formal economics education I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the Austrian school (i.e. Von Mises, Hayek, Rothbard, Kirzner, Hoppe etc). As far as I can tell most mainstream economists dismiss them as crazy because of their opposition to excessive mathematical methodology in economics. Do you know much about them?

From what I know of them, they take libertarianism to an economic extreme. They're opposed to a central bank or any direct government involvement in the economy. They also want a gold standard (to get rid of government-backed money), which is just silly on so many levels (gold is a commodity; its price fluctuates based on supply and demand; it would cause deflation if new gold discoveries don't keep up with economic growth, etc.). They focus on somewhat different things; instead of trying to see how equilibrium arises (as most orthodox economists do), they write about the periods of disequilibrium.

I do have to say that I agree to some degree with their emphasis on theory over data. I wouldn't go as far as them by saying that any theory that is logically consistent is good, even if it's not backed by the data, but I could see their concern at the obsession with math in present-day economics. Throughout the Cold War, they were pretty much the only ones writing why communism can never work. The orthodox economists were just playing around with their models.

Reply 47

DrunkHamster

8

Bismarck

From what I know of them, they take libertarianism to an economic extreme. They're opposed to a central bank or any direct government involvement in the economy. They also want a gold standard (to get rid of government-backed money), which is just silly on so many levels (gold is a commodity; its price fluctuates based on supply and demand; it would cause deflation if new gold discoveries don't keep up with economic growth, etc.). They focus on somewhat different things; instead of trying to see how equilibrium arises (as most orthodox economists do), they write about the periods of disequilibrium.

I do have to say that I agree to some degree with their emphasis on theory over data. I wouldn't go as far as them by saying that any theory that is logically consistent is good, even if it's not backed by the data, but I could see their concern at the obsession with math in present-day economics. Throughout the Cold War, they were pretty much the only ones writing why communism can never work. The orthodox economists were just playing around with their models.

Thanks. I only ask because I've seen a lot talked about them, and I've read quite a lot of Austrian economics, without really seeing why the mainstream reject it so readily. Have you actually read any first hand?

As to their "silly" ideas about the gold standard, I don't want to get into it, but before you dismiss it out of hand you might be interested in this link in favour of it, by none other than the fiscally irresponsible Alan Greenspan, also known as the chairman of the Federal Reserve...

Reply 48

Collingwood

15

Oswy

My critique was of capitalism pretty much as Marx defined it. I’m happy for you to criticise the definition. Otherwise, everything you’ve said here is a wordy attempt to redirect the object of my critique. Nice try.

Don't get me wrong - Marx (and you) attacked what I consider to be "true" capitalism, but a lot of your misconceptions about it are caused by your poor definition.

This is irrelevant. I don’t accept capitalism as being a matter of ‘self-ownership’, there’s a definition in my OP for a reason.

Capitalism is derived from self-ownership. By attacking capitalism, you are attacking self-ownership. As a communist, you should not have any problem with this - you should believe in communal ownership.

As for history, pre-industrial British society was one filled with customary rights wherein self-sustenance, combined with co-operative sustenance, was a widespread phenomenon. Maybe you should look up the enclosure movement too? Lots of capital was accrued in farming as a result of the widespread ‘redistribution’ of land and it being enshrined in a more overt sense of ‘ownership’.

What does any of this have to do with the fact that the working classes had never owned factories?

More irrelevancies. I’m not critiquing a phenomenon as you define it.

It isn't irrelevent at all. You claim that people worked in factories because capitalists reduced them to wage-labour slaves by alienation and exploitation. I have pointed out that factory owners could not coerce people to work in their factories, so clearly the factories offered a better living standard than the agrian society these people came from, which you claim is pre-capitalist.

Actually the mortality rates in towns and cities was much higher than in the countryside until late in the 19th century. Look it up if you want. Accelerating enclosure forced many off the land and an increasingly capitalistic approach to farming needed fewer labourers.

The British population increased significantly between 1800 and 1900. This can only be the result of increased living standards.

I’m not even sure what you’re saying here.

I'm saying that your nonesense economics are based on the idea that:
1) Employers want to pay everyone subsistence wages.
2) Employers have huge coercive power over employees.
I was saying that 1) never actually happened because 2) isn't true - employers can only employ people at a rate they're willing to accept and everyone is out to get the best deal for themselves, not just employers.

Factories are built with capital which has accrued through the use of wage-labourers. Labourers do build factories – they just don’t own them. The owners organise the capital and get results, sometimes spectacular results, but it is the labourer that actually produces stuff or provides services which in turn is converted to capital.

Factories were built with wealth built up either by trade or by feudalism. I am not a feudalist, and do not agree with how wealth was gained during that period, but I don't think that redistributing it at that time was a practical or a desireable solution. We haven't had feudalism for some time now, which is why we have seen a continual diffusion of wealth amongst the middle classes and businessmen, rather than continued concentration in the hands of the old landowning families. This is a consequence of capitalism.

I was pointing out how leisure and leisure time – the time we are supposed to be free from capitalism’s demands - are themselves infused with capitalism’s demands. Leisure is cringingly capitalised in Formula One Racing which is why I though it an especially good example.

You just ignored everything I said. You clearly don't think leisure activities should be funded by voluntary exchange, so do you want them to be banned, or do you want them to be funded by extortion? It is a simple choice.

There’s no mutually acceptable exchange, there’s an exchange which suits the stronger party, almost always the capitalist.

If an exchange wasn't mutually beneficial then one or other of the parties involved wouldn't accept it, since capitalism does not coerce anyone into entering into an exchange. Trade isn't some kind of fight - it is possible for both parties to "win".

And you still haven't explained why living standards have increased rather than plateaued, as your Marxist economics (and Marx himself) predict they should have done long ago.

Presumably you’re unfamiliar with low-wages, inhumane or dangerous working conditions, casual redundancy and unemployment. Living standards have risen in the advanced-capitalist west, but I think there’s plenty of evidence to show that this is in some measure a result of less praiseworthy activities of capitalism in a global context – as I’ve highlighted already capitalism is a global system and has to be judged in contemporary terms globally.

Capitalism isn't a global system. The countries with the worst standards of living - China, Russia, Zimbabwe, North Korea - are or were all command economies. Of those four I have mentioned, two - Russia and China - are digging themselves out of poverty, whilst the other 2 are not. Guess which 2 have spent the last decade and a bit adopting capitalist economics.

I’ve not been defending communism, an error made by other posters. The fact remains that much capitalist activity has been environmentally damaging and that capitalism as a system does not value the environment.

My argument didn't rest on the assumption that you support communism - I simply said that industrial activity, not just capitalist industrial activity, is responsible for environmental damage. If you think that industrial activity is bad and should be banned so that animals can frolick freely then, yes, capitalism isn't for you, but if you think that then you're an inhman monster who is proposing to condemn billions to death. There is a reason why we think environmental damage is acceptable for the wealth it brings, and this view is not limited to capitalists, as I showed with the example of the USSR.

In a capitalist system it is the capitalist which determines what wage-labour they require. It follows that the wage-labourer’s ‘value’ is the capitalist’s value, not his own. Where a wage-labourer has developed skills to suit the availability of work he is then at the mercy of the continuation of that work. When rendered unemployed the wage-labourer might easily find that the labour skills which the capitalists had valued they no longer do and a new set of skills (to fit the needs of capitalists) are required.

I asked you to put forward what system you would use to measure the value of goods and services if not the value other people choose to assign to it. You seem to be proposing a system where the owner of the good or service sets whatever value he likes. This is an insane system, which would result in all owners setting an infinite value for everything they own. Implementing this system would result in ~~the complete destruction of the economy~~ everyone ignoring it and continuing with voluntary exchange with the entire economy replaced with a huge capitalist black market.

Capitalism is now very much a global system, it must be judged in this respect.

You haven't demonstrated that capitalism is a "global system". I agree that capitalism exists in more than one country, but it doesn't exist in every country, and so blaming capitalism for poverty in command economies like North Korea is just plain stupid.

There are exceptions to prove the rule, but clearly not everyone can escape wage-labour status and become capitalist masters. Moreover, not everyone may want to become a capitalist, but the capitalist paradigm requires that we exist somewhere within its process.

You're right, not everyone can make loads of money - only people who do something exceptionally productive to deserve it. They are then entitled to their money. Under capitalism, the overwhelming majority of people are richer than in any non-capitalist system. It isn't about getting to the very top - not everyone can do something exceptionally productive like invent cars or a new type of medicine - it's about being richer in absolute terms than you otherwise would.

I agree that capitalism didn’t cause racism or sexist, but it went some way to exploit and amplify these things.

How? Forcing women to "stay in the home" and forcing blacks to take only bad, low-skilled jobs makes everyone poorer. Expanding the labour pool makes everyone richer. It isn't in the interests of people in a free marke to discriminate against each other based on irrelevent characteristics, which is why capitalist states have moved away from such discrimination.

The fruits of capitalism are real, and often spectacular, but they are the product of labour turned into capitalism. The exploitation of the wage-labourer - whose means of production has been appropriated by the capitalist – is the root of capitalism’s ‘gories’.

No, the fruits of capitalism are not the result of people with no skills hitting bits of metal. Take a sky scraper, for instance - the people who really make that possible are engineers (with univerisity educations and years of experience) and banks (with the money to make it happen and, vitally, the wherewithall to pick the right site, Etc.). The people who do all the welding get paid much less than these two groups because they are less important - anyone can be taught to weld two bits of metal together, not everyone has an engineering degree or billions of pounds of invested money. Why should the people with really common, unimportant skills get all the praise?

Again, I refer you to consideration of capitalism as a global system.

I don't see how this is relevant.

And I also direct you to my earlier refutation of capitalism as one entailing ‘mutually acceptable exchange’.

Yeah... I still don't understand that one. Capitalism doesn't compel anyone to enter into exchange against their will, so how can any exchange not be mutually acceptable?

Finally, let me thank you for the opportunity to work through some of my points, much appreciated!

Not at all. I quite enjoy debating.

Reply 49

Bismarck

13

DrunkHamster

Thanks. I only ask because I've seen a lot talked about them, and I've read quite a lot of Austrian economics, without really seeing why the mainstream reject it so readily. Have you actually read any first hand?

As to their "silly" ideas about the gold standard, I don't want to get into it, but before you dismiss it out of hand you might be interested in this link in favour of it, by none other than the fiscally irresponsible Alan Greenspan, also known as the chairman of the Federal Reserve...

A read a few pieces by the Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Greenspan was an objectivist when he wrote that. Objectivism is pretty close to the Austrian school. And do note that Greenspan rejected that ideology later on...

Reply 50

Wez

14

Oswy

The capitalist, having taken contrrol of the means of production of the wage-labourer, gets to make use of the latter's labour and benefit from it. I'm not at this point discussing the 'right' or 'wrong' of this approrpriation of means of production, but only identifying it as a fact. Beyond that I'd suggest that the capitalist probably does see this process 'positively' because they control the form of and obtain the benefit from what was otherwise another's means of production.

At the beginning of your argument, using your definition of exploitation, exploitation is morally neutral. It merely describes what occurs.

However, you then slowly begin to add negative connotations to the word implying exploitation is undesirable: "How is capitalism so effective in maintaining its power in the face of so much exploitation?"/ “Another element in obscuring the exploitative nature of capitalism”/ By the end of your argument, the meaning of exploitation appears to have changed, as you imply it is highly undesirable.

Reply 51

Oswy

OP

15

You haven't demonstrated that capitalism is a "global system". I agree that capitalism exists in more than one country, but it doesn't exist in every country, and so blaming capitalism for poverty in command economies like North Korea is just plain stupid. Collingwood.

If anything is plain stupid (you started the name-calling) it is to claim that capitalism is not a global system. Haven't you heard of trans-national corporations? There are thousands of them. Oil companies and motor manufacturers are among the biggest but they are to be found operating in all kinds of capitalist enterprises. These capitalist entities very much operate on a global scale, obtaining and using resources and labour across the whole planet, and selling their produce or services on the same scale. Sometimes these trans-national corporations (TNCs for short) close factories in one country and open up in another where conditions make this profitable - regardless, of course, of the hundreds or even thousands that are made unemployed in the process. The coffee you drink, the car you drive, the PC you're typing on and TV programmes you watch can, and do, come from all over the globe from industries which are organised financially and operationally across the globe. If you have money in a bank or building society then this is almost certainly being used in a global capitalist context. Of course you can cherry-pick nations which are excluded from the global system, but that's hardly an argument against the global nature of capitalism.

Reply 52

City bound

At the risk of sounding trite Oswy, is there really much point in a Marxist criticism of capitalism when they approach at such crossed purposes? Marxism has a tendency to fixate upon it's ultimate goal - to be fair, it would, it's an ideology - whilst capitalism rejects such thinking in favour of working at the margin (to steal a cliché).

Thus we end up with this kind of thread. With Marxists lambasting capitalists for, basically, not being what they'd like them to be and with capitalists lambasting Marxists for their lack of pragmatism.

Rather like a Footballer criticising a mid-race Swimmer for displaying a lack of ball control skills.

[Caution, the subjects of the previous line are irrelevant]

Reply 53

samba

6

I love how Oswy completely ignores the points of DrunkHamster and Bismarck..... :biggrin:

(ps. read the entire thread...don't know enough about it to comment intelligently, but ty for an interesting read guys)

Reply 54

Oswy

OP

15

City bound

At the risk of sounding trite Oswy, is there really much point in a Marxist criticism of capitalism when they approach at such crossed purposes? Marxism has a tendency to fixate upon it's ultimate goal - to be fair, it would, it's an ideology - whilst capitalism rejects such thinking in favour of working at the margin (to steal a cliché).

Thus we end up with this kind of thread. With Marxists lambasting capitalists for, basically, not being what they'd like them to be and with capitalists lambasting Marxists for their lack of pragmatism.

Rather like a Footballer criticising a mid-race Swimmer for displaying a lack of ball control skills.

[Caution, the subjects of the previous line are irrelevant]

You've got a point. The pro-capitalists - no doubt in all sincerity - believe that capitalism is characterised by such things as 'self-ownership' and 'mutually acceptable exchange', things which from a Marxist perspective are prominent by their very absence. Similarly, Marxists regard capitalism as centrally characterised by social organisation in which the means of production are removed from one group and placed into the hands of another; something which doesn't even register with the pro-capitalists. I can't agree with the suggestion Marxism is ideological and capitalism is not. Capitalism is both promoted in the abstract and is self-promoting in the way it shapes human activity; consumerism and commodity fetishism is, I'd argue, something which carries ideological values.

I don't expect to convince any more than I'm going to be convinced on the issue, but I still hope this thread will assist me in sharpening up my Marxist position and become more familiar with the stock responses of pro-capitalists.

Reply 55

Oswy

OP

15

samba

I love how Oswy completely ignores the points of DrunkHamster and Bismarck..... :biggrin:

(ps. read the entire thread...don't know enough about it to comment intelligently, but ty for an interesting read guys)

I'm not ignoring points at all. My intention is to use counter arguments as starting points for my own further research. There'll be responses, but not always immediately. I knew when I started the thread that I'd have several pro-capitalists seeking to deconstruct my argument sentence by sentence and responding to this takes time.

Reply 56

Bastiat

1

Oswy

I don't expect to convince any more than I'm going to be convinced on the issue, but I still hope this thread will assist me in sharpening up my Marxist position and become more familiar with the stock responses of pro-capitalists.

I don't know whether this is peripheral to the discussion, but I have a query about Marxist solutions to the ostensible 'exploitation' - the theft of surplus value - which I've never been able to reconcile with other Marxist theory.

Assuming the LTV is true (which I don't think it is and is beside the point), how does the Marxist/Communist solution - "from each according to ability, to each according to need" - solve this? This slogan implies that, 'at the end of history,' a worker will not retain the full value of his produce, but will only receive according to his need. If worker A works 80 hours and worker B works 40 hours a week, then worker A should be entitled to twice the value of goods as worker B. But he isn't - he's only entitled to it insofar as he 'needs' it. Could somebody try to defend this solution which seems, to me, to leave the problem (if there is one) of confiscated surplus value unsolved.

Reply 57

City bound

This is a problem with a medium (internet forums) that has basically been designed for brief, almost flippant contributions to discussions. When you give us an essay it makes a worthy response very difficult. I for one would really like to go through it line by line and address all the points/assumptions/premises/etc but I'm also really loathed to.

Reply 58

Oswy

OP

15

City bound

This is a problem with a medium (internet forums) that has basically been designed for brief, almost flippant contributions to discussions. When you give us an essay it makes a worthy response very difficult. I for one would really like to go through it line by line and address all the points/assumptions/premises/etc but I'm also really loathed to.

Yes, you've made me think about that. What I should be doing is offering individual elements that when combined add up to a coherent whole. I think in retrospect I should have first simply offered a definition of capitalism - there'd still have been plenty of criticism but it would have been more manageable and more easily responded to or researched.

Hmmm...

Reply 59

kizer

15

Oswy - it seems to me that you are focussing on the weaker points of Marx and ignoring the stronger.

Firstly, and as I found out to my cost when I had my first Marx tutorial without reading for it properly, Marx does NOT hate capitalism. He accepts it is efficient and promotes sustained economic growth. He merely thinks that inevitably, there will come a point when society is sufficiently technologically advanced, that the proletariat (as he defines it) will revolt.

However given that Marx's economics is bunk and thus (as others on this thread have pointed out consistently) basically wrong, why not focus on his better points - the the sort of men capitalism (and communism) begets? I find it odd that the quote in your signature - probably Marx's second-most famous - nails this, but you mention it only in passing. All those people talking about voluntary exchanges assume that liberty means negative liberty - i.e. action unhindered by others. But of course, really our liberty also depends on what sort of people make decisions - hence why addicts aren't fully free.

Example - a man has always wanted to become a lecturer (and is fully qualified to do it), but has an irrational fear of public speaking. He is offered a job, but turns it down because of that fear.

Trivially the man was always free. However, it seems reasonable to say that if the man gets over his fear of public speaking, he is more free. In this case, the man's positive liberty is increased.

Bringing this back to Marx, Marx was very preoccupied with positive liberty. His main worries about capitalism revolve around the sort of men captalism creates - greedy, self-interested, uncultured. The strongest Marxist arguments against capitalism focus on these issues rather than bogus economic ones.

Capitalism - A Marxist Perspective.

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