What if everyone were middle class? Would that satisfy you?
Ok, so a thread about being poor made me think of this. This is for all you commies. I'm thinking of you @Bitter Crank. What if everyone were magically making enough income to be middle class.. all retail workers, factory workers, construction workers, agricultural workers, etc.. Everyone was making a decent enough salary to live in a house, buy some entertainment goods, a car, had all their daily living met.. Would that satisfy you about capitalism, if it offered that to those willing to work? The capitalist owners are still in place and are much more wealthy is the catch. Just like it is now.
I am just wondering what about capitalism is the more important enemy.. the inequality/instability of income or the power differential?
I am just wondering what about capitalism is the more important enemy.. the inequality/instability of income or the power differential?
Comments (105)
'Inequality' is also one of those nice liberal distractions that is an effort to address symptoms rather than causes. The increased noise level about 'inequality' - while nicely intentioned - is just another attempt to address the problems of capitalism entirely within the ambit of capitalism.
This is why 'soft left' pop economists like Piketty, Kelton, or Mazzucato are so de jour right now. They all argue within the acceptable bounds of not putting capitalism itself into question. Just little adjustments around the edges. The same goes for those who fly the flag of 'stakeholder capitalism' - like people advocating for square circles.
Commies (and sociologists) define "middle class" quite differently than you do here. You define it as being able to:
quote="schopenhauer1;d12437"]to live in a house, buy some entertainment goods, a car, have all their daily living met[/quote]
That just describes people who are making ends meet.
There are roughly 3 classes (in the real world, not in theory): The working class -- the people who provide the labor to drive the economy -- everybody from agricultural workers picking tomatoes to people charting sales of goods in a corporate office tower. Teachers, nurses, laboratory workers, plumbers, electricians, sales, accounting, car repair, toilet cleaners, etc. (Workers produce all wealth.). Workers have a small share of all the wealth.
The ruling class is the small group of people who actually own the machinery of the economy -- land, factories, mines, warehouses, railroads, stores, banks, etc. Some of their names are familiar: Rockefeller, Ford, Gates, Dupont, etc. Most of these people you have never heard of unless you specialize in tracking large wealth. This group calls the shots for their own benefit. They possess most of the wealth,
The middle class consists of a fairly small group of people who manage the economy at a fairly high level; they are also the professionals who provide special services -- lawyers, doctors, dentists, polling, planning, professors, high level engineers, and so forth. They quite often have independent practices (otherwise known as jobs). The members of the "middle class" tend to be quite financially comfortable.
So, what you are asking is unclear. What if everybody became middle class as it is officially defined? You'd have 130,000,000 doing what 20 million do now. Who, then, would do the basic work o society?
Are you asking what would happen if everybody in the working class (who call themselves middle class or jack shit) actually had more money? Well, they would experience less stress, that's for sure. They might be happier, but not a lot happier. You can buy only so much happiness with a 10% or 15% ncrease in income.You aren't proposing a revolution here, you are just rearranging the deck chairs.
Yes, that's exactly what I am trying to figure out. What if capitalism somehow worked itself out such that the working class, the 130,000,000 you are discussing made the same amount as the middle class 20 million lawyers, doctors, etc. Would that satisfy the goals? In other words, everyone is comfortable enough.. Would that be essentially the end goal, or does it involve taking down the power differentials altogether whereby the owner class must be removed.. .What would be the impetus though to do that other than abstract power reasons? The immediate concerns would be met of material well-being.
Was it Lenin or Stalin who said, "Quantity has a quality all its own." I think if I went from a low 5 figure income (<25,000) to a 7 figure income of say... $9,000,000, I would experience a significant revision of reality. I would no longer fit into the status of "worker". I wouldn't be ruling class, either. I'd belong in the income range of about 10% of the American population--the segment below "indisputably rich" whose entrance fee is about $2,000,000. These people do not work like, and do not live like "workers". For one thing, if they have any money management skills at all, they will soon find them in a position which can not be taken away from them by a pink slip.
I guess my question then is whether which is more important:
Material well-being or ownership of means of production? Sometimes, I think there is a lot of muddling of the two in communist or perhaps more general leftist theory.
Quoting schopenhauer1
The latter overwhelmingly determine the former. To treat them as independent variables is idealism.
But some of those economists at the edges might say something along the lines of:
Capitalism can possibly manage to create more equitable circumstances through various social democratic interventions (the Scandinavian model let's say). Thus, government can intervene so that the inequalities are smoothed over to a reasonable extent.. Thus the means of overthrowing the owner class is deemed unnecessary through classic social democratic policy.
The end goal is a decent life.
Yes, the owner class has to go. Power differentials are a current obsession, and real enough. My reason for taking down the owner class is that they are, essentially, parasites. They have the lion's share of the wealth without doing anything to earn it, In fact, it is inconceivable that they could do anything to earn it -- the amount of wealth they own is to great to find justification.
Comfortable enough, yes. Everybody have a boat at the marina? No. Everybody have two or three undocumented workers serving as household help? No. Everybody have a McMansion? No, Everybody drive a $60,000 to $80,000 car? No. Everybody fly to Bali for a friends wedding? No.
Raising the quality of life for the working class still has to be sustainable. So housing in which families are secure (won't be evicted)? Yes. Have access to a healthy diet of quality food? Yes. Have access to quality public transit? Yes. Have security in their employment (won't be laid off for arbitrary reasons or to enhance profit)? Yes. Have access to quality education? Yes. Have access to quality medical care? Yes. Work no more than necessary to maintain the collective quality of life (as opposed to profitability)? Yes.
World population: 7,000,000,000
That works out to $1.32 per hour.
Minimum wage (USA) is $7.25 per hour.
Middle class? More like abject poverty for all.
That said, hypothetically speaking it would be great to be middle class: It's always a challenge to try to live the life of the rich, while not making yourself destitute in the process (balance needs and wants).
But... I still think that there is a class of [whatever one wants to call them] who are not wage or salary slaves, and are not in positions where their status can be changed by a supervisor. (A tenured prof, for one, an entrepreneur who is head of his or her company).
It's also the case that many very "middle class" jobs, like doctor, have been "degraded" into salary positions which are not all that secure. A private practice is one thing, but when the clinic and insurance company tell you to see one patient every 6.3 minutes, you are definitely a worker.
Material well being is the end, ownership of the means of production is the means.
We've been through this before.. You keep going after the VERY large CEOs and Board of Director types and NOT the small business owner that started out let's say by himself and grew from there...They would say that they are not parasites but job creators.. Started with one, then several, then dozens, then hundreds....
Quoting Bitter Crank
Quoting Bitter Crank
Right but my point is, in your theory, do the ends necessarily come about from the means of getting rid of the owner classes? Is this like a political law of nature or something like that? ONLY this leads to that?
This is something you always read into what people say on this topic. God knows why. Literally no one mentioned a CEO except for you, out of thin air. It's why I stopped discussing this with you last time. It is why I will stop again if you continue to make shit up.
Parsing out the share of GDP derived from arms with revenues of more than 1 billion dollars, and those with fractions of that is possible but I don't want to spend a lot of time doing it now. However, there is this:
Newly founded companies tend to grow fast, attract fresh investments, and (sometimes) deliver new products and services that didn't exist before. Old companies keep on keeping on, whether that's Macy's, Ford, Mitsubishi, Royal Dutch Shell, CBS, Whirlpool, or what have you. I talk about "large corporations" because everyone is familiar with them. You have heard of 3M -- Scotch tape or Post-It notes, headquartered in St. Paul, MN. #90 in the Fortune 500 list. You probably haven't heard of HBFuller Company in St. Paul which makes specialized adhesives and coatings. They are not in the Fortune 500 list--they are 786. There are many small companies all over the country, worth at least a few million, some started by go-getter entrepreneurs; some are new, some are old. Too many, too varied.
It doesn't matter. Since you want a commie's opinion, here it is: Company-starting whizzes are simply engaged in the act of "original accumulation" -- making their first big pile of money. Their relationship to their workers may be even more exploitative than the old companies' relationships to their workers. Or not -- like I said, it varies. But new companies are still expropriating the product of the workers who are not receiving the full value of what they produce.
So, maybe you have a soft spot in your heart for some small businesses, and it makes you sad thinking about them being taken over by the workers. Well... tough. The entrepreneurs aren't going to starve -- they will just be workers like everybody else, and entitled to the full share of what they produce -- but not more (like when they owned the company).
Saw this guy's concert once. He arrived with a small amplifier and a guitar. By bus. A modern day troubadour.
He stole the title of this song from Einstein though.
Damned! Good to know they are still around! Thought it was a dying breed.
Not only that, but this proposition misunderstands that capitalism's goals are aimless and just puts profit over all else. Infinite growth on a finite world and all that. Your worry seems to be that socialists can't decide whether its better to raise living standards for people, or to deal with power imbalances. The answer is that we sort of have to do both. Like I said, it's great to build social systems in the capitalist regime to allow people to live, but we also need stronger community building to show workers that safety nets can exist outside the state. Every socialist knows simply focusing on raising material conditions in capitalism will lead to those benefits getting chipped away. Then we're back where we started. That's essentially what happened in the late 70s and 80s, and what is still happening now (neoliberalization). The Scandinavian model is already starting to crack as more services are privatized. You have to remove the cancer at the root, not just put band aids over it that get slowly ripped off
In America and in the socialist west of Europe, the workers are capitalists. Anyone can own voting shares, and anyone can own dividend yielding shares. And most people in the middle class do. They work, because their investments would not allow them to float.
There is the working class who do the same as the middle class: work stiff, but the working class don't own shares or capital.
Then there is the ruling class, those who own only shares and capital, and their work consists of exchanging investment advice with their buddies on the golf course and at charity dinners.
Then there is the beggar's class, then there is the incapacitated class (people who have challenges that effectively prevent them from normative living: working for a living), then there is the criminal class, then there is the drug addict class, then there is the homeless class, and then there is the terrorist class. And finally, there is the fourth grade class of Miss Sindorofski.
I would gladly exchange my daily showers and eating chocolates for having unabashed sex with any of the females of the tribe. (Don't let my wife to see this, please!) And as far as tv shows go, or Netflix or even the Internet, I'd rather be preoccupied with how to catch the next reindeer or gazelle, or else with daydreams of how nice it would be to be a citizen of the United States of America.
I would like to see your source for this claim, please. I am not arguing or provoking you, or challenging your claim; I just want to see once the actual source of this statistic. Because I've heard this claim so often and for so long, that now I am starting to wonder if it's factual or an urban myth.
Please don't be offended. Instead, please, supply the source. A reliable one, if one such exists in the first place.
First search result.
Please supply a definition of "class", and name the classification system that determined the definition of different classes. You can't claim I'm ignorant if you can't name what your idea of classes are.
Thank you. It actually does not address two issues:
- the distribution of divident yielding shares
- the distribution of voting shares
and it does not contradict my involving shares in my classification system of socio-economic classes, where I said the ruling class lives on investment, the middle class mainly on work and less on investment, and the working class only on work.
So thanks for the statistic, and I appreciate its magnitude in social structure. Except it does not disprove any of my points or make a dent in them.
Quoting god must be atheist
You're welcome to do your own research.
Why should I really abide by that defintion? Am I not at liberty to subscribe to any other classification of how people relate to wealth in society, and how their lot in life is determined by that?
I appreciate what you wrote. I am well (albeit not fully) versed in Marxist theory. What I am saying is that it's true Marx had a way of systematizing classes, but in the grand scheme of things I am at liberty to accept Marx's or anyone else's (including my own) systematizing of classes. So I resent your calling it ignorant of me to name a few more classes than what Marx had envisioned.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Quoting StreetlightX
Once you declared that the OP is irrelevant (since what it claims exists does not exist), no relevance could have been established.
Then you say your view is in relevance to the OP.
That is absurd.
What do you mean "that's how you read that exchange"???? I frigging quoted them!!! You are saying you have different ways of reading quoted material? that's absurd, too.
I don't care if you call it "middle class," or something else. No society can call itself good if it doesn't provide access to a decent way of life to everyone. A decent way of life includes enough to eat; a safe and clean place to live; health care; a decent, humane job; education; the opportunity to have and raise children; and basic human freedoms. If that's what you're talking about then, yes, that would satisfy me.
āCapitalismā has always been a collectivist bugaboo, anyways, forced into the economic lexicon and seemingly left there. So itās strange to see those who abhor collectivist projects fall into using it to describe the present system. But really, a system that doesnāt consider managing capital is unimaginable, and a system that is not capitalist has never existed. Had they named it better the problems with the present system might be more apparent. At least weād know, as you said, what about the present system is the more important enemy, and we could work to rectify it. Until then I guess we have to engage in a naive form of class struggle.
"Look at my boy! Already now he has that cleverness to pull the legs of his peers. He could just have taken their marbles by force, but instead uses smart tactics to gather them. He even gives his dumb friends the opportunity to continue playing the marble game by providing them with marbles, when they are out of them. Wanting them back with a few extra ones only. Clever little bastard!"
It is told to the children that everybody should get the same and everybody is the same. Considering marbles though some children will have more than others. Because they simply have the cleverness to take them from other people.
"How clever my boy is! Look at him! He offers that little prick of the Watsons marbles to shine his mega bumblebees, red devils, and even his commies! Why he doesn't want his clambroth to be polished too? When he gets home we have to sit down and talk about that!"
We grow up and we are forced to learn the stories about the marbles. What they are, the different kinds, how to create new ones, how to collect as many as possible, how to manipulate people by luring them with small uniform marble collections to get as many in return, ways to automate the marble game, and to partake in a world ruled by the great Marlblerers.
We are considered ignorant and are filled with knowledge of the marble and how to increase possession of the holy spheres and are investigated on progress in knowledge by exams and IQ tests, where IQ is defined as the knowledge how to solve abstract problems as fast as possible and which bear importance for the real life gathering.
Everyone is forced to participate in the construction of the Behemoth Alabaster, the ultimate expression of the ultimate power of the Marble Elite, a select autocratic society controling the governing powers behind the scenes, making use of their collection of holy marbles and praying to the Grand Alabastar. All people are equal, as long as you conform to the rules of the marble game. Black and white, gay or a-sexual, the religeous and the atheists, left and right, tall or small, all of people have the same rights to participate in the universal game of The Marble. Everybody is equal, except that some owe a lot of marbles and some barely enough to play. What great equality...
Games different from the marble game are squashed and quelled by deploying the submissive power of the marble. In lotteries, a chance is offered to the marble poors to immerse oneself in a holy Jacuzzi filled with the Aggie, the Alley, the Ade, the Mica, the Beachball, the Lutz, the Cat's eye, the Oily, the Opaque, the Plaster, the Crock, the Jaspar, the Princess, the Swirly, or the Shooter, and when you are very lucky you may even have a close encounter with a golden magical Bennington, but the absolute jackpot is the Behemoth Clambroth, an incarnation of the great Alabaster, whose true nature remains unknown, but it is a wide held belief that true knowledge about it gives one eternal enlightenment and happiness. The marble game is played vigorously around the world to contemplate the true nature of the Alabaster.
Opals, glimmers, bloods, rubies, deep blue seas, blue moons, green ghosts, or brass bottles, are offered to those coming up with the perfect marble or the description of the True and Fundamental basic Marbles. Knowledge of the Marble is power. Who doesn't long for it?
Natalism: it's okay to procreate if most people are happy with their lives.
Capitalism: it's okay to exploit workers if most people are well-off and middle-class.
Am I reading in to things here?
It pretty much is.
The government publishes the information it gathers. The Federal Reserve, for instance, is charged with maintaining employment at a high level and maintaining inflation at a low level (about 2%). It does this with, among other things, the Prime Interest Rate -- the rate it charges banks to borrow money. In order to do this effectively, it has to know what is happening within the economy on a fairly detailed level. Hence, it's statistical output.)
All the statistics that are turned out do not have the same status as The Word of God, but for all practical purposes, it's the next best thing. The graph below is based on the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances, 2017. "Equitable Growth" is an NGO and is not the source of the table's data.
Liebchen, you can subscribe to whatever system of classification you want. There are market research systems of classification that divide the population up into as many 40 classes, depending on where they live, what they buy, what their aspirations are, who their neighbors tend to be, and so on. Could you use those? Sure! It's just unwieldy to deal with a system of 40 different classes. Some sociologists have subdivided the 3 main groups into 9 classes -- lower working class, middle working class, upper working class, lower middle class, on up to upper upper (the top).
One of the problems of "working class" is that it takes maybe... 290,000,000 people (just in the US) and puts them all in the same class. As "employees" of "capitalists" (maybe... 30,000,000 people in the US) all these people have many, many different characteristics above and beyond being exploited. An atheist gay exploited worker living downtown probably looks at the world differently than a fundamentalist married exploited worker with 5 children living in the suburbs. At least, I most sincerely hope the gay guy looks at the world differently.
So, lumping a few billion souls into "worker" obviously misses a lot. So, liebchen, why do we do it, anyway?
Because "working" is such a fundamental part of life. The terms under which we do it makes a tremendous amount of difference in the way we live our lives. A small farmer might be considered a small businessman. Or he might be considered a slave to the inflexible needs of his 35 cows, the schedule of crop planting, cultivation, and harvest, and the market. A low level functionary in any organization (millions of people) has a different experience than the few million night guards who have a little more executive autonomy.
Per @Schopenhauer1, life sucks. It will always suck to some extent no matter what kind of econo-socio-politico system we have, because the means of existence have to be extracted from the earth by hard work, whether you own it or not.
The hope of socialists, communists... whatever, is to eliminate the portion of hard work that goes to producing a profit for people who don't do a whole lot of work at all.
to the same extent that "Socialism" has always been a capitalist bugaboo.
Absolutely. A socialist system would have to manage it's capital resources too -- mines, factories, land, ports, and so on. The difference is that socialists manage resources for the common wealth, and capitalists manage resources for the creation of their own wealth.
The act of managing resources for the common wealth would require a monopoly on the resources, a cabal of managers to govern it, and an army of workers to till for it. Iād prefer the voluntary system, myself.
Read a history book.
Ok cool. So needs met is more important than power differentials (only a few owners own the means of production)?
I didn't realize this before but it seems that just like one picks up a habit like smoking, one also becomes accustomed to think in certain ways. Authoritarian regimes are in the know about this and use it to their advantage (psychological manipulation/so-called reeducation camps).Habits, though some have a good rationale, are not necessarily that. Therein lies the rub.
These two things cannot be treated separately, except as an intellectual game. Capitalism is not just any power differential: it is an accumulative one which consistently requires growth without which it will fail. Its closest analogue is the malignant tumor: it will - and has - eroded all capacities to meet needs in search of that growth. This is why class war is one of its most symptomatic phenomena: its growth literally feeds on the lives of the working class, and the continued suppression of the latter is one of its conditions of growth. If you cannot eliminate the particular kind of power differential that capitalism is, any effort at ensuring 'needs met' will fail. At best, one will secure temporary reprieves, and even then, usually at displaced costs - as with the much celebrated 'Scandinavian model' which relies upon planet killing extractive industries, or else the inhumane exploitation of third-world labour to produce its products on the cheap in order to keep costs down and living standards high.
There's a reason why Marxism is a 'materialist' theory of the world: it looks at how the world actually functions, rather than playing abstract games about 'whether power differentials are more important the needs met'.
The USSR was a monopolistic state capitalist organization. So, we know something about that kind of organization. Workers didn't have any more power there than they had in the anti-labor USA.
Managers there will be; last I heard, "manager" was not an obscenity.
A production council, an elected body, will set production objectives. X number of wind turbines, X number of storage batteries, X miles of transmission lines and so on. A socialist factory making large storage batteries, owned by the workers, will have to assign skilled workers to the tasks of procurement -- cobalt, lithium, other metals, plastics, chemicals, and so forth. They would liaise with workers' organizations who specialize in procurement.
Just as in a capitalist economy, there would be material flows through the country. Unmilled wheat from North Dakota to New York; bagels from New York to Chicago. Lox from Alaska to Chicago. Cream cheese from Wisconsin to Chicago. All for the purpose of offering you a bagel with lox or cream cheese.
How would a workers' food service in Chicago know how much lox to order? Demand. Supply. Food service workers in Waco, Texas wouldn't bother ordering lox. Nobody in Waco has ever heard of lox. Bratwurst from Sheboygan, certainly. And bathroom fixtures from Sheboygan too -- from the worker owned former Kohler porcelain factory.
I don't see a monopoly in this -- or capitalism.
I am not putting a value one way or the other right now. I wanted to get other people's values who were left leaning. Is it the idea that communism is the only way that all people will be able to have a livable wage or is it that communism is just one avenue and if capitalism can provide it, then the exploitation factor is not as big a deal.. In other words, is it that the exploitation creates the inequality, or is it a separate monster? If it wasn't about haves and have nots, but about haves and have mores, would that change things for what people cared about?
To show my cards.. I am against the exploitation ala Marxist ideas of this, but wondering how other people answer it when it is not longer a "have and have not" thing but just about gradations of livable conditions. Are people "hardcore" enough to still call for an overthrow, not because of material conditions, but because the idea that one group owning the means of production is unjust.. It is very relevant with all these debates.. Because people muddle the idea of communism to create equity versus communism to create a more just power sharing.
Just wondering.. can you have a hardworking owner/executive class though? Is it just "hard work" that justifies ownership? That is what this implies.. that profit can be had if they work hard.. Perhaps some do, so they are the good ones? I do understand that Marxist thought is such that, owners (regardless of working habits) by definition of their relation to the worker as gaining more than their labor value is worth.
I do think that our contemporary consumerist system can blind people to the issues we face, which is what leads to scenarios such as the ones mentioned by S1, wherein people's harms aren't addressed but made fun of. I am not even sure if people who do have wealth are always happy, since I have seen many people in the "third world country" that I reside in who are happier than the "affluent" despite not having a lot. Contentment is generally preferable for existing beings than unnecessary needs. Hopefully, we will be able to find a more appropriate arrangement someday.
Lots of us these days are online sole proprietorships. I work for myself doing what I choose when I choose to. I own my means of production, but it has no resale value.
I'm also classified as in poverty and live in low income housing. Which I don't mind at all, frankly. Owning things beyond basic needs is unimportant. (I've been middle class before, and the only thing I miss about it is having a dishwasher. But that doesn't keep me up at night.) Having control over your own life is important. I would refuse to work for somebody else for a billion dollars a year, if quitting was not an option.
Unfortunately, communism doesn't give people any more control over their lives -- it just moves the power over you to a collective and shuffles around irrelevant pieces of paper called money.
Quoting Paul
Maybe, maybe not. But the capitalist realism which says that this is the best possible world has to remain blind to the suffering of hundreds of millions if not billions that can be directly attributable to capitalism.
Every society has hardworking people in it, whether the society and its economy are primitive, pre-industrial, post-industrial, agrarian, nomadic capitalistic, urban, rural, socialistic--what ever the organization and level of development. Working hard--stretching one's self--is something that some people want to do--and do do. Back in the day, some people made more and better stone tools than anyone else. They happened to be very good at it. Capitalism didn't invent hard work and striving.
In some circumstances hard work in the form of fighting has justifies ownership. "This land is our land, it's not your land, stay the fuck off this land, else we'll put a rock/spear/arrow/bullet through you!"
Outside of force, which is hard to argue with, I am not sure how we justify the relationship that we call "ownership", "possession". Clearly this is not something that 99.9% of the G20 countries' people worried about. It's taken for granted -- like the existence of "states". We could say it comes from God, but let's not. Let's move on.
"Capitalism" isn't like gravity or Newton's laws of motion. It was invented by people, and people wrote law to shape and manage the operation of capitalistic activity. The people who did this (over generations) started with the idea of ownership as a fundamental right and a justification for doing other things. Ownership was taken to be "natural". Ownership is its own justification. I can own land, buildings, machines, gold, jewels, ideas, and so on. I can even (in some past systems) own people. They were property just like cattle. I can hire you, Schop, to make widgets, and it will be me, Schop, and not you, who owns the widgets you make.
So get back to work, Schop: you are 20 widgets behind, and it's costing me money. What do you think this is, a fucking country club or something? I don't care that you are hungry, tired, bored, sore, lonely. You agreed to make widgets, and by god, I want them made!
We know that the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics wrote socialism into law and declared in their constitutions the abolition of capitalism, private property, and economic exploitation. Every country that has ever declared these kinds of things have often struggled, imploded, or gone the way of the dodo bird. Is this system so worth it, even if many countries have hardly risen from its rubble?
But the so-called liberal democracies are not much better, in my mind, to the point that I can only differentiate them by rhetoric and other superficialities these days. Theyāve turned every contingency into a resource for accruing power in the government, as Madison once wrote. Theyāre all strands of the same collectivist statismāI donāt know what else to call it. At least there are some encouraging signs of people thinking in terms of freedom again.
I swear that if I ever saw something like your kind of socialism I would applaud it, at least as a feat of organization, and because it isnāt of the German variety. What Iād worry about, though, is what youād do to those who donāt want to take part in it, or seek to make their living from your property. There is always that problem of individuals believing they know how to run their own lives better than some central committee.
I'm not a commie but can I join in?
OK so far.
Oh. I see the owners in place. But I don't see everyone living in houses and being entertained. If I missed that change then I'm very happy about it. I'm particularly glad those children don't have to scavenge off rubbish tips any more and the garment workers are all in with the cars and the entertainment goods. Great news. Thank you. But are you sure?
Problem is origination of capital. Not everyone starts equally. Not everyone has the chances to put the resources together. The Marxist would ask, by what right does one human own the means of production over another if we all have the same goal of survival? In other words besides words like freedom, do you like the idea that some people own how we survive and some people have to sell their labor to them?
@Bitter Crank I answered I hope acceptably.
The problem is that without power, people won't get what they need or, if they do, it can be taken away.
Sometimes I envy them, sure, but envy is a great motivator. To me itās very kind that they would start an enterprise at which I can work and be rendered payment for my services. The right by which someone usually comes to own the means of production is through purchase or gift or labor, though there are nefarious means.
A lot of times its nefarious.. Haha, you would have LOVED my thread topic here: https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/12347/a-ceo-deserves-his-rewards-if-workers-can-survive-off-his-salary
But, is it kind or just the fact that you don't like the idea of starving to death? We are all in the same boat.. it's just that some people own that boat and some people rent from those people to use it :lol:.
So you are on the side that owning the means of production is the only way to get this equality.. rather than being independent aspects of leftist goals.
Sure about what? This is a question to see if what is important is the means of getting economic well-being or the ends that people value more. If everyone gets what they want but there is still powerful business owners in this system of well-being.. what would be people's gripe, essentially. Is public ownership of means of production an end to itself? @StreetlightX that is another way I am putting it I guess.
Yeah I like your threads.
Well yes, I donāt like starving to death so I work. Having a place to work and receive payment for my work is therefor a benefit. Living off the land is at the time too difficult.
Why just those two choices as default?
I haven't provided any idea of how to give people the power they need to ensure a decent life. That's because....well, I don't know how it should be done.
Agreed agreed. Here is a hefty question.. What makes you think that this isn't a problem solved more by antinatalism than it does by communism? I am not trying to do a bait-and-switch to derail the topic..In fact you eluded to this idea in a post previously..
Antinatalism would basically say: In any system, there will be a widget-maker that reports to someone. Prevent this situation in the first place for someone else to deal with..
Communism will simply say: In our system, there will be a widget-maker that reports to someone.. but that someone is Joe Public Collective, rather than J.P Morgan or whoever.. Is there any substantial difference at this point?
I guess your retort would be that the main difference is not that there will be no widget-makers.. That is an unfortunate constant in life (so point to antinatalism), but that the wealth accumulated by JP Morgan types will be spread around so at least the widget maker might have enough to live comfortably, even though they can't overstep their comfort to the point of luxury (so point communism?). Does that sound about right?
Hey, I commend you for fully answering my OP, so thank you. That was a full response. So it does sound like well-being can never be the only goal.. The OP did however stipulate that all people would be living comfortable.. So I guess, is there a metaphysical problem with the idea of private ownership, above and beyond the idea that it contributes to some people not living comfortably? What does exploitation look like in an economy with fully comfortable people? Do they know they are "technically" being exploited at that point? I guess for this focus, let's just look at the Scandinavians and not the fact that they must use labor from the global south.. I get that.. But let's say that somehow it was the case that everyone were living like Scandinavians...that is to say relatively comfortably.
As far as I can tell there are only two types of general āmeansā to acquire the wealth required to satisfy needs, namely, (1) through oneās own labor or the equivalent exchange of oneās own labor for the labor of others, and (2) through the appropriation of the labor of others. One is just, the other unjust.
Anyways, as far as economic systems go, Justice is the prevailing ideal for me. All others, like charity, community, wealth equality, are better left to ethics and matters of personal conscience.
I think many people would say it's all connected.. Economics IS people.. not its own entity.. Unless you believe so which would be a fun one to read...
Quoting NOS4A2
Marxists would say that capitalists, by mere fact that they own the means of production are exploiting the labor of others as they hold the means, and the others simply rent out their labor. Do some people deserve to own the means by which we all need to survive being roughly the same human animal that just wants to live reasonably comfortably in the world without too much want of basic needs?
Not only Marxists, but Georgists believe in roughly the same thing regarding exploitation. But Henry George was able to devise a far more just system. (Itās a damned shame Americans prefer German socialism to Henry Georgeās ideas, which are these days relatively unknown).
For me, I donāt see how a relationship of voluntary exchange can be the same as exploitation proper, for instance in slavery. It is because the capitalist is the same human animal that I see them as an opportunity. They want and need things, as well, and I can provide it to them in exchange for some of their capital. Perhaps the Marxist should learn to exploit them.
But it isnāt āreallyā voluntary as the capital is accumulated by one person and then doled out to the suckers..Um I mean workers. So your point is that since most people donāt have the means/luck/contingency to accumulate wealth to make others exchange their labor for..that is just? Contingency is almighty?
Itās completely voluntary, and the opportunities myriad, far more than would be available to him should the the capitalist be absent. We could exploit some patch of land somewhere and through toil accumulate enough to make a living, but exploiting capitalists is far easier. We could also live off the toil of others, but that would be unjust.
How about everyone owning and working for everyone?
@StreetlightX or @Bitter Crank any response to NOS idea that it is the workers āexploitingā the capitalist. Iām sure you all love that idea :lol:.
One would hope that such an idea would be as disreputable as statism is to you. If "the revolution" was successful--and not just a rearrangement of the deck chairs--people's thinking would be different.
I do not look to the USSR as a model to emulate, rather as a model to avoid. Ditto for China, Cuba, Albania, etc.
I'm not familiar with Henry George; I'll check him out. Are you familiar with Daniel DeLeon, an American socialist; started the Socialist Labor Party, which in some sort of embalmed state still exists. DeLeon believed that democratic nations offered democratic avenues to socialism -- the revolution could be accomplished through organization, politics, militant unionism, and the vote.
I learned about DeLeon through the New Union Party (defunct after 25 years or so). Another American socialist Eugene Debs, who was actually a popular socialist--just not among the Wall Street set.
American Capitalists were united in detesting, abhorring, and hating socialist ideas and through various means, many foul, did everything they could to discredit and suppress socialist organizing (and this separate from Communist Party-USA suppression which was even more aggressive). American Capitalists have also been united in wishing that their workers were not, or never would be unionized, and they have made continuous efforts to discourage, disrupt, or if need be, destroy unions.
So, there are reasons why so few workers are unionized; so very few people have read any socialist theory (like Debs, Deleon, et al). There are reasons why people have difficult even imagining an economy not organized around capitalism.
Antinatalism solves all problems by eventually eliminating the species that thinks about problems. I'm in favor of being. Were I in favor of non-being I could become a militant anti-natalist. I don't equate anti-natalist with some sort of death wish. Apparently you do not either, since you are an active forum participant when you could be, with just a little effort, in a box 6 feet under.
But whether a workplace was business or non-profit made little difference. Employees were generally viewed as interchangeable means rather than ends. Hierarchy worked exactly the same in both kinds of employment. Control was the name of the game. A lot of work was terminally boring and tedious, and should have been performed by machines. (As time goes on, more of it IS being done by machines.)
Work seemed like a theft of my time. Much of the day (more than 8 hours, more like 12) was spent getting ready for work, getting to work, working, returning from work, and unwinding from work. That left too little time to just BE.
The job that I liked the most combined the joy of being with the satisfaction of collaboration at work and recognition. It involved outreach work in the gay community during the early years of AIDS. The job was fairly difficult, loosely supervised (of necessity, it involved outside work away from the agency office), and was very fulfilling. it was a fulfilling place for most others, as well. We didn't feel exploited.
Exploitation of workers (by corporation, state, or non-profit) requires everything that makes work unpleasant: hierarchy, control, tedium, devaluation. Management theory recognizes the fact that if managers don't keep a tight grip on the work place, the workers will take control (bit by bit, not a revolution). Hierarchy and control will be lost. Crackdowns will be required to regain control; people will be fired (not just at the bottom of the heap); and production (of widgets, statistics, paper flows... something) will be lost.
The Great Question is this: Can one have a socialist workplace without hierarchy, control, tedium, and devaluation of workers? IF you can't, then there much less reason to hope for the revolution.
Imagine using this argument in defense of the system of slavery. Would this satisfy you regarding slavery?
Ok, so pro well being above capitalist structure as the ends.
Capitalism is only one system among others throughout history, defined by private ownership and the relationship between [s]masters[/s] owners (employers) and [s]slaves[/s] workers (employees). It has its roots in the middle ages and accelerated in the industrial revolution. It's largely replaced slavery and feudalism.
There are many variants of capitalism. Saudi Arabia is capitalist. China is capitalist. Sweden is capitalist. Most nations are "mixed economies." The United States is a state-capitalist system, and around 40 years ago, in the 70s and early 80s, began shifting from an era of "regimented capitalism" (managerialism) which existed from roughly the 1940s, to a neoliberal program. "Government is the problem."
If you agree that what I've just described above is correct, then you have your answer: yes, during the 1950s and 60s, there was a more egalitarian distribution of wealth and a larger "middle class." Is that preferable to the neoliberal era we've been subjected to? Yes. Does that mean we're happy with capitalism? No.
FDR and the New Deal was fine, but didn't go nearly far enough. Capitalism should have simply been abolished.
There was also a violent (but forgotten) fight against the New Deal policies, and right away there was a backlash. The owners of this country always resented it, but couldn't do much about it. The late 60s was the last straw for them -- that "excess of democracy" of some black people getting rights and students protesting and so on. Too much to bear.
You see the thought process laid out clearly in the 1970 Milton Friedman NY Times article about corporate governance, and the 1971 Powell memo to the US Chamber of Commerce (and, later, the Trilateral Commission's Crisis of Democracy). The OAPEC oil embargo of '73 and the "stagflation" of the mid 70s provided enough of an opening to start a push for what was always wanted: dismantling the New Deal, shrinking government (tax cuts, deregulation, privatization), and crushing unions. I assume you're aware of most of this.
So -- giiven all this, the question:
Quoting schopenhauer1
is a false one. The power differential between owners and their employees is not just an unequal one, it's also a morally illegitimate one. Just as in the the system of slavery and the system of feudalism.
Sure, there were some nice masters and lords. There are some nice employers today. So what? Ditto for a more "equitable" distribution. The very system is unjust and illegitimate.
Capitalism also stems from a very strange concept of "liberty" and "individuality" that is, at bottom, anti-social (not simply anti-socialist). It has its roots in ideas about human nature -- elevating "self-interest," "selfishness," and "greed" as primary motives. It's more of a psychological sickness than a philosophy. In my opinion. It all reeks of both intense social phobia and anti-social personality disorder.
I donāt think a system of voluntary cooperation is as disreputable as statism, because statism is a system of compulsory cooperation. Thatās why I wonder if your system would be compulsory or not, and what youād do to those who refuse. If itās voluntary, itās just; if itās compulsory, itās unjust.
Iām familiar with Debs but only vaguely with DeLeon. Iāve read Debs, his free speech trial, but only know DeLeon through his criticisms of George. Both were contemporaries of George, though. If I remember correctly Debs praised George and Deleon excoriated him. But those debates during those times, between the socialists and the Single Taxers, were fascinating to read about, and represent an exciting moment in American political theory.
Iām well aware of the treatment of socialists in the early 20th century and beyond, Debs included. Itās embarrassing that a country so adamant about freedom and free speech would violate these principles due to fear of ideas. I wager had they left them alone, socialism and communism would have fell out of favor in America long ago.
The Revolution has to occur before one can think about creating an economy based on voluntary cooperation. Without a prior revolution of thinking among the people, cooperation will end up being forced. You don't want that / I don't want that.
I come from a religious upbringing, and to me "a voluntary cooperative economy" has the same rhetorical flavor as the Kingdom of God. It would be the final and best arrangement for humankind, Despite a religious upbringing, I do not expect God to intervene on socialism's behalf and assist in the establishment of socialism -- or to even lift so much as a hair on our behalf. Humans have to do this on our own, period.
We are capable of conducting voluntary cooperation in a small group for a limited period of time (maybe 3 dozen people for a week or two). We have not evolved the ability to do this in a population of several hundred million. Lock 36 people into a room and they will quickly conclude (with Sartre) that hell is other people.
Our hunter-gatherer forebears were apparently able to sustain voluntary cooperation for millennia. They had a couple of things going for them that we do not: a) they had lots of space to spread out in; b) they weren't compacted enough to get on each other's nerves. c) They presumably had pretty clearly defined roles -- one hunted (roles with that) or one gathered (roles within that). c) Because they were mobile, they didn't accumulate a lot of stuff or to have arguments about who owned what. d) Life presented enough outside threats (lions, tigers, and bears...) to help maintain solidarity. e) On the other hand, life was (apparently) good enough that they didn't have to work all that hard to be healthy (their bones indicate good health).
We predictably get on each other's nerves; our roles are fuzzy or conflicting; we are burdened with stuff; clear and present existential threats are much less common for us than vague, impending forms of possible doom, under which solidarity cracks; we work very hard (probably to no good end much of the time) and are often kind of sickly. We suspect that we are going to get preternaturally screwed.
I don't give a damn about marbles. In modern society it seems all is about them. And you have to play along.
But aren't the class interests of say the professionals/managers quite distinct from the wage earners beneath them? They don't direct nor own the means of production, and they are not only purely valued by their labor power like the proletariat. It's a different social relation and that engenders particular social values that can be at odds with the working class. It's why solidarity cannot be achieved with them. I don't see how the professional/managerial class suffers from false consciousness.
What's interesting to me is if you say these distinctions don't matter, and its reduced to simply worker vs. capitalist, then why is class consciousness difficult for the majority of workers? Why is there a lack of solidarity that stretches beyond so many different occupations?
Why should it be given? They should just take it.
The actual situation is that, as I showed in my calculations (see my last post), there's just too many people (overpopulation) for that to be true and the income categories poor, middle class, rich & super rich, are the result of uneven distribution of wealth.
The champagne glass (vide Champagne glass effect), if broken and reshaped, would result in a fine strand of glass with which you can do absolutely nothing.
The (hard) choice (for us): Distribute the wealth evenly and make everyone poor & miserable OR accept the inequality and let some of us (the 1%) have (all the) fun. Sacrifice time!
I didn't say they don't matter simpliciter. In fact the dilution of the worker-capitalist distinction is precisely one of the reasons that solidarity is so hard to come by. All the little sub-categorizations that pit workers against each other, all the better to suck energy out of the only class war worth having: that against owners of capital. Funnily enough, the class most aware of the importance and centrality of the distinction is none other than the capitalist class itself, which it why it spends enormous amounts of money and time trying, precisely, to cast it into obscurity with shitty ideas like 'the middle class'.
They are not even united against the workers. The oppression does not come heavy-handed or via military or police enforcement; it comes by paying the workers a wage that allow them a so-called middle class lifestyle. The capitalists compete against each other (again, lack of solidarity) by pay-wars among themselves, to get the wanted workers work for them.
Is the workers' aim to topple this arrangement? what is bad about this arrangement? Provided, like someone said in the OP, that every worker without exception will be able to attain a comfortable, sustainable, and pleasant lifestyle.
Whether it's a conspiracy among capitalists to tune down the ideal of class struggle, or else it is the apathy of the workers, what precisely is it in the arrangement (ideal arrangement) that would necessitate the further struggle between worker's class and capitalists' class?
Yes...well...why didn't I think of that?
Dunno. You tell me.
Eh, none are essential and 99% of what I use is open source. But how is that important? The big bad evil corporations have to rely on an ecosystem too, they tend to be less independent than a small timer because their needs are so much greater.
Yeah, you can really see how capitalism has made everyone so much poorer than before and they just keep on plummeting. And the USSR grew so much faster, so that's the ticket to better results:
Not that those numbers really matter. Once you make enough money to cover your needs, likely around $10K/yr with no subsidies in an average market, more money doesn't make you happier -- increased control of your life does. And capitalism is the system most capable of generating the revenue to subsidize everyone to that level.
Under communism, they literally have no choice but to work for someone else. Work is obligatory under that system, and knowing that the shoe factory is a collective doesn't make them feel any better about having to meet quota.
Capitalism at least provides options. The factory worker can go try something else without getting permission from anyone. The factory worker can learn to code and be their own boss, as many people in impoverished countries have done. The factory worker can invent a new job that didn't exist before. It won't be easy for most, but there's no system under which it is.
You can indeed, once you realize that GDP numbers are basically meaningless without accounting for who has captured all this wealth. Hint: it isn't the majority of people:
--
Quoting Paul
I'm not entirely sure what to say about this propaganda, because I can't argue against whatever boogey-men you conjure up. For myself, I mostly believe in abolishing work, or at least as much of it as possible. I can say, however, that it is not a boogey-man that the idea that 'capitalism provides options' is mostly a myth. Social mobility has basically stalled since the 90s, and class war by the rich has mostly made it so that the poor remain poor by miring communities and countries in debt, while commodifying opportunity such that only those with means can, for the most part, continue to accrue more means. There is a reason that the concentration of global monopolies have exploded in the last few decades, precisely on account of the fact that capital attracts capital, acting like a centrifuge to expel all those who do not already have it.
The platformization of goods means that more and more, we don't even own our own stuff: we rent our (access to) music, our TV shows, our phones, our software, our homes, and even our household goods and cars (and jobs, in the case of uber and food delivery). If you're concerned about autonomy - and you should be - you ought to watch where the wind is blowing. And increased autonomy isn't the direction. Dependency has skyrocketed under capitalism. And this is all to say nothing about (forced) geopolitical dependency cutting across the Earth. And in any case, what I'm arguing for is more autonomy on the part of workers, not less: control over the means by which we reproduce our daily lives, so far sequestered to a small cabal of what are effectively private governments.
Are you sure that things would be "Just like now" as suggested in the OP? In the OP scenario, there would be no poverty or misery and there would still be capitalism. But in the world that is "just like now" - this actual world - there are both poverty and misery and there is also capitalism.
The question at issue is whether capitalism is the cause of poverty and misery or whether they merely happen to co-exist. So the OP begs the question.
Too muuuuch...