Inherent contradiction in capitalism...

[RadioRaheem84]

Someone mentioned on this board. It was something about the accumulation of wealth by the capitalist relies on wage pay but the capitalists keeps cutting the pay or something like that. I totally blanked out. A little help please.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

I'll let others help with your question, all I want to ask is why you want to call this a 'contradiction'?

[turquino]

I don't read minds. There are many debated theories on capitalist crises, some of which Karl Marx only suggested in passing. You could try doing a search based on what you remember, or with luck the person who mentioned it will notice this and reply.

I'll let others help with your question, all I want to ask is why you want to call this a 'contradiction'?
Probably because it was the term Marx used.

[ZeroNowhere]

I don't think Marx used it to mean whatever the OP seems to be describing, though.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

Turqino:


Probably because it was the term Marx used.

Then the OP either used this word unthinkingly, like so many others who employ it, or he/she knows why this word is appropriate. I am, of course, only interested in the latter.

[RadioRaheem84]

“Contradiction in the capitalist mode of production: the laborers as buyers of commodities are important for the market. But as sellers of their own commodity — labor-power — capitalist society tends to keep them down to the minimum price."

It was something like this. Can anyone elaborate on this?

[NecroCommie]

I'll try to make the contradiction as simple as possible.

1)someone owns
2)someone is owned
3)those two camps have interests diametrically opposite
4)The ones owned can exist without owners
5)The owners cannot exist without those owned, because the owned do all the work
6) points 3+4+5= capitalism will most propably collapse due to it's own impossibility

Simply put, when class war is combined with the fact that only the other class can exist without the other means one shitty future for the other class.

[Mikhail Tukhachevsky]

I think you are talking about overproduction.
I'll explain it using the simplest terms possible so it can be easy to understand, albeit simplistic.

So a worker produces a chair. This chair is worth now 40$ in the market. But the worker is only paid 10$ for the work and the capitalist makes 30$ out of the workers work. But at the same time the workers are the market (for the most part). Therefore how can the worker buy back the chair?

This happens in the whole of capitalist society. The workers are paid less than the market value of the goods they produce, therefore they cannot absorb the goods they produce. Therefore we end up having a crisis. There's too much shit out there which cannot be bought. Therefore production decreases, people lose their jobs and the market diminishes further. This is the crisis of overproduction and this crisis combined with the crisis of finance (a separate topic), is what constitutes the economic crisis today.

I hope this helped!

[Decolonize The Left]

Someone mentioned on this board. It was something about the accumulation of wealth by the capitalist relies on wage pay but the capitalists keeps cutting the pay or something like that. I totally blanked out. A little help please.

I'll give it a shot. It will be a rather lengthy explanation, but should be simple and should answer your question.

There are two classes in capitalist society: working class and capitalist class. These classes are generally defined by their relationship to the means of production (MoP): the capitalist class owns the MoP and the working class uses the MoP to produce all goods and services within capitalist society.

Now, how do these classes relate to one another?
The capitalist class owns the means of production, and pays the working class to manage, produce, and distrubute the goods/services. This payment usually comes in the form of a wage.
A wage is a monetary amount for a fixed period of time (ex: 10 dollars an hour).

Key point: this wage cannot be equal to the value of the product/service, for if it were, there would be no profit for the capitalist. As the capitalist economy is based around the accumulation of profit, the wage must necessarily be less than the value of the product/service. Hence there is a value gap within the capitalist mode of production.

This value gap (many other terms have, and can, be used) is extremely important. As the capitalist class continues to employ the working class and pay them for their labor, they accumulate profit and become richer. The working class, on the other hand, sees little increase in wages and is forced to work harder and longer (less wages and more production = more profit for the capitalist class). Furthermore, the capitalist class is always seeking even cheaper labor and often the working class is left without labor at all.

Now you see how one class gets richer while the other gets poorer. This creates a large gap in income and standard of living. This gap creates tensions between the classes as the working class confronts the reality that (for lack of better terms) they are being screwed. This tension inevitably will result in insurrection and so the capitalist class must (in some form) appease the working class. The "middle class" was invented to do just this.

This is the major "contradiction" in capitalism. The system cannot perpetuate itself indefinitely as the working class will inevitably become so poor that it revolts against the capitalist class.

I hope that was what you were looking for and easy enough to understand.

- August

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

NecroCommie:


I'll try to make the contradiction as simple as possible.

1)someone owns
2)someone is owned
3)those two camps have interests diametrically opposite
4)The ones owned can exist without owners
5)The owners cannot exist without those owned, because the owned do all the work
6) points 3+4+5= capitalism will most propably collapse due to it's own impossibility

Simply put, when class war is combined with the fact that only the other class can exist without the other means one shitty future for the other class.

But, why is this a contradiction?

It would be if it were something like this:


The owners can and cannot exist without those owned,

or:


someone owns and no one owns

Unless, of course, you are all using "contradiction" in a new and as-yet-unexplained sense.

If so, what is it?

[RadioRaheem84]

This tension inevitably will result in insurrection and so the capitalist class must (in some form) appease the working class. The "middle class" was invented to do just this.

How was the middle class created? I thought that it was created as a result of the many battles between the two classes, the introduction of labor unions, minimum wage, pensions, eight hour work day, etc.

[RadioRaheem84]

Also, what are some of the arguments against this contradiction? I know that libertarians and capitalists haven't just sat back and not touched this obvious observation.

[ZeroNowhere]

NC, capitalism is impossible? Really?
I mean, it would perhaps be if you said one of Rosa's examples of 'contradictions', but then again, not to one of Engels' developed materialists that did away with the principles of non-contradiction and identity.

[Decolonize The Left]

How was the middle class created? I thought that it was created as a result of the many battles between the two classes, the introduction of labor unions, minimum wage, pensions, eight hour work day, etc.

Materialists don't necessarily acknowledge the middle class as existent. Materialist see class as a relationship to the means of production, not some arbitrary income level. From a materialist perspective, there are - and can be - only two classes under capitalist: working class (proletariat), and capitalist class (bourgeoisie).

- August

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

NecroCommie and RadioRaheem, I can only assume from the fact that you are ignoring my questions you have no answer to them, but are happy to keep using this meaningless word: 'contradiction'.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

ZeroNoWhere:


I mean, it would perhaps be if you said one of Rosa's examples of 'contradictions', but then again, not to one of Engels' developed materialists that did away with the principles of non-contradiction and identity.

But he didn't; he just copied a few confused ideas from Hegel, who badly screwed up over these two so-called 'laws':

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1381066&postcount=30

[h9socialist]

I'll take a stab at this, and try to be simpler in my explanation. At some point I recall Marx discussing the "contradiction" (if you will) that the capitalist would like all workers to be paid high enough wages to buy his (the capitalist's) products, EXCEPT the worker's he employs, whom he would like to be as cheap as possible.

This is a highly simplified way of showing motivations that lead to an imbalance of consumption and production. It's been 12 years since I last read the 3 volumes of "Das Kapital" so I will gladly yield to other comrades with fresher recollections.

[el_chavista]

So, according to Rosa, a contradiction is a transgression of the "excluded middle" logical law :confused:

[Lyev]

NecroCommie and RadioRaheem, I can only assume from the fact that you are ignoring my questions you have no answer to them, but are happy to keep using this meaningless word: 'contradiction'.

I think the contradiction (although there are probably loads of contradictions within capitalism if you just look for them) is the bond between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. There is a picture which helps with this but I can't find it. I think, basically, it's that the capitalist and the worker are tied together, but at the same time they're forever struggling against each other. The capitalist needs the worker to earn his/her income, in the same way, when there's no other work, the worker needs the capitalist for an income. However- the worker wants to be paid fairly, to work in the best conditions, not be exploited, but under the capitalist mode of production work is exploitation. On the other hand, the capitalist wants to pay the worker as unfairly as possible, and for the most profit possible. Under capitalism they need each other, but at the same time conflict in their needs from each other, if that's makes sense. I think I've said what I want to say, it seems like quite an obvious thing now, maybe I've totally missed the point. Another thing to add is that the worker must earn a living under capitalism, although doesn't want to be exploited, but under capitalism there is no choice but to be exploited if you're going to work under the bourgeoisie.

[Durruti's Ghost]

I'll take a stab at this, and try to be simpler in my explanation. At some point I recall Marx discussing the "contradiction" (if you will) that the capitalist would like all workers to be paid high enough wages to buy his (the capitalist's) products, EXCEPT the worker's he employs, whom he would like to be as cheap as possible.

This is a highly simplified way of showing motivations that lead to an imbalance of consumption and production. It's been 12 years since I last read the 3 volumes of "Das Kapital" so I will gladly yield to other comrades with fresher recollections.

I think this sums it up best, actually. In order for an individual capitalist to make a profit, he has to pay his workers less than the market value of their labor's product. As this is compounded over time, the amount of product starts to exceed the purchasing power of the working class, leading to overproduction and market "corrections". These corrections consist of further concentration of capital. Capital can only be concentrated so far, though, before further corrections become impossible and a crisis comes that is not just a crisis, but THE crisis, of capitalism. This has been forestalled by the exploitation of third-world markets by first-world capitalists. Again, though, this can only last so long before the whole system comes tumbling down...

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

El Chavista:


So, according to Rosa, a contradiction is a transgression of the "excluded middle" logical law

Er, I don't think I have ever said that!

---------------------------

h9Socialist:


At some point I recall Marx discussing the "contradiction" (if you will) that the capitalist would like all workers to be paid high enough wages to buy his (the capitalist's) products, EXCEPT the worker's he employs, whom he would like to be as cheap as possible.

This is a highly simplified way of showing motivations that lead to an imbalance of consumption and production. It's been 12 years since I last read the 3 volumes of "Das Kapital" so I will gladly yield to other comrades with fresher recollections.

Thanks for that, but my problem is why comrades insist on calling this a 'contradiction' (over and above merely copying Marx, who copied Hegel -- upside down, or the 'right way up').

Now, it would be a contradiction if this were the case:

"I, boss B, want and do not want others to pay the highest wages possible."

Or:

"I, boss B, want others to pay and not to pay the highest wages possible."

-----------------------

AGW:


I think the contradiction (although there are probably loads of contradictions within capitalism if you just look for them) is the bond between the proletariat and the bourgeoisie. There is a picture which helps with this but I can't find it. I think, basically, it's that the capitalist and the worker are tied together, but at the same time they're forever struggling against each other. The capitalist needs the worker to earn his/her income, in the same way, when there's no other work, the worker needs the capitalist for an income. However- the worker wants to be paid fairly, to work in the best conditions, not be exploited, but under the capitalist mode of production work is exploitation. On the other hand, the capitalist wants to pay the worker as unfairly as possible, and for the most profit possible. Under capitalism they need each other, but at the same time conflict in their needs from each other, if that's makes sense. I think I've said what I want to say, it seems like quite an obvious thing now, maybe I've totally missed the point. Another thing to add is that the worker must earn a living under capitalism, although doesn't want to be exploited, but under capitalism there is no choice but to be exploited if you're going to work under the bourgeoisie.

Yes, I do understand Marxism (I have been a Marxist for longer than most RevLefters have been alive); I have no problem with 'conflict' or 'struggle'. What I can't figure out is why comrades insist on calling this a 'contradiction'.

In fact, I tell a lie; I know why comrades use this word: it's traditional to do so, and that tradition was established when the early Marx read Hegel uncritically, falling for the defective logic he found there.

I have exposed this here:

http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=1381066&postcount=30

[RadioRaheem84]

Yes, I do understand Marxism (I have been a Marxist for longer than most RevLefters have been alive); I have no problem with 'conflict' or 'struggle'. What I can't figure out is why comrades insist on calling this a 'contradiction'.

In fact, I tell a lie; I know why comrades use this word: it's traditional to do so, and that tradition was established when the early Marx read Hegel uncritically, falling for the defective logic he found there.

I have exposed this hereSo if its not a contradiction. Then what is it and what is your critique of capitalism?


Also, for everyone else:

Hasn't capitalism staved off the inevitable by finding cheap labor abroad and relying on everyone else to substitute credit for their law purchasing power.

[Dave B]

Trying to keep a complicated subject simple.


The surplus value or the surplus labour or the surplus product, that are all ‘objects’ with labour or human effort embodied in them, ‘are’ or ‘will be’ two different kinds of ‘things’.

1)stuff the capitalist or parasitic class will consume eg Ferrari’s and fur coats etc and perhaps just bread and cheese.

2) more machines, means of production, factories or working and accumulated capital.

Point two works in two ways, often simultaneously. And for simplicity at this point it is convenient to ignore point 1)

So you might start of with say ‘1000 factories’ and 100,000 workers and bit later in time after several turnovers you end up with say 2000 factories and 200,000 workers.

The extra 1000 factories with all the capital required for it with the embodied labour in the machines etc has ‘come out of’ and ‘is’ the surplus value of the workers from the original ‘1000 factories’ and 100,000 workers. And is the net, surplus value, surplus product, surplus labour or the so called ‘dead labour’ of the overall process.

After all the buying and selling and exchange between the various factories.

In fact some of those original 1000 ‘factories’ will be making and reproducing other ‘factories’ and machines etc.

The extra workers come from humans being sucked into the capitalist system of production eg peasants in the formal sense and perhaps from population expansion.

So working capital, ultimately the surplus product, is reproducing itself and expanding out of the surplus value or surplus labour.

What can also happen without having to accommodate an influx of new workers is an increase in the amount of, or value, or the embodied labour in the machines that workers work with.

So overall, to start with, a worker or each worker may work with say machines etc that have 100 hours of labour embodied in them.

Then later each worker may work with machines with 200 hours of labour embodied in them.


The increased hours worth of embodied labour that each worker works with has come out of the surplus value and labour that they have, in the overall process, produced.

This happens because, as should be ‘generally’ intuitively obvious, machines or things that have more labour expended on them often result in greater productivity of ‘living labour’, and reduce the ‘cost’ of production.

To use a seminal example used by 19th century economists, people made bows and arrows, embodied labour and ‘means of production’, because it reduced the amount of effort to get your diner.

So a load of hunters may have been running around trying to club a deer, and any deers they caught that they didn’t need for themselves could be given to bow and arrow makers.

Once done the hunters equipped with bows and arrows can catch more surplus deers with which they can feed wheel makers and potters or whatever. And so on, perhaps even including the makers of crude musical instruments just to improve the overall quality of life etc, ideally.
I think it was an Adam Smith thing.


(There are caveats with this that I may add on later.)

The overproduction stuff, and that there is no one to consume the surplus value thing, was a Rosa Luxembourg thesis that followed on from Karl’s two departments of capital, although the mistake was not all her own. Because Karl made a mistake, and in fact there are three departments of capital.

He left out fixed un-consumed capital from his equations for spurious reasons at the beginning of volume one.

Chapter Nine: The Rate of Surplus-Value



Throughout this Book therefore, by constant capital advanced for the production of value, we always mean, unless the context is repugnant thereto, the value of the means of production actually consumed in the process, and that value alone.

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch09.htm (http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch09.htm)

Thus when he did his two departments of capital thing.

There was one department for things consumed by humans, both workers and capitalists alike.

And another department for raw materials that were consumed in the process, or constant capital.

(Constant capital did include consumed fixed capital that would increase, but not the proportion of un-consumed fixed capital, as it was left out.)


The ratio or the amount of capital you work with is called the organic composition of capital and was described by Karl as c/v or the value of raw materials over wages.


Whereas it should be (c + Fc)/v. Which is the value of raw material + value of unconsumed fixed capital divided by wages.

Where I work, in high tech manufacturing industry, in a ‘turnover’ Fc dwarfs both c an v.


(Productivity of the workers can of course increase just due to increases in technology or finding more efficient ways of doing things rather than by actually working with more efficient machines that have embodied labour in them,

And new products can appear that may require more labour per amount of or value of ‘machinery’ etc or capital that is needed to produce them.

Initiating perhaps a new cycle of labour saving devices.)

[h9socialist]

I think we're getting carried away with the idea of "contradiction." It is true to say that capitalism suffers from a contradiction, between needing workers to have enough purchasing power to clear the shelves, and wanting to pay workers less in order to cut costs and pocket the difference.

Also, capitalism extracts value from the workers in the form of commodities, but renumerates them according to the labor market. As such the workers are never paid enough to purchase the products they produce. That's why the system needs to find new markets on an ever continuing basis -- or build a "plutonomy" -- an economic based on the extravagances of the wealthy. It is a contradiction in the concept of value to value the workers' product in one manner, and their renumeration for the labor involved in creating that product in another.

[Rosa Lichtenstein]

RadioRaheem:


Then what is it and what is your critique of capitalism?

Probably the same as yours, minus the Hegelian gobbledygook.

--------------------------

h9Socialist:


I think we're getting carried away with the idea of "contradiction." It is true to say that capitalism suffers from a contradiction, between needing workers to have enough purchasing power to clear the shelves, and wanting to pay workers less in order to cut costs and pocket the difference.

Also, capitalism extracts value from the workers in the form of commodities, but renumerates them according to the labor market. As such the workers are never paid enough to purchase the products they produce. That's why the system needs to find new markets on an ever continuing basis -- or build a "plutonomy" -- an economic based on the extravagances of the wealthy. It is a contradiction in the concept of value to value the workers' product in one manner, and their renumeration for the labor involved in creating that product in another.

But, you keep using this word when it is quite clear that either 1) It does not fit, or 2) You do not know why you are using it -- or both.