The changing face of capitalism.....

[RadioRaheem84]

This is something that's brought up by many pro-capitalists. That Marx didn't account for the changing face of capitalism. What I guess this means is that commodities would get cheaper and workers would get more money or higher pay and society would change (stronger middle class). Take for instance some professions where the worker gets 60k or even 100k (Investment banker, engineer, etc.) and is able to afford a good quality of life. While the relation between worker and owner doesn't change, some would argue that the lifestyle afforded to the worker makes up for it (the best we can do canard).

Also, let me sneak in this last question; the notion that the owner has a right to his property (the means of production) because he put up the capital and risk, how is that an argument for the right? Is it because he puts up the initial start up capital?

[maya]

This is something that's brought up by many pro-capitalists. That Marx didn't account for the changing face of capitalism. What I guess this means is that commodities would get cheaper and workers would get more money or higher pay and society would change (stronger middle class). Take for instance some professions where the worker gets 60k or even 100k (Investment banker, engineer, etc.) and is able to afford a good quality of life. While the relation between worker and owner doesn't change, some would argue that the lifestyle afforded to the worker makes up for it (the best we can do canard).

If it was not for the challenge posed by the Soviet Union I doubt their would have been a New Deal, Great Society or middle class as we know it today. And I doubt if we continue on the road we're on there will be a middle class in 50 years time.

Many higher paid jobs are paid for by the surplus value created by those further down the 'food chain'. As a pizza deliverer I earn only a fraction of the wealth that goes to the owners of the store, who do very little real work.

Also, let me sneak in this last question; the notion that the owner has a right to his property (the means of production) because he put up the capital and risk, how is that an argument for the right? Is it because he puts up the initial start up capital?

Firstly, this is to acknowledge that the capitalist has the right to the startup capital in the first place, and that it is theirs to take risks with. A lot of times it is bankers or investors using other people's money to gamble with.

A risky investment is just that: speculation. It does not guarentee rational outcomes for society, only that the capitalist will receive a greater return than investment. Thus it makes more economic sense to invest 1.5 billion in some website of dubious value than in farming or disease prevention in poorer countries that could have a net material benefit for real people.

[Drace]

What I guess this means is that commodities would get cheaper and workers would get more money or higher pay and society would change (stronger middle class). Take for instance some professions where the worker gets 60k or even 100k (Investment banker, engineer, etc.) and is able to afford a good quality of life. While the relation between worker and owner doesn't change, some would argue that the lifestyle afforded to the worker makes up for it (the best we can do canard).And conditions under slavery improved too within the years, is that an argument for slavery too?
The workers still have a lot to gain from a revolution.
While a fraction of the workers in the industrial nations have benefited from the capitalist system, the capitalists themselves have gained themselves even a bigger fraction of the wealth. If the workers are getting richer, then the capitalists themselves are getting exponentially more then them. Currently 3 of the richest people in the world own more wealth than the lowest 10% of the population.
Only a small portion of the new wealth produced has gone to the workers while most of it to the capitalists through exploitation.

The exploitation of third world countries and globalization have also put stress on the poorer countries while increasing the wealth of the mother country. I think the figure is that the top 1% of the population owns 50% of the wealth in the world?

Reality still is that the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. Its just less apparent in a imperialist power like the US where all the wealth is fluctuating.


Also, let me sneak in this last question; the notion that the owner has a right to his property (the means of production) because he put up the capital and risk, how is that an argument for the right? Is it because he puts up the initial start up capital?Its a way of saying the rich deserve to be rich.
Because we all know Bill Gates worked 2 million hours at a modest $30/hr to earn his 60 billion.

[Nolan]

This is something that's brought up by many pro-capitalists. That Marx didn't account for the changing face of capitalism. What I guess this means is that commodities would get cheaper and workers would get more money or higher pay and society would change (stronger middle class). Take for instance some professions where the worker gets 60k or even 100k (Investment banker, engineer, etc.) and is able to afford a good quality of life. While the relation between worker and owner doesn't change, some would argue that the lifestyle afforded to the worker makes up for it (the best we can do canard).

Also, let me sneak in this last question; the notion that the owner has a right to his property (the means of production) because he put up the capital and risk, how is that an argument for the right? Is it because he puts up the initial start up capital?


Well, first its important to point out that Capitalism didn't give us a strong middle class. That was the revolutionary left through the labor movement. The rich fought everything that separates an American worker from, say, an Indonesian worker. Minimum wage, the 40 hour work week, no child labor, job safety, etc. are things we had to tear from their greedy claws. Only then could the strong middle class form. Also you have to point out that that is only in a few privileged countries - the hedonist mass consumer culture that we see today in the west is sustained by cheap sweatshop labor and turn of the century wages and conditions in poorer countries. So in a way, the strong middle class has made the western bourgeoisie even richer because they can take advantage of the same conditions elsewhere and they have a huge market that is the middle class.

Well, that's my two cents worth. :tt2:

[RadioRaheem84]

Firstly, this is to acknowledge that the capitalist has the right to the startup capital in the first place, and that it is theirs to take risks with.

If it is money a worker saved up to start his own business?

[maya]

If it is money a worker saved up to start his own business?

Even if it is the honest result of their own labor, I don't think it gives them the right to exploit the surplus value of others by employing them in waged labor and in the pursuit of profit.

[RadioRaheem84]

Also you have to point out that that is only in a few privileged countries - the hedonist mass consumer culture that we see today in the west is sustained by cheap sweatshop labor and turn of the century wages and conditions in poorer countries. So in a way, the strong middle class has made the western bourgeoisie even richer because they can take advantage of the same conditions elsewhere and they have a huge market that is the middle class.

Zing. Forgot about the comrades in the third world! It is also true that the higher you climb the ladder as a non-manager say in the corporate world the longer hours you labor for slightly higher salary. In the investment banking world, my friends are making good money but they work over 60 sometimes 80 hours a week crunching numbers on a spreadsheet. The whole plan of every analyst in a firm is to work for two years, get the experience on a resume and leave. Imagine how much they would receive hourly when working 70+ hours a week for 50-60k plus bonuses. This is in a profession that makes millions for their employers and others.

[RadioRaheem84]

Would we even have the middle class we have today without sweatshop labor and debt finance?

[Nolan]

Would we even have the middle class we have today without sweatshop labor and debt finance?


Absolutely not.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Marx was wrong about capitalism's flexibility - thank goodness he wasn't an oracle. There have been many developments that have allowed capitalism to somewhat cope with the effects of some of the contradictions of the system. I don't think we can fault Marx for not foreseeing the development of social-democracy, credit, imperialism, world war, the USSR and state-capitalism, and so on.

Compared to capitalist economists thought, Marx was Cassandra. Just before every crash some well paid academic was talking about "the end of history/the end of economic crisis". Even Alan Greenspan the celebrity of capital had to admit after this latest crash that there was "a flaw in my ideology".

Marx was around for the big changes and growth of industry, the first worker movements and the first revolutions where the industrial working class were a force. This helped him see many of the patterns and ways that capitalism function before they became the norm and more hidden. The contradictions he saw are still largely in play and many things (like globalization) are more true and evident than they were when Marx wrote about them.

[Nolan]

Marx was wrong about capitalism's flexibility - thank goodness he wasn't an oracle. There have been many developments that have allowed capitalism to somewhat cope with the effects of some of the contradictions of the system. I don't think we can fault Marx for not foreseeing the development of social-democracy, credit, imperialism, world war, the USSR and state-capitalism, and so on.

Compared to capitalist economists thought, Marx was Cassandra. Just before every crash some well paid academic was talking about "the end of history/the end of economic crisis". Even Alan Greenspan the celebrity of capital had to admit after this latest crash that there was "a flaw in my ideology".

Marx was around for the big changes and growth of industry, the first worker movements and the first revolutions where the industrial working class were a force. This helped him see many of the patterns and ways that capitalism function before they became the norm and more hidden. The contradictions he saw are still largely in play and many things (like globalization) are more true and evident than they were when Marx wrote about them.

Exactly. Marx's theories are 20 times more relevant today in the age of globalization than they were in his times.

[Drace]

If it is money a worker saved up to start his own business?

I suppose that makes it more moral but even so, once the business is established, and another capitalist is born and workers are exploited, the problems of capitalism continue to exist.

As of whether he has the right to the profit that is created under his business...
I'd say that he doesn't deserve any more than the actual work he did to set it up.
But whether he deserves the profit or not is irrelevant. There is a problem with the means of production being owned by the bourgeoisie itself.

It leads to inequality, wasteful resources, consumerism, imperialism and globalization.

The means of production need to be owned more democratically.

[maya]

I suppose that makes it more moral but even so, once the business is established, and another capitalist is born and workers are exploited, the problems of capitalism continue to exist.

IMHO, it is only more moral in the sense that a slave owner is more moral in making his own shackles instead of buying them from others.

It reduces the moral hazard for other people (stopping them from getting involved in the slave-shackling business) but fails to address the root cause of the problem

[Nolan]

I guess what we can get out of this is that whenever one owns a mode of production and hires workers to operate it for profit, wage labor, surplus value, and wealth condensation will be a problem. No matter how small scale.

[RadioRaheem84]

What I don't get is that the idea that free markets create these grand innovative booms that foster a push toward newer and better societies but can't the proponents see that it only benefits the top class and leaves the poorer classes in a worse or stagnant condition? When they speak of the benefits, are they speaking of themselves?

[Nolan]

What I don't get is that the idea that free markets create these grand innovative booms that foster a push toward newer and better societies but can't the proponents see that it only benefits the top class and leaves the poorer classes in a worse or stagnant condition? When they speak of the benefits, are they speaking of themselves?

In reality its only the illusion of a better society. The workers are still separated from the fruit of their labor. Of course they're talking about themselves. They want to keep their power. The same way the old Aristocracy in France wanted to keep the monarchy and feudalism. Innovation exists outside the profit motive, most of the great scientists in history didn't make a penny for their work, nor did they expect to. In fact, Galileo knew well beforehand that the Church wouldn't take kindly to his ideas. And of course there's that little thing about the Soviet Union putting the first satellite and then the first man in space and all. And every major innovation in the last 50 years has been publicly funded, only now are private enterprises starting to graze the edge of space, when the government has put people on the moon multiple times with no real non-scientific benefit but bragging rights.