Capitalism's Redeeming Qualities

[leftace53]

Does capitalism have any redeeming qualities? By "redeeming" I mean qualities, or influence on society that we won't have to eradicate, or can work into a communist society?

[Stephen Colbert]

Meritocracy, that being the best of a particular craft gets the most difficult job or gets rewarded in a way that tailors to his ingenuity and brilliance

I think,anyway.

[Ravachol]

Meritocracy, that being the best of a particular craft gets the most difficult job or gets rewarded in a way that tailors to his ingenuity and brilliance

I think,anyway.

Too bad Capitalism doesn't posess this feature.

[Blackscare]

Early stage capitalism was indeed progressive, in a sense, as it lead to the dynamic expansion of industries and the rapid creation of infrastructure. Today, it would be a lot harder to find redeeming qualities.

[mikelepore]

I support the use in a classless society of two features that capitalism uses.

The first is personal incomes that depend on work hours. I am convinced that models of socialism that would have the work unpaid and the products distributed for free are not feasible.

The second is the accounting formula that business calls the inventory roll formula or ship roll formula. For any part number product, quantity in inventory at the end of the current time period = quantity in inventory at the end of the previous time period + quantity produced during the current time period - quantity shipped out of inventory during the current time period. In other words, the Mises-Hayek claim that socialism would have a lack of "information" is false. There is a lot of information in counting the flow of units. There is no need to have the type of "information" that they claim is necessary, which is how high a price can a seller get away with charging, considering how desperate the buyer is to acquire the product.

[Broletariat]

It created a socialised means of production which is necessary for Communism/Socialism

[Tablo]

I support the use in a classless society of two features that capitalism uses.

The first is personal incomes that depend on work hours. I am convinced that models of socialism that would have the work unpaid and the products distributed for free are not feasible.

So you support wage slavery?

[Ravachol]

So you support wage slavery?

Whilst a model of 'income' (in the traditional sense) is indeed anathema to communism, a system of labour vouchers can be supported in the 'lower stage' of communism where post-scarcity hasn't been achieved yet.

[mikelepore]

So you support wage slavery?

I support the system recommended by Karl Marx, where the worker would be paid for labor by this method: ""He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost." [Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875]

[ContrarianLemming]

The theoy that capitalism is a form of meritocracy is redeeming, but when does that ever work in practice?

I think a true meritocracy could only ever be in a classless society, one where earning a little more then the next guy (because you do more) doesn't mean you get anything over himm no power or land.

But that's not capitalism works, capitalists like to say "in capitalism, if you work hard you can make it" but that's reaganite BS.

I think in anarchy, if you work extra hard, you should get a little more (maybe) and those who do noting should get the basics.

Although there is much evidence, very convincing evidence that incentives are inaffective in jobs which require intelligence and thinking. I supose ultimately, how people are paid or not paid at all is up to those it affects, and that's anachy!

[Hexen]

Capitalism has no redeeming qualities. It only benefits a few egotistical sadistic psychopaths/sociopaths who enjoy others suffer for their own gratification while counting and obsessing over their wealth.

[ContrarianLemming]

Capitalism has no redeeming qualities. It only benefits a few egotistical sociopaths who enjoy others suffer for their own gratification while too busy counting and obsessing over their wealth.

this^ belongs in the propaganda section, get real, they don't eat puppies and hate sunshine.

[Hexen]

they don't eat puppies and hate sunshine.

Well you never know since capitalists can be quite monstrous...

[IllicitPopsicle]

this^ belongs in the propaganda section, get real, they don't eat puppies and hate sunshine.

RAWR NOMNOMNOM! >:D *sound of puppies dying*

[IllicitPopsicle]

Capitalism has no redeeming qualities. It only benefits a few egotistical sadistic psychopaths/sociopaths who enjoy others suffer for their own gratification while counting and obsessing over their wealth.

As much as some of us (most of us?) may agree with that... don't you think this is a slightly overemotional critique?

[gorillafuck]

this^ belongs in the propaganda section, get real, they don't eat puppies and hate sunshine.
Big capitalists do thing far worse than eating puppies, as hilarious as that sounds.

[DaComm]

:D
yeah, it's necessitates worker revolution which will bring to us Communism! But, no, Capitalism possesses no positive features that either help the workers or guarantee a safe living. It forces competition between individuals that brings about pauperization. Because Capitalism is a system that, you may have guessed, works in Capitalist favor the workers are always at risk of becoming a pauper, are always denied the ability to develop their interests, and are always, always seen as nothing more than expendable assets. Che Guevara put it very well that Capitalism is but a means of exploitation of man by fellow man, there is no up-side, no goodies, no satisfaction, there is ZILCH that is positive for the workers in Capitalism.

[mikelepore]

If you wanted to do something so that a system would definitely NOT be a meritocracy, what would be the perfect thing to do? That would be to have owners who became owners through the process of inheritance from their ancestors, regardless of their personal characteristics. So guess how most of the capitalists became capitalists. Through inheritance.

[Tablo]

I support the system recommended by Karl Marx, where the worker would be paid for labor by this method: ""He receives a certificate from society that he has furnished such-and-such an amount of labor (after deducting his labor for the common funds); and with this certificate, he draws from the social stock of means of consumption as much as the same amount of labor cost." [Critique of the Gotha Programme, 1875]
That wasn't referring to Communism, but actually the transition to Communism. Communism has no currency. Of course some type of rationing with something similiar to currency would be necessary while we are in the process of moving to post-scarcity though.

[ContrarianLemming]

That wasn't referring to Communism, but actually the transition to Communism. Communism has no currency. Of course some type of rationing with something similiar to currency would be necessary while we are in the process of moving to post-scarcity though.

chocolate kisses?

Guys, lets not beat around the bush, if we're not in post scarity then we're going to have a currency, you can call them "labour vouchers" "credits" and sunshine hugs all you want, but it's currency, and currency is not a defining feature of capitalism, despite what some purists claim.

[Joe Payne]

Thing is, workers have produced everything that Capitalism can be said to give us. Everything is the fruit of labor. Anything good about Capitalism can be found in the working class, hence the point of this best part to overthrow the rest of it (Capitalists) and live in a free society where all are given the full benefit of what we produce.

And yes, Capitalists do eat puppies and hate sunshine, by their own admission.

[Tablo]

chocolate kisses?

Guys, lets not beat around the bush, if we're not in post scarity then we're going to have a currency, you can call them "labour vouchers" "credits" and sunshine hugs all you want, but it's currency, and currency is not a defining feature of capitalism, despite what some purists claim.
I don't disagree and I have never denied that labor vouchers or anything of the sort aren't a form of currency.

[BAM]

the main redeeming feature of capitalism - if you want to call it that - is that capital is continually compelled to raise the level of civilisation through the re-investment of profits back into production. Competition forces innovation. Although this has its drawbacks at the same time, with the accumulation of wealth as well as the accumulation of misery, it is nevertheless a huge spur to social progress.

Also, the equality of commodities in the marketplace leads to the political notion of equality. Although this political sense of equal citizens with equal rights suits capitalist, liberal-democratic society, it remains something unfulfilled. We are formally, though not truly, equal. In this way, capitalist society raises the expectations of humanity that capital itself cannot fulfil. Communism thus becomes the fulfilment of the Enlightenment ideal of self-actualisation, the promise that capitalism makes but cannot deliver.

[Zanthorus]

So you support wage slavery?

"Wage slavery" refers to the fact that the worker's labour is a commodity to be bought and sold on the market with the average price being the historically and culturally conditioned means of subsistence. Since the worker consumes all of what she buys with her wages in one way or another it doesn't afford her enough to accumulate capital and start up a business so she is forced back onto the market to sell her labour for a wage. Now under the Marxian labour voucher scheme the worker's labour is not a commodity but apportioned to various sectors according to a democratic plan, further the worker is renumerated for the full amount of labour performed (After deductions from societies wealth for the disabled and sick and so on). Content and form are changed.


That wasn't referring to Communism, but actually the transition to Communism.

He specifically characterises it as the "lower phase" of communism which whatever way you try to twist it is still communism. If you also read Marx's description of Communism from Das Kapital you will find that he only talks about a system of labour vouchers and free acess is mentioned precisely nowhere.


Communism has no currency.

Indeed, it cannot have currency because "directly associated labour, [is] a form of production that is entirely in consistent with the production of commodities" from which we can further deduce that "“labour-money,”... is no more “money” than a ticket for the theatre." (Das Kapital, Chapter Three, Footnote One)

[mikelepore]

That wasn't referring to Communism, but actually the transition to Communism. Communism has no currency. Of course some type of rationing with something similiar to currency would be necessary while we are in the process of moving to post-scarcity though.

Since I am a Marxist and not a Leninist, I use Marx's vocabulary and not Lenin's vocabulary. On the day that the workers will take possession of the means of production and announce that the capitalist's property rights are cancelled, that new situation may immediately be called by both names, socialism and communism, in the branch of Marxism where I come from.

Whatever mode of distribution of goods the people may afterwards adopt is a matter of speculation, which no one who is alive today can know in advance. Anything we say about it is an unverifiable guess. Perhaps hundreds of years in the future, when people will experience "post-scarcity", when, in Marx's metaphor, products will flow like water from a stream, then it may be true that no rationing will be needed. But I don't care what the people will decide to do hundreds of years in the future. I only care about society becoming classless and worker-controlled. As soon as the workers take possession of the means of production, the society would then be classless and worker-controlled.

Although the kind of distribution that the people will adopt, in the near future or in the distant future, will have no effect on the fact that the economic system would already be classless and worker-controlled, I believe that the question of the mode of distribution has bearing on matters of efficiency and practicality. If we suggest to the working class a new system that may be unworkable due to practical considerations, and then the working class, realizing our error, refuses to listen to socialist speakers and writers anymore, then our failure to consider practical issues would have caused a tragic postponement of the necessary revolution.

[automattick]

Does capitalism have any redeeming qualities? By "redeeming" I mean qualities, or influence on society that we won't have to eradicate, or can work into a communist society?

Marx does admire the productivity capitalism displays and how the potential for creativity under capitalism far surpassed previous modes of production. Yet, as with everything, there is a dialectical opposite which recognizes a darker entity where capitalism loses its vitality and possesses a real threat to workers and society in general.