Mixed economy

[Hen]

I'm an inexperienced lefty.

I was having a discussion with a friend who said that "capitalism without exploitation of workers would work fine I think". I replied "capitalism depends on exploitation to drive down costs and expand profit to prop up the bourgeosie etc"

However I often find myself speaking in absolute terms about unregulated free market economy. I am criticising one half of a mixed economy. Clearly the balance between the private and public sector is not half and half. The private sector clearly holds both the government and the tax-payer to ransom. But what scope is there for building on the current liberal incisions into the private sector such as minimum wage, health and safety acts etc? I realize that these liberal incisions are insufficient because capitalism demands that they are kept to a minimum. But suppose that we could somehow build on these provisions to such an extent as to reign in the hostility of private enterprise and relieve the expoitation of workers. Would it be acceptable?

[graymouser]

You'll never get there in reality.

It's a very nice thing to say that you can get to the elimination of exploitation without a revolution, but attempting to do so tends to mean in practice that the capitalists react with violence, or if the nation is small enough to do so, a capital strike. They will stop at nothing to safeguard their rights to exploit, and if the bourgeois state is not disarmed it will be turned into a weapon against the working class and all its gains. Chile in 1973 really proved this once and for all.

The other end of the bargain is that reformist leaders, as a rule, can be bought off. Think about it: the social democrats in Europe had a whole historical period to do exactly what you're talking about, but they only provided a nice cushion against the economy going bad. And now that's being stripped away, in many cases with the assistance of those same social democratic parties. Also, the parties themselves will turn to the right, as workers will want to go faster and they have to move right to check these tendencies.

In many ways, consistent reformism is more utopian than the most ultra-left revolutionary's ideas. A revolution sweeps away all the leading capitalists and reformists, and removes their influence and credibility. Capitalists will go a certain distance but no further.

[syndicat]

varioius reofrms such as minimum wage laws, social security and the like came about only because of working class struggle in the past, and represent concessions made by the capitalists. even with such concessions exploitation continues. as long as the capitalists are making profits and controlling workers, exploitation continues. workers through struggle from time to time are able to reduce the rate of exploitation, but ending it would require eliminating the power of the owning and managing classes.