Where can I find some Really good arguments against Capitalism?

[Rafiq]

I already used to search bar, so don't use that against me.



It's not like I need arguments to convince me against capitalism, but I need something short and simple that the average idiot will understand.


Thanks. :)

[Rafiq]

Bump...

[Broletariat]

The falling rate of profit theory is pretty easy to introduce and understand within like 5 minutes. You could talk about basic worker exploitation labour theory of value type stuff.

[William Howe]

The billions of dollars of goods thrown away due to lack of profit, rather than giving it to the needy and such, is a good argument.

[RadioRaheem84]

Anarchist FAQ section on myths of the capitalist economy.

ABC of Socialism by Leo Huberman

[Stephen Colbert]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_scarcity

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_obsolescence

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_demand {think all your ads about different bullshit you dont need in the US)

AND: CONSUMERISM. we live in a world where you are psychologically convinced you need deodorant x because football star y says so.:laugh:

[Burn A Flag]

Well personally I like to use this argument: Workers make $X amount of product, and are paid $y amount of wage (much less than x). P(the diffrence between X and Y) is the profit made by the capitalists by exploiting the workers. Therefore, the capitalist is like a parasite sucking capital away from those who produce without actually inputing anything. If they say any bullshit about ownership of the machines/factory then just ask them who built those. Workers built the factories and machines, so it is only fair that workers should profit from their labor, instead of a parisitic exploiting influence sucking capital without inputing anything.

[Sir Comradical]

For Marx, the uniqueness of the capitalist mode of production is that it’s the first epoch where people starve or go without housing, not because society cannot produce enough, but because they cannot be made for a profit. In the United States, the foreclosure crisis has highlighted this very epidemic with 18.5 million vacant houses existing alongside an increased homeless population. The contradiction lies with the inability of the working-class to pay for the goods being produced in a country where the minimum wage was as low as $2.65/hour in states like Kansas.

[Stephen Colbert]

I really like this argument.

[Sir Comradical]

I really like this argument.

I suppose the problem isn't over-production, but under-consumption. The sheer inability of Capital to solve its crisis tendencies without moving them around geographically results in the following absurdity - that a massive program of wealth redistribution coupled with bank nationalization and capital controls would actually save capitalism from itself for the time being. Then again, Britain's going for the whole harsh austerity thing which will probably result in a downward aggregate demand spiral. Capitalism sure could use another world war right now, a big one, maybe 200 million dead or something spectacular. That will solve this aggregate demand problem without redistributing anything!

[Faust]

We spend millions of dollars a day buying things we don't need while millions of people around the world are starving.

[Dean]

The rate of surplus value / valorization / exploitation of labor:

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

[RED DAVE]

Go down to the local unemployment office and ask people how it happened to them. You'll get all the arguments you need.

RED DAVE

[Peace on Earth]

Capitalism is the profit for a few over the well-being of all.

[Rafiq]

These are very, very good. :)

[Luisrah]

Show them how governments will get millions and millions to save banks, and how they will spend so little with investment on the people, much less on saving the 10 million that die of hunger every year, plus the 2 million of malaria, and another 2 of diarrhea.

[Broletariat]

The statistics listed on this page are also nice

http://www.rainreview.net/rain-040104.html

[Admiral Swagmeister G-Funk]

You can find some good arguments against capitalism by walking down your nearest town centre and viewing the poverty there, or looking at the world in general.

Or by reading Capital.

[ken6346]

Hey guys,

An argument for capitalism that has been put forth to me is that the capitalist or petty bourgeois in creating a business puts themself at risk when they start their business: they may not be wealthy, and essentially put everything on the line for their business to succeed (which might be sinking a few thousand or tens of thousands of dollars into their new business or similar). Thus, their position in the hierachy of the world is because of their initial risk and payoff at the end. I've tried to explain that their actions are still not justified because it's akin to a thief becoming rich by stealing from many people, even though it was against the law. What do you guys think of this? - that the risk that the capitalists put themselves in initially is their justification?

Cheers fellas.

[Reznov]

AND: CONSUMERISM. we live in a world where you are psychologically convinced you need deodorant x because football star y says so.:laugh:

Or you will smell disgusting if you dont. Just sayin'

[Zanthorus]

The contradiction lies with the inability of the working-class to pay for the goods being produced in a country where the minimum wage was as low as $2.65/hour in states like Kansas.

Theoretically at least, Marx's reproduction diagrams in Volume II of Capital disprove this theory. Since capitalist production is not production for human needs but for monetary profit, it doesn't matter wether the goods that capitalists produce are for consumption by workers, or wether they are going to another capitalist to produce more goods, so long as surplus-value is realised. Within capitalism there will be a department which produces merely for the sake of production, providing material to other capitalist firms to use. Since these goods are bought by capitalists and not workers then the ability of this department to realise surplus-value is not restrained by the restricted consumption of the working-class. Indeed, according to this piece (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/sidewinder/decoupling) 90% of exchanges in OECD economies are business to business and only the last 10% are business to consumer. Whatever the case, if the underconsumptionist theory of crisis was true then we would expect to see capitalism in a permanent state of crisis, since workers being paid for the value of their labour-power rather than the goods which they produce is a necessary feature of capitalist economies. This is clearly not happening, capitalism's crises have historically moved in cycles. This would suggest that something else is acting as a barrier to capital accumulation besides restricted consumption.

[Tavarisch_Mike]

"You know what capitalism is? Getting fucked!"-Tony Montana, Scarface

[Catma]

Theoretically at least, Marx's reproduction diagrams in Volume II of Capital disprove this theory. Since capitalist production is not production for human needs but for monetary profit, it doesn't matter wether the goods that capitalists produce are for consumption by workers, or wether they are going to another capitalist to produce more goods, so long as surplus-value is realised. Within capitalism there will be a department which produces merely for the sake of production, providing material to other capitalist firms to use. Since these goods are bought by capitalists and not workers then the ability of this department to realise surplus-value is not restrained by the restricted consumption of the working-class. Indeed, according to (link) 90% of exchanges in OECD economies are business to business and only the last 10% are business to consumer. Whatever the case, if the underconsumptionist theory of crisis was true then we would expect to see capitalism in a permanent state of crisis, since workers being paid for the value of their labour-power rather than the goods which they produce is a necessary feature of capitalist economies. This is clearly not happening, capitalism's crises have historically moved in cycles. This would suggest that something else is acting as a barrier to capital accumulation besides restricted consumption.

Can't this be explained by the business-to-consumer businesses being unable to make a profit (due to the inability of workers to purchase), and then not making further purchases from the business-to-business businesses? How are you going to continue buying inventory and productive capital if your warehouse is full and your profits are down? Eventually someone has to unload onto the consumers.

Maybe the length of the chain (business-business... -business-consumer) introduces lots of points across which downturns in demand can be distributed, making it look like falling consumption isn't constant.

There are also many, many steps that economies take to make it look like value is increasing and consumption can continue. The classic tricks of capitalism, like exploitation of new resources and markets; ways to artifically inflate the apparent consuming power of workers (cheaper credit, selling crappier and crappier goods as time goes on); The entire stock market charade and the bubbles it produces, etc.

I guess my point is that while it may seem that losses are periodic, in reality they are continual and are absorbed in lots of ways that are difficult to notice.

[Broletariat]

Hey guys,

An argument for capitalism that has been put forth to me is that the capitalist or petty bourgeois in creating a business puts themself at risk when they start their business: they may not be wealthy, and essentially put everything on the line for their business to succeed (which might be sinking a few thousand or tens of thousands of dollars into their new business or similar). Thus, their position in the hierachy of the world is because of their initial risk and payoff at the end. I've tried to explain that their actions are still not justified because it's akin to a thief becoming rich by stealing from many people, even though it was against the law. What do you guys think of this? - that the risk that the capitalists put themselves in initially is their justification?

Cheers fellas.

Your thief analogy was great, mention how a thief needs to risk a whole lot of time in prison so he deserves whatever he steals.

Also note the absurdity, what does a coal miner risk? His life. What does a Capitalist risk? Some paper. Workers risk far more than do Capitalists.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Aye, fuck all these distant explanations and appeals to social justice. All most people need to understand how fucked capitalism is their own lived experience of it. It's just a question of pointing out the shit that is daily life and relating it, and, really, for that matter it's not that most people lack an understanding that shit's fucked. It's seeing the possibility of anything else that is, typically the issue - if not this, then what?

COMMUNIZE! COMMUNIZE! COMMUNIZE!
ATTACK! ATTACK! ATTACK!

[Oswy]

I already used to search bar, so don't use that against me.



It's not like I need arguments to convince me against capitalism, but I need something short and simple that the average idiot will understand.


Thanks. :)

Capitalism as an historical phenomenon progressively removes the masses from any power over their productive needs (i.e. 'alienates' them) and thus leaves them with the 'choices' of being exploited as wage-labour by capitalists; be even more impoverished by refusal to be so exploited; or be excluded from the 'opportunity' to be exploited through unemployment as surplus to capitalist needs. Then there's the environmental argument. Capitalism is centrally dependent upon economic growth and consumerism, processes which, in a finite world with finite resources, cannot continue without devastating ecological consequences.

[Oswy]

Aye, fuck all these distant explanations and appeals to social justice. All most people need to understand how fucked capitalism is their own lived experience of it. It's just a question of pointing out the shit that is daily life and relating it, and, really, for that matter it's not that most people lack an understanding that shit's fucked. It's seeing the possibility of anything else that is, typically the issue - if not this, then what?

COMMUNIZE! COMMUNIZE! COMMUNIZE!
ATTACK! ATTACK! ATTACK!

Your last point I especially recognise - the ideology of capitalism has had huge success in presenting itself naturalistically, i.e. as if capitalism is simply 'the way things are' and that they can't be improved upon. Sadly there's plenty of impoverished people under capitalism who will defend it, simply because they don't realise how it is a system fucking them, not just a system in which you are 'lucky' or 'unlucky'.

[Sir Comradical]

Theoretically at least, Marx's reproduction diagrams in Volume II of Capital disprove this theory. Since capitalist production is not production for human needs but for monetary profit, it doesn't matter wether the goods that capitalists produce are for consumption by workers, or wether they are going to another capitalist to produce more goods, so long as surplus-value is realised. Within capitalism there will be a department which produces merely for the sake of production, providing material to other capitalist firms to use. Since these goods are bought by capitalists and not workers then the ability of this department to realise surplus-value is not restrained by the restricted consumption of the working-class. Indeed, according to this piece (http://anarchism.pageabode.com/sidewinder/decoupling) 90% of exchanges in OECD economies are business to business and only the last 10% are business to consumer. Whatever the case, if the underconsumptionist theory of crisis was true then we would expect to see capitalism in a permanent state of crisis, since workers being paid for the value of their labour-power rather than the goods which they produce is a necessary feature of capitalist economies. This is clearly not happening, capitalism's crises have historically moved in cycles. This would suggest that something else is acting as a barrier to capital accumulation besides restricted consumption.

I haven't read Volume II but I'm impressed by your grasp of it.

Anyway, it seems to me that the realisation of surplus value ultimately depends on a class of consumers capable of paying for these goods. It may be true that 90% of exchanges are b2b, but don't all business transactions end with consumption anyway? Since consumption is made up of capitalist profits + workers wages, the only question I would ask is how consumption is divided amongst the two classes?

What do you think that barrier was in the GFC? I'd say it was the inability of the working class to pay for commodities like housing.

[syndicat]

The main argument against capitalism is that it's a system of oppression. Profits would not be possible without this. If the would-be employer and worker really had equal bargaining power, there'd be no reason for any worker to accept less than having an equal say in the running of the workplace. Due to the capitalist class's monopolization over the means of production, and thus over the means to sustain life, workers are forced to seek work from captialists, and thus to submit to autocratic regimes in the workplace. This power of the capitalists enables them to suppress wages to the point they can make a profit.

The fact that society itself could work with a common ownership of the means of production and a collective system to advance resources for production to worker groups shows that the capitalist as owner is a parasitic class.

The form that class oppression takes within capitalism tramples the real positive and negative liberty of workers. Denial of liberty is what oppression is. The most obvious is the autocratic regime that workers are subject to in a capitalist firm. Also, capitalists continually re-org the work proces and devise new forms of technology with an eye to monitoring and control of workers, and also to reduce skill requirements. Thus the potential of working class people for development of skill, knowledge and control over their lives is suppressed. An elaborate hierarchical structure of control in work and society is built up which denies to the working class, to varying degrees from one individual to another, the real opportunity to develop their potential.

Exploitation is based on class oppression. Exploitation in ordinary English means "taking advantage of" someone to obtain an illegitimate benefit. Exploitation of labor means that the capitalist and bureaucratic classes, in virtue of their power over the working class, are able to suck down an illegitimate income. The ratio between what the dominating classes get and what the working class gets can be called the rate of exploitation. Oppression and exploitation are primary forms of injustice. thus a system essentially based on oppression and exploitation, which couldn't exist without them, is illegitimate.

[learningaboutheleft123]

im new to this, but ive spoken with other leftists and they say that with capitalism, the workers create the wealth but they do not own it. Due to capitalism, workers are exploited and in communism, the workers can not be exploited.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Or you will smell disgusting if you dont. Just sayin'
"smelling disgusting" is really more of a social construct than it is a living neccessity. I really couldn't care less if someone went without deordorant.

[ellipsis]

Das Kapital 1 did a good job for me.

[ken6346]

Das Kapital 1 did a good job for me.
Obviously not OP, but I'll definitely give that a read too. And thanks to Broletariat for your response as well!

[∞]

That my boss does jack shit, the bastard is in the office talking to his wife.

[RadioRaheem84]

That should be the first eye opener to everyone. The boss/owner does jack shit.

[El Rojo]

Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan

Deepwater horizon, Millbank 30, Ian Tomlinson

Nuclear Weapons, Fallujah