Communism, Not Interventionism

[RedZelenka]

I support full communism in capital, but not for any reasons having to do with 'climate change' or any of the other popular tropes of the parliamentary left. Socialism is not about protecting the environment to me; it's about ensuring returns to the workers. The 'environment' only exists to be exploited by humans, and only needs 'protection' insofar as it is to the advantage of humans. I think a lot of this climate stuff, like the 'cultural' Marxism and 'humanistic' Marxism are just a bunch of nonsense that distracts the left from real economic issues into things which are either subsidiary to the point of irrelevancy or outright nonsensical.

Now, in regards to scepticism towards capitalism, I certainly think it is an inherently problematic system as it generates exploitative economic relations and forms contradictions between and within classes. However, it is vastly superior to interventionism; including all this environmental regulatory nonsense. The only excuse for interventionism would be as a method to undermine capital ownership while keeping the form of capital ownership; by destroying capital markets you can de facto socialize the economy even if the pretence of private capital remains. But interventionism as a system is pure idiocy, it interferes with capitalism and has none of the advantages of socialism. And this is what repulses me about the modern parliamentary left, they have not only resigned themselves to interventionism but they think of it as an end in itself. Environmental regulations, employment regulations, price controls, import management, etc. are all to be meddled with ad hoc. So long as private capital remains all this does is interfere with the very real allocative efficiency capitalism has. You create insoluable problems for workers and consumers within society which can never be solved, but only worsened, by further interventions.

I believe that any sane socialist plan must call for full communism, either directly or by subversion of the capital market. Interventionism as an end in itself is repulsive and stupid, and far worse than capitalism.

[RedZelenka]

I wanted to expand on my views here, in the same vein:
There are two primary problems with capitalism:
1) that it does not direct the full return of production to the workers;
2) That its property and legal system has internal contradictions which render it towards political centralization, factionalism, interventionism and militarism. These undercut the very mechanisms by which capitalism improves the economy and normalizes production.

I would only consider myself an anti-capitalist in the sense that Communism resolves both of these problems. The 'Anti-Capitalism' in general I see among many leftists I consider absolutely stupid. Aside from communism, capitalism is the best system there ever has been or could be and if it weren't that it creates internal tensions it could probably go on forever. Piecemeal meddling, interventionism for its own sake and social engineering campaigns (anti-smoking, heavy redistributive taxation) are absolutely insane, it is intentionally producing the worst and most self-defeating problems of the capitalist political order while blocking every efficiency it has.

If you don't have the nerve or clout to utterly socialize the economy, leave it the Hell alone.

[RedZelenka]

The Contradictions of Capitalism

The liberal-capitalist social order is based upon a stable propertied working class, what
we might call the middle class or burghers. This is why they erect either divided order monarchical or parliamentary republics; as a way of balancing off the inevitable inequalities which arise.

These are inevitable for two reasons; private ownership of capital and the fact that workers do not receive full remuneration for their labour. That means someone will always get more of the net product and someone always less (though they may, as a whole, both have rising incomes).

Now, as the upper and lower class become more and more distinct, the upper class
agitate for interventionism with which to protect their earnings. Because of their increased economic advantage they can exert pressure on the media, the state and the relatively less-wealthy working class. This will result in interventions passing. Interventions, of course, subvert capitalism.

Capitalism doesn't reward people fully, but its better than feudalism or slavery or what
have you, it's actually quite efficient in many ways.The problem is that it's distortive in who gets rewards, and this causes essential contradictions which lead to imperialism, nterventionism, etc. which, from the perspective of capitalism, are economically irrational.

This is why you will see people like Ron Paul who are against imperialism, they are trying to stabilize capitalism. Imperialism is retarded from a laissez-faire point of view, but laissez-faire tends toward imperialism.

[LeftScot]

Hey, I find you have a very interesting viewpoint in relation with environmentalism. I also see the earth as something for humans to use, for labouring men to exploit as Marx and Engels saw it. However to say that it is only the "parliamentary left" that are concerned about the environment is wrong.

If I may, I would like to quote Engels, at a time when the environement was not really an important issue:

"As individual capitalists are engaged in production and exchange for the sake of immediate profit, only the nearest, most immediate results must first be taken into account…What cared the Spanish planters in Cuba, who burned down the forests on the slopes of the mountains and obtained from the ashes sufficient fertiliser for one generation of highly profitable coffee trees – what cared they that heavy tropical rainfall afterwards washed away the unprotected upper stratum of soil, leaving behind only bare rock! In relation to nature, as to society, the present mode of production is predominantly concerned only about the immediate, most tangible result, and then surprise is expressed that the more remote effects of actions directed to this end turn out to be quite different, are mostly quite opposite in character.”

So in fact we see, that founders of Communism themselves were rather worried about the state of the environment at their time which shows that it is not only "cultural" or "humanistic" marxists which are concerned about the enviornment.

To try and separate the issue of the environment from the economy is nonsensical, they are both interconnected and the destruction of the environment itself is a class issue. Surely Marxists cannot turn their back on a class issue? The environmental problems we face are creations of the capitalist system and the main problem is that there is no rational plan to save our ecological system, the difference now is that capitalist anarchy is worsening the problem than in antiquity.

Now onto your views on interventionism, communists know that it is not an end in itself, we know what we want, a full socialist planned economy to meet the needs of the people. However to state, especially in the these times of austerity, that interventionism is worse that "capitalism" (by this I assume you mean private industry and market mechanisms?), is to act very disconnected from reality. The mass protests all over Europe and further away are not protesting for "full communism" (unfortunately) yet, they are simply fighting the cuts coming their way. In the UK, this means students paying more to get to university, thousands of workers being sacked, important state benefits being scrapped for families who most need it etc. In short, they are fighting for the interventionism you so greatly detest. To tell these people that the more savage capitalism coming their way is "better" than the security and help they had before (interventionism), would be ludicrous!

The stuggle for socialism varies from country to country, I speak for the UK when I say, that we cannot preach full communism and revolution to the masses on the streets right now. The swing to the right and the cuts coming our way is so bad, that the former interventionism that we once had is craved by the British people. The aged need pensions, the unemployed need benefits, the students need free education. All this is to be achieved with the intervention of the state with heavy taxes on the rich to fund this. Once we have a government that can actually look after its people, we can the begin to focus on nationalising the commanding heights of the economy and make a full transition towards socialism through revolution, violent or peaceful.