Is Capitalism Today The Same That Marx Analyzed?

[B0LSHEVIK]

I think most of us agree that Marx analyzed a somewhat different form of capitalism. It was more a competitive form of capitalism, a more localized version of it. At least thats what I've read in Monopoly Capital. Its a really interesting read. The idea that today capitalism consists more of oligopolies, something Marx didnt get a chance to analyze more fundamentally.

What do people here think of this?????


Oh before I get some troll who doesnt read the full post before posting himself, I think that their argument is that Marx analyzed a more 'benevolent' form of itself.

[SacRedMan]

Hes analyze was a snapshot of the big bang that made capitalism.

[Zanthorus]

What do people here think of this?

Marx's analysis of capitalism is not intended to be an analysis of a specific historical form of capitalism, but of capital 'as such', 'in itself' regardless of any of it's phenomenal forms. If we're still talking about a society in which private labour must appear as it's opposite, directly social labour, through the medium of value, in which the majority of wealth takes the social form of the commodity and in which profits are formed from the unpaid labour of the working-class we're still talking Das Kapital.

Paul Mattick did an excellent review of Baran and Sweezy's 'Monopoly Capital' which is definitely worth checking out:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1966/monopoly-capital.htm

[B0LSHEVIK]

Marx's analysis of capitalism is not intended to be an analysis of a specific historical form of capitalism, but of capital 'as such', 'in itself' regardless of any of it's phenomenal forms. If we're still talking about a society in which private labour must appear as it's opposite, directly social labour, through the medium of value, in which the majority of wealth takes the social form of the commodity and in which profits are formed from the unpaid labour of the working-class we're still talking Das Kapital.

Paul Mattick did an excellent review of Baran and Sweezy's 'Monopoly Capital' which is definitely worth checking out:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1966/monopoly-capital.htm


Thanks for the link. But Marx did largely analyze a form of capitalism which is a bit archaic wouldn't you agree? I mean, Marx speaks of the coming of free trade, a position we've long surpassed I think.

[Agent Ducky]

I'd say yes, the system is fundamentally the same as it was, but now we have a more service-oriented system and more multinational corporations, etc. O_o.

[ar734]

I don't agree that Marx just analyzed capital in its "local" form. Here are some quotes from the Communist Manifesto:

"Meantime the markets kept ever growing, the demand ever rising. Even manufacturer no longer sufficed. Thereupon, steam and machinery revolutionised industrial production. The place of manufacture was taken by the giant, Modern Industry; the place of the industrial middle class by industrial millionaires, the leaders of the whole industrial armies, the modern bourgeois.

Modern industry has established the world market...

"The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connexions everywhere...

"The bourgeoisie, by the rapid improvement of all instruments of production, by the immensely facilitated means of communication, draws all, even the most barbarian, nations into civilisation... It compels all nations, on pain of extinction, to adopt the bourgeois mode of production; it compels them to introduce what it calls civilisation into their midst, i.e., to become bourgeois themselves. In one word, it creates a world after its own image..."

If this is not a description of the modern, gigantic, world-controlling, capitalist economic system...then what is?

"A world after its own image." Who in the world does not recognize the Nike Swoosh? the Apple, Google, logos?

[KC]

Thanks for the link. But Marx did largely analyze a form of capitalism which is a bit archaic wouldn't you agree? I mean, Marx speaks of the coming of free trade, a position we've long surpassed I think.Well that depends what you're talking about. Zanthorous is certainly right in his post, however in Capital Marx certainly went beyond that to discussing historic forms and concrete developments.

The reason that imperialism theory is so important is because it is attempting to analyze the concrete expression of capitalism from a Marxian standpoint, and moreover to analyze the transformation of competition into monopoly and the consequences that has on a capitalist system.

Where I think most theorists have failed is in assuming one can abstract out a theory of imperialism in essence. In other words, they are doing the opposite of what they should be doing. Theorists such as Sweezy and Baran have attempted to write a work in the vein of Capital that deals specifically with the development of imperialism. The problem is in abstracting out a theory of imperialism, one reaches a point where it becomes essentially meaningless as the transition from free capital to monopoly capital happens in completely different forms depending on historical circumstances.

Further, due to the inherent difficulty in abstraction, in doing so they become incredibly categorical in their assertions. They come up with extremely general terms such as "imperialist state" and "imperialised state" that are basically undefinable due to the fact that they have abstracted so far out from reality that the terms become useless.

It's like trying to write out a theory of the development of capitalism from feudalism, which simply doesn't work. Sure, one can make generalizations, or trace broad historical trends, but these things happened completely different depending on material conditions.

[ar734]

It's like trying to write out a theory of the development of capitalism from feudalism, which simply doesn't work.

Marx might be surprised to learn of this new dialectical development. He said in the Manifesto "From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed."

[B0LSHEVIK]

I don't agree that Marx just analyzed capital in its "local" form. Here are some quotes from the Communist Manifest:

"A world after its own image." Who in the world does not recognize the Nike Swoosh? the Apple, Google, logos?

Hey comrade, I see what you're saying. But what Monopoly Capital argue, I would say quite convincingly too, is that the nature of capitalism has changed. Marx, being German, analyzed the great capitalist power of his time, the UK. He also happened to analyze it in a very early stage of its development. I think that Monopoly Capital argue that in Marx's day, you had several mining outfits instead of THE one conglomerate as we do today.

You said yourself that capitalism leads to monopoly/oligopolies. Well, then, oligopolies dont follow the rule book on supply/demand at all. They're not price takers, they actually MAKE the price. So, a capitalist market run by 100 competitors chasing down the lastest gadget will be vastly different from a market where you have only a handful of producers? Right? Common sense no?

[ar734]

Thanks for the link. But Marx did largely analyze a form of capitalism which is a bit archaic wouldn't you agree? I mean, Marx speaks of the coming of free trade, a position we've long surpassed I think.

Free trade for whom has been surpassed? WalMart engages in massive, global trade every day. And for Walmart it is free trade, esp. in the U.S.

[B0LSHEVIK]

Free trade for whom has been surpassed? WalMart engages in massive, global trade every day. And for Walmart it is free trade, esp. in the U.S.

No you misunderstood me.

I mean that Marx speaks in the Manifesto that capitalists want to establish free trade, and to remember that 'free trade is exploitation.' Well, to a large extent, Marx's nightmare has come true. Global exploitation, I mean free trade, is the norm today not the opposite. The accumulation and subsequent centralization of capital and power is at a point which Marx could only have speculated on.

Thats the point I was making.

[B0LSHEVIK]

Marx's analysis of capitalism is not intended to be an analysis of a specific historical form of capitalism, but of capital 'as such', 'in itself' regardless of any of it's phenomenal forms. If we're still talking about a society in which private labour must appear as it's opposite, directly social labour, through the medium of value, in which the majority of wealth takes the social form of the commodity and in which profits are formed from the unpaid labour of the working-class we're still talking Das Kapital.

Paul Mattick did an excellent review of Baran and Sweezy's 'Monopoly Capital' which is definitely worth checking out:

http://www.marxists.org/archive/mattick-paul/1966/monopoly-capital.htm

So then a industry dominated by 4 firms (a oligopoly) behaves the same as a industry with thousands of firms?

I dont believe that.

[Nolan]

For Marx, currency was backed by gold. Today that's not the case. Marx didn't think the corporation would become what it is.

[B0LSHEVIK]

For Marx, currency was backed by gold. Today that's not the case. Marx didn't think the corporation would become what it is.

Right I agree. Which I was a posted the thread in the first place.

I had never really given it much thought till recently when I read Monopoly Capital.

[ar734]

You said yourself that capitalism leads to monopoly/oligopolies. Well, then, oligopolies dont follow the rule book on supply/demand at all. They're not price takers, they actually MAKE the price. So, a capitalist market run by 100 competitors chasing down the lastest gadget will be vastly different from a market where you have only a handful of producers? Right? Common sense no?

Well, you're right that monopolies don't follow the rule book on supply and demand...they now write the rule book. The giant monopolies control supply and demand; they set prices, both of what they buy and what they sell. See Galbraith's The New Industrial State.

This doesn't, however, change the fundamental law of value. Labor still determines the value of a gadget. The monopolies now use less and less human labor and more machines to produce and distribute the gadget. Thus value and prices come down. The monopolies also increase labor exploitation when they can: cheap labor in China, low wages in the U.S., for instance WalMart pays its retail workers an average of about 10.00 per hour.

Monopolies today are still capitalistic, profit is made by exploiting labor. The economic laws governing late 20th and 21st century capital are changing, an idea, I think, Marx would have not found surprising. He would have pointed out that the changes are dialectically and historically materialistic.

But, the economists say, if WalMart controls the market, then why doesn't it charge $100 for a gadget? A consumer can't go anywhere else to get the gadget. If you believe in the marginal utility theory of price (which I think is crazy) then the consumer will only pay a marginal amount, or the marginal difference, between two gadgets, one of which he wants slightly more than the other.

Thus, if he has 2.10 to spend and he wants the 2.10 gadget slightly more than the 2.00 gadget, then Walmart can only charge a maximum 2.10 for the gadget. If Walmart paid 2.00 for the gadget, that sill leaves it with a profit of .10, which is a profit margin (or rate) of 5%, which is about the current profit margin of WalMart.

Obviously, just because a monopoly controls a market, this does not mean that it can charge any price. Microsoft controls the computer operating system market, but it cannot charge E100,000 for its software. So, even though supply is controlled, there still must be sufficient demand in terms of money in the pocket of consumers. Control of demand through advertising apparently is not complete control of demand. The question then becomes how does Walmart and Microsoft ensure that its customers have enough cash or credit to buy their products?

They can't pay their workers any more; that would reduce the rate of profit even further. The only answer is the one provided by Keynes: give huge chunks of money to the consumer. Of course, that is immoral and socialist, although it works for the banks.

That leads, I think to a fundamental contradiction in monopoly capital.

[B0LSHEVIK]

Well, you're right that monopolies don't follow the rule book on supply and demand...they now write the rule book. The giant monopolies control supply and demand; they set prices, both of what they buy and what they sell. See Galbraith's The New Industrial State.

This doesn't, however, change the fundamental law of value. Labor still determines the value of a gadget. The monopolies now use less and less human labor and more machines to produce and distribute the gadget. Thus value and prices come down. The monopolies also increase labor exploitation when they can: cheap labor in China, low wages in the U.S., for instance WalMart pays its retail workers an average of about 10.00 per hour.

Monopolies today are still capitalistic, profit is made by exploiting labor. The economic laws governing late 20th and 21st century capital are changing, an idea, I think, Marx would have not found surprising. He would have pointed out that the changes are dialectically and historically materialistic.

But, the economists say, if WalMart controls the market, then why doesn't it charge $100 for a gadget? A consumer can't go anywhere else to get the gadget. If you believe in the marginal utility theory of price (which I think is crazy) then the consumer will only pay a marginal amount, or the marginal difference, between two gadgets, one of which he wants slightly more than the other.

Thus, if he has 2.10 to spend and he wants the 2.10 gadget slightly more than the 2.00 gadget, then Walmart can only charge a maximum 2.10 for the gadget. If Walmart paid 2.00 for the gadget, that sill leaves it with a profit of .10, which is a profit margin (or rate) of 5%, which is about the current profit margin of WalMart.

Obviously, just because a monopoly controls a market, this does not mean that it can charge any price. Microsoft controls the computer operating system market, but it cannot charge E100,000 for its software. So, even though supply is controlled, there still must be sufficient demand in terms of money in the pocket of consumers. Control of demand through advertising apparently is not complete control of demand. The question then becomes how does Walmart and Microsoft ensure that its customers have enough cash or credit to buy their products?

They can't pay their workers any more; that would reduce the rate of profit even further. The only answer is the one provided by Keynes: give huge chunks of money to the consumer. Of course, that is immoral and socialist, although it works for the banks.

That leads, I think to a fundamental contradiction in monopoly capital.

After reading your post, it provides valuable information, but it doesnt quite answer what my question was from the start.

Has capitalism changed from that which Marx analyzed?

I think it has, theory of labor value aside, the basic structure of it has changed tremendously. I mean think about it, Victorian era England is nothing like todays England. Marx died in 1883. The world changed DRAMATICALLY between 1885 - 1900, let alone another 111 years. You know?

[ar734]

No you misunderstood me.

I mean that Marx speaks in the Manifesto that capitalists want to establish free trade, and to remember that 'free trade is exploitation.' Well, to a large extent, Marx's nightmare has come true. Global exploitation, I mean free trade, is the norm today not the opposite. The accumulation and subsequent centralization of capital and power is at a point which Marx could only have speculated on.

Thats the point I was making.

I certainly agree. I don't think even a giant intellect like Marx could have foreseen the global dominance and centralization of capital.

[B0LSHEVIK]

I certainly agree. I don't think even a giant intellect like Marx could have foreseen the global dominance and centralization of capital.

I agree, Im not attacking Marx for not being a prophet or making predictions (I'll let the so-called Keynesians do that).

Its just that Monopoly Capital got me thinking in a way I hadnt before. Capitalism has changed both in demeanor, structure and method of operation. Marx isn't wrong, but its time for a revamping.

Which shouldnt be a shock to anyone here who follows Marxism-as-interpreted-by-Lenin via Marxist-Lenninsm.

[ar734]

After reading your post, it provides valuable information, but it doesnt quite answer what my question was from the start.

Has capitalism changed from that which Marx analyzed?

I think it has, theory of labor value aside, the basic structure of it has changed tremendously. I mean think about it, Victorian era England is nothing like todays England. Marx died in 1883. The world changed DRAMATICALLY between 1885 - 1900, let alone another 111 years. You know?

It certainly has changed. Capitalism is even more concentrated, more monopolized, more global, more industrial, etc. than ever. One company controls the operating systems of the world's most dominant machine: the computer. Does this make Bill Gates less of a capitalist, or Microsoft a socialist enterprise? No, I think it makes them monopoly capitalists. How have the economic laws of monopoly capitalism evolved out of competitive capitalism? That I don't know.

I just wish Marx was around to give us the answer. :crying:

[ar734]

I agree, Im not attacking Marx for not being a prophet or making predictions (I'll let the so-called Keynesians do that).

Its just that Monopoly Capital got me thinking in a way I hadnt before. Capitalism has changed both in demeanor, structure and method of operation. Marx isn't wrong, but its time for a revamping.

Which shouldnt be a shock to anyone here who follows Marxism-as-interpreted-by-Lenin via Marxist-Lenninsm.

I agree that economic theory needs revamping. It seems to be that the socialist economists of today are becoming less and less significant. Can anybody name even one well known public, socialist economist? On the other hand, Marx didn't become will known until years after his death.

[B0LSHEVIK]

It certainly has changed. Capitalism is even more concentrated, more monopolized, more global, more industrial, etc. than ever. One company controls the operating systems of the world's most dominant machine: the computer. Does this make Bill Gates less of a capitalist, or Microsoft a socialist enterprise? No, I think it makes them monopoly capitalists. How have the economic laws of monopoly capitalism evolved out of competitive capitalism? That I don't know.

I just wish Marx was around to give us the answer. :crying:

Thats kind of the same boat Im in too. I NEED ANSWERS!!!! LOL.

On the side, do you really think that Microsoft controls cpus? I know he had a near monopoly maybe, but for the most part, most of my friends run Linux or even Apple OS. I do use windows, mainly because Im not that computer savy, shame on me.....

[ar734]

Thats kind of the same boat Im in too. I NEED ANSWERS!!!! LOL.

On the side, do you really think that Microsoft controls cpus? I know he had a near monopoly maybe, but for the most part, most of my friends run Linux or even Apple OS. I do use windows, mainly because Im not that computer savy, shame on me.....




According to Wikipedia Microsoft controls about 88% of the market.

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

[B0LSHEVIK]

According to Wikipedia Microsoft controls about 88% of the market.

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

"Well any idiot can edit Wiki...."

Oh ok. Fucking MS assholes lol.

[KC]

Marx might be surprised to learn of this new dialectical development. He said in the Manifesto "From the serfs of the Middle Ages sprang the chartered burghers of the earliest towns. From these burgesses the first elements of the bourgeoisie were developed."

Historical analysis is not the same thing as abstracting out a coherent theory. One can certainly analyze the historical developments of the transition from feudalism to capitalism but one cannot put forward a theory of it.

[ar734]

Historical analysis is not the same thing as abstracting out a coherent theory. One can certainly analyze the historical developments of the transition from feudalism to capitalism but one cannot put forward a theory of it.

But surely Marx developed several theories on capitalism after an analysis of historical development: primitive accumulation, alienation of the producer from his means of production, labor as commodity, fetishism of commodities, centralisation of capital (in my view a theory of monopoly,) wage exploitation, and probably the most famous of all, the theory of surplus value.

Wasn't the basis of historical materialism that one must first analyze history, and then produce a theory? Before Marx, it was the other way around.

[KC]

But surely Marx developed several theories on capitalism after an analysis of historical development: primitive accumulation, alienation of the producer from his means of production, labor as commodity, fetishism of commodities, centralisation of capital (in my view a theory of monopoly,) wage exploitation, and probably the most famous of all, the theory of surplus value.

Wasn't the basis of historical materialism that one must first analyze history, and then produce a theory? Before Marx, it was the other way around.

No, historical materialism does not posit that one must necessarily develop a theory. It is simply an analytical method.

[Book O'Dead]

I think most of us agree that Marx analyzed a somewhat different form of capitalism. It was more a competitive form of capitalism, a more localized version of it. At least thats what I've read in Monopoly Capital. Its a really interesting read. The idea that today capitalism consists more of oligopolies, something Marx didnt get a chance to analyze more fundamentally.

What do people here think of this?????


Oh before I get some troll who doesnt read the full post before posting himself, I think that their argument is that Marx analyzed a more 'benevolent' form of itself.

In all its fundamentals, capitalism is the same as in Marx's days; Private property and the relationship of wage labor and capital remain the same.
I think that to look for something in capitalism that fundamentally alters the Law of Value and the class struggle is wasted effort. It's been tried before and failed.

[Ocean Book]

To me, the OP seems like seeing a tadpole turn into a frog and asking if biology changed. Capitalism is different in external results but it still follows its internal logic.

[B0LSHEVIK]

To me, the OP seems like seeing a tadpole turn into a frog and asking if biology changed. Capitalism is different in external results but it still follows its internal logic.

Exactly. And the biology does change. Just think of it chemically, (hormones for example) you are not the same as when you were 2 yrs old. You react differently to stimuli correct? A titty no longer makes you hungry, it makes you something else correct? So something has changed in your inner biology right? You no longer are the same simple minded care free 2 yr old, are you? Your outward actions can no longer be predicted using the behavioral model of a child right?

This is why I ask if capitalism has changed, and according to your own statement, it has.

[Sir Comradical]

A similar argument would be to say that the theory of gravity is no longer relevant as Newton was analysing the gravity of the early 18th century. Similarly, the fundamentals of what 'capital' actually IS has not changed since Marx's time.

[B0LSHEVIK]

A similar argument would be to say that the theory of gravity is no longer relevant as Newton was analysing the gravity of the early 18th century. Similarly, the fundamentals of what 'capital' actually IS has not changed since Marx's time.

If you've taken a university level physics course, you would know that gravity, or how we understand it, has in fact changed. Einstein's relativity actually sank Newton's laws of motion, proving it was in fact, a incorrect definition of gravity. So thanks again!

[Sir Comradical]

If you've taken a university level physics course, you would know that gravity, or how we understand it, has in fact changed. Einstein's relativity actually sank Newton's laws of motion, proving it was in fact, a incorrect definition of gravity. So thanks again!

Holy shit I totally forgot that!

[S.Artesian]

Thats kind of the same boat Im in too. I NEED ANSWERS!!!! LOL.

On the side, do you really think that Microsoft controls cpus? I know he had a near monopoly maybe, but for the most part, most of my friends run Linux or even Apple OS. I do use windows, mainly because Im not that computer savy, shame on me.....

Well, yeah Microsoft does have pretty much of a monopoly... doesn't change any of the dynamics of capitalism, though.

Intel owns 80% of the microprocessor market... and has driven the processing power up while driving the cost per MIPS way down.

[S.Artesian]

I think most of us agree that Marx analyzed a somewhat different form of capitalism. It was more a competitive form of capitalism, a more localized version of it. At least thats what I've read in Monopoly Capital. Its a really interesting read. The idea that today capitalism consists more of oligopolies, something Marx didnt get a chance to analyze more fundamentally.

What do people here think of this?????


Oh before I get some troll who doesnt read the full post before posting himself, I think that their argument is that Marx analyzed a more 'benevolent' form of itself.


Read Sweezy's Monopoly Capital years ago, and I didn't buy it then, and don't buy it now. Competition has hardly been reduced among capitalist enterprises; the currency battles make that clear; the beggar- thy- neighbor trade wars, which have intensified over the past decade.

GM's so called monopoly in the 50s and the 60s [GM at one time had enough productive capacity to, alone, satisfy the entire US market did not save it from the tendency of the rate of profit to decline.

So the basic dynamics of capitalist reproduction, of valorisation, accumulation, are exactly as they were when Marx wrote. The phenomenal appearances, and variations, mediations, etc. certainly have changed over time.

[S.Artesian]

Hey comrade, I see what you're saying. But what Monopoly Capital argue, I would say quite convincingly too, is that the nature of capitalism has changed. Marx, being German, analyzed the great capitalist power of his time, the UK. He also happened to analyze it in a very early stage of its development. I think that Monopoly Capital argue that in Marx's day, you had several mining outfits instead of THE one conglomerate as we do today.

You said yourself that capitalism leads to monopoly/oligopolies. Well, then, oligopolies dont follow the rule book on supply/demand at all. They're not price takers, they actually MAKE the price. So, a capitalist market run by 100 competitors chasing down the lastest gadget will be vastly different from a market where you have only a handful of producers? Right? Common sense no?

Marx never argues that supply/demand is the great regular of the capitalist economy. He states and argues that the labor theory of value is the regulator of that economy, and that that law is the product of a specific social relation of labor, a specific organization of labor as labor-power through the wage form in order to create value.

What little I can remember of Baran and Sweezey struck me, at the time, as an argument that the "law of value" no longer applied to capitalism.

Well, I'd like anyone to look at what happened to the US economy since the rate of profit peaked around 1970; what the US response has been towards its own working class, and to its "partners;" what the result has been in the world markets, and tell me capitalist competition for a larger portion of the total surplus value doesn't exist anymore; that surplus value production and expropriation from wage-labor doesn't rule capital.

[B0LSHEVIK]

Marx never argues that supply/demand is the great regular of the capitalist economy. He states and argues that the labor theory of value is the regulator of that economy, and that that law is the product of a specific social relation of labor, a specific organization of labor as labor-power through the wage form in order to create value.

What little I can remember of Baran and Sweezey struck me, at the time, as an argument that the "law of value" no longer applied to capitalism.

Well, I'd like anyone to look at what happened to the US economy since the rate of profit peaked around 1970; what the US response has been towards its own working class, and to its "partners;" what the result has been in the world markets, and tell me capitalist competition for a larger portion of the total surplus value doesn't exist anymore; that surplus value production and expropriation from wage-labor doesn't rule capital.

So capitalism is a static unchanging, never evolving economic system, gotcha.

[B0LSHEVIK]

Well, yeah Microsoft does have pretty much of a monopoly... doesn't change any of the dynamics of capitalism, though.

Intel owns 80% of the microprocessor market... and has driven the processing power up while driving the cost per MIPS way down.

Lol, where do you get your processors from!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[greenwarbler]

well, we still have exploitative labor relations, the development and expansion of finance capital and of capital in its various forms (inherently: the production of surplus values) so, yes.

you know, these sort of questions originate from pseudo-socialist leaning souls who've not put in the hard hours -- for instance -- to read through three volumes of Capital, or to pick up more than one minor essay by Lenin or Trotsky, for instance.. makes one wonder..

[S.Artesian]

Lol, where do you get your processors from!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What are you talking about?

[S.Artesian]

So capitalism is a static unchanging, never evolving economic system, gotcha.

Nope, it exists in a continuous state of dynamic disequilibrium. But accumulation is still accumulation; it is still based on the production of value; and value is still the product of labor organized as a commodity.

If you have some other analysis, please feel free to develop it and explain it.

[Rooster]

I don't think Marx was even describing capital in his day. Was he not basing his analysis on previous economists who worked with abstract theoretical models of capital?


If you've taken a university level physics course, you would know that gravity, or how we understand it, has in fact changed. Einstein's relativity actually sank Newton's laws of motion, proving it was in fact, a incorrect definition of gravity. So thanks again!

Yeah but, gravity hasn't changed at all. Just the way it's understood. So I think you got your analogy back to front there :laugh:

[B0LSHEVIK]

I don't think Marx was even describing capital in his day. Was he not basing his analysis on previous economists who worked with abstract theoretical models of capital?



Yeah but, gravity hasn't changed at all. Just the way it's understood. So I think you got your analogy back to front there :laugh:

Well according to this flawless logic then capitalism hasnt changed at all, but maybe, just maybe, the way we understand it has? Maybe?

Again, nobody seems capable of actually thinking for themselves, and instead only regurgitate something thing they've heard elsewhere. I dont think there is such a 'system' that is static, never changes, always the same from beginning to end. Thats not reality. Which is why I posted the original post. I think its important to ask these questions.

Obviously, if you're a Marxist-(insert tendency here), you've advanced Marx's ideas to some degree. So a marxist-lenninist who says 'capitalism is still and will always be the same' misses the point that the second part of his tendency is a revision or 'advancement' of original marxism. So let us not fool ourselves into believing that NOTHING has changed since 1883 when Marx passed away.

Im not a professional economist/philosopher/historian/and everything else that Marx was. Therefore, me postulating a new 'theory' is nearly next to impossible. But judging NOT ONLY from Monopoly-Capital but from what I assume to be common sense, its IMPOSSIBLE that capitalism is a carbon copy of the mid 19th century.

[S.Artesian]

Well according to this flawless logic then capitalism hasnt changed at all, but maybe, just maybe, the way we understand it has? Maybe?

Again, nobody seems capable of actually thinking for themselves, and instead only regurgitate something thing they've heard elsewhere. I dont think there is such a 'system' that is static, never changes, always the same from beginning to end. Thats not reality. Which is why I posted the original post. I think its important to ask these questions.

Obviously, if you're a Marxist-(insert tendency here), you've advanced Marx's ideas to some degree. So a marxist-lenninist who says 'capitalism is still and will always be the same' misses the point that the second part of his tendency is a revision or 'advancement' of original marxism. So let us not fool ourselves into believing that NOTHING has changed since 1883 when Marx passed away.

Im not a professional economist/philosopher/historian/and everything else that Marx was. Therefore, me postulating a new 'theory' is nearly next to impossible. But judging NOT ONLY from Monopoly-Capital but from what I assume to be common sense, its IMPOSSIBLE that capitalism is a carbon copy of the mid 19th century.

So then pick a category, a topic, an incident... like say the expansion in the US in the 1990s, and its implosion in 2001; and then take the recovery in 2003, and then the near collapse of the system globally in 2008, and from your monopoly capitalist perspective, explain it to us;.

Show us how capital accumulated, or didn't, there was overproduction, or there wasn't; the rate of profit declined, or it didn't; rates of exploitation of labor changed or they did not; the relation between c and v was altered or was not.

[Welshy]

Im not a professional economist/philosopher/historian/and everything else that Marx was. Therefore, me postulating a new 'theory' is nearly next to impossible. But judging NOT ONLY from Monopoly-Capital but from what I assume to be common sense, its IMPOSSIBLE that capitalism is a carbon copy of the mid 19th century.

I've been reading this thread for a while and I think people like S.Artesian have given pretty good responses. However throughout this thread you have been asking for answers to your question and when people give you answers with out making the claim that capitalism today is a carbon copy of 19th century capitalism, you respond with something like the part I bolded.

Now what I want to know is in what ways do you think the nature of capitalism has changed and how ways do you feel that Marxist Theory doesn't account for these changes.

I also believe that we need to constantly reevaluate and update theory as time goes on and things change, but I think you are falling into a trap that supporters of capitalism fall into when criticizing socialism and because of this you are asking the wrong questions.

[B0LSHEVIK]

I've been reading this thread for a while and I think people like S.Artesian have given pretty good responses. However throughout this thread you have been asking for answers to your question and when people give you answers with out making the claim that capitalism today is a carbon copy of 19th century capitalism, you respond with something like the part I bolded.

Now what I want to know is in what ways do you think the nature of capitalism has changed and how ways do you feel that Marxist Theory doesn't account for these changes.

I also believe that we need to constantly reevaluate and update theory as time goes on and things change, but I think you are falling into a trap that supporters of capitalism fall into when criticizing socialism and because of this you are asking the wrong questions.

Ok, its like this. Im not an economist and I cant pull these crazy numbers/statistics out of my head, therefore the chances of me putting forth MY ANALYSIS are not that great. That being said, since you've been following along with us, most people who've responded in this thread dont actually know what they are talking about. Thats why most of the responses Ive gotten are along the lines of 'has capitalism changed?.....Not at all, because well Marx wrote it !!!' That doesn't quite satisfy my question to be honest.

Either that or a straw man argument. Like 'you seem like a supporter of capitalism' mainly because I really do feel that IT HAS CHANGED to some degree. Obviously its not a whole other monster in of it self. Not at all, but the circumstances in which Marx described capitalism (which he did do, just read the manifesto for crying out fucking loud) have changed. Dont believe me? In post-revolutionary Russia, Not even 40 years after Marx's death there was a need to adapt Marxism to a world that had already changed somewhat. And thus Marxist-lenninism was born.

Point being, if you're a ML, or a marxist-hoxhaist, or any other kind of marxist(variable) than YOU'VE ALREADY ACCEPTED that the way Marx described the world 150 years ago needed some 'updating' to put it simply. So then, why so much resistance or bitterness towards my original question? Has capitalism changed? I think it has, profoundly if you ask me. I dont think Marx ever thought that the majority of workers would begin investing in stocks (in the 1st world that is) for example.

Its kind of obvious to me that most people dont take Marx literally, hence the major tendency war of the last 100 years.

[B0LSHEVIK]

"The class struggle on the field of ideas conditions the class struggle as a whole. Bourgeois ideas help the bourgeoisie keep control of the working class. For example: the idea that capitalism is permanent, normal, in accord with basic human nature, works against consideration of possible or desirable alternative ways of organising our social and economic life. The idea that there can be such a thing as "a fair day's pay for a fair day's work" makes the employer-worker relationship seem to be at root a just one. The idea that socialism is an unrealisable ideal, impractical and utopian, works on people's minds in favour of making the best of capitalism.

In Capital Karl Marx subjected capitalism to rigorous scientific analysis and cut the ground from under the key ideas on which the vast and labyrinthe edifices of bourgeois self-justification and self-exoneration have been erected. He showed how capitalism works; how its organic processes work towards more and more centralisation and socialisation of the capitalist economy; how these organic processes build the prerequisites of socialism and thus move capitalism, one of a number of socio-economic formations in history, on towards its natural end, the "expropriation of the expropriators" - the expropriation of the capitalists by the working class. Marx showed how exploitation occurs within the wage labour-capital relationship. Marx thus laid the scientific foundations of an all-round, conscious working class challenge to capitalism.

Capitalism has changed enormously since Marx published Volume 1 of Capital in 1867 - the fundamental processes of capitalism, which Karl Marx uncovered and anatomised, have not changed at all. Today, the labour movement needs to rearm itself politically and ideologically. We must go back to Marx - back to the fundamental critique of root-capitalism - if socialism is to renew itself in the post-Stalinist world. This abridgement of Volume 1 of Capital is by Otto Rühle, in collaboration with Leon Trotsky.

[Welshy]

"…
Capitalism has changed enormously since Marx published Volume 1 of Capital in 1867 - the fundamental processes of capitalism, which Karl Marx uncovered and anatomised, have not changed at all. Today, the labour movement needs to rearm itself politically and ideologically. We must go back to Marx - back to the fundamental critique of root-capitalism - if socialism is to renew itself in the post-Stalinist world. This abridgement of Volume 1 of Capital is by Otto Rühle, in collaboration with Leon Trotsky.


The part I bolded is what people in this thread have been saying the entire time. Interestingly enough, it goes against your claim in this post: http://www.revleft.com/vb/showpost.php?p=2107099&postcount=16


I think it has, theory of labor value aside, the basic structure of it has changed tremendously.No one has claimed it is exactly the same (some were rather simplistic in their responses though), but the fundamental nature of the system has stayed the same (private property over the means of production, exploitation of labor, and etc.).

Earlier you talked about Monopoly Capital, you mentioned how an industry with 100 (or a 1000) competitors behave differently than one with only a handful of competitors. This is certainly true, but you seem to be implying that oligarchies or monopolies didn't really exist (or at least weren't as much of a force) for Marx and Engels to talk about them in their theories (thus making them insufficient for now a days when oligarchies and monopolies are a big force). However this is not the case. In Socialism: Utopian and Scientific Engels discusses monopolies and trusts in the 3rd chapter.


The period of industrial high pressure, with its unbounded inflation of credit, not less than the crash itself, by the collapse of great capitalist establishments, tends to bring about that form of the socialization of great masses of the means of production which we meet with in the different kinds of joint-stock companies. Many of these means of production and of distribution are, from the outset, so colossal that, like the railways, they exclude all other forms of capitalistic expansion. At a further stage of evolution, this form also becomes insufficient. The producers on a large scale in a particular branch of an industry in a particular country unite in a "Trust", a union for the purpose of regulating production. They determine the total amount to be produced, parcel it out among themselves, and thus enforce the selling price fixed beforehand. But trusts of this kind, as soon as business becomes bad, are generally liable to break up, and on this very account compel a yet greater concentration of association. The whole of a particular industry is turned into one gigantic joint-stock company; internal competition gives place to the internal monopoly of this one company. This has happened in 1890 with the English alkali production, which is now, after the fusion of 48 large works, in the hands of one company, conducted upon a single plan, and with a capital of 6,000,000 pounds.Now there is no reason to get defensive like you did in the post responding to me. If I misunderstood what you meant when you were talking about Monopoly Capital let me know. I also would like you answer question/request from my first post.


Now what I want to know is in what ways do you think the nature of capitalism has changed and how ways do you feel that Marxist Theory doesn't account for these changes. If you reply to this, maybe I can give a better and less disorganized reply because it would be easier to see exactly where you are coming from.

[B0LSHEVIK]

The part I bolded is what people in this thread have been saying the entire time. Interestingly enough, it goes against your claim in this post

Actually only Artesian was the one who mainly said that the best. And I havent had anything to say to him. Ive mainly responded to everybody to people who called me a 'capitalist.' And Ive agreed while simultaneously disagreeing that capitalism has stayed the same. It hasn't. And I never said Marx was wrong or couldn't predict (which is what capitalists economists do). I've just said that if Marx were alive today and could review and write something on the last 150 years, I can almost assure anyone that he would add encyclopedias of worth to our libraries.


Now what I want to know is in what ways do you think the nature of capitalism has changed and how ways do you feel that Marxist Theory doesn't account for these changes.

Mainly that if Marx had died in 1983 instead of 1883, his outlook on things might have changed slightly. Not saying that he would have revised new collections and burned the old ones. But todays capitalism operates in different settings, contexts, etc etc. For most Marx's life hereditary aristocracies ruled the planet. Empires were supreme, even to capitalists. Not that that has fundamentally changed but Im sure he wouldnt write carbon copies from the 1850's. Is this so wrong to assume?

[Ned Kelly]

Marx didn't analyze or foresee the degree to which the bourgeoisie would buy off the working class with welfare, and the 'reformist' parties..thus our analysis and tactics must advance

[Mr. Natural]

Bolshevik,
I see we're located at the far corners of California. I'm new to revleft and this is my first attempt to post in Theory. I have no site or computer skills, so I'll need some luck.
I apply Marxism and its materialist dialectic and the new sciences of life's organization to human social systems. I claim to be a red-green revolutionary.
Capitalism has "matured": it has metastasized Earth, hence humanity and human consciousness. Capitalism has eliminated opposing systems and thought; it is entropic and there is no negation of the negation. Capitalism is a systemic process (see Hegel, Marx, Whitehead) that has reached the end of its process. We are really screwed, unless....
I was so pumped up after I discovered there was a revleft site that I got a computer. Here there is a chance to discuss what must be discussed with some of the few radicals left on Earth. I assume you, Bolshevik, might agree with my assessment that the US is now the planet's preeminent intellectual and political wasteland.
So the system of capitalism and its institutions and values now create the human ecosystem and deform the human being. But we can overcome. We can learn to apply life's "rules" to human social systems. We can organize in life's pattern (now known) and reclaim our lives.
Much more to come. Venceremos!