Unsustainable?

[Scrounger]

Hello comrades,

I hope you don't disregard my question as too stupid to answer, because there are many of the basics that I still cannot define despite having been an active revolutionary socialist for pretty long.

When I discuss politics with fellow rev. socialists, a hot topic is about what made us into socialists. A common answer is "capitalism is unsustainable", which is something I've come across many times but never had explained to me. Is it simply because the earths resources are depletable, or is there more to it?

A marxist told me that production in western countries would inevitably start producing less and less profit and that we've seen proof of this in the past (the recent financial crisis, for instance), while a liberal told me that it was bollocks; that there's been no signs of production becoming less profitable and that the fault for crisises lies with the banks, the government and the politicians. I know this is a pretty standard answer for a liberal, but is there any truth to it?

tl;dr: Is Capitalism unsustainable in more ways than causing depletion of resources? Why wouldn't it theoretically be possible for most people to live in a prospering socialliberal society with welfare, free markets and high materialistic standards?

[Scrounger]

Is there any particular reason on why this thread hasn't received any replies yet?

I thought it to be a pretty basic question.

[Lobotomy]

No, it's a good question, I think it just slipped through the cracks.

When people say "capitalism is unsustainable", they are probably referring to the process of overproduction. Basically, overproduction is when there is an excess of supply over demand, or excess of production over consumption. as the bourgeoisie never pay their workers as much as their labor is worth, the gap between the rich and the poor gets wider and wider and the vast majority of people cannot afford to buy as many goods anymore, which results in a large supply of goods that are never sold. In my opinion this phenomenon is already beginning but it could take a long time to fully develop.

[Lenina Rosenweg]

Hello comrades,

I hope you don't disregard my question as too stupid to answer, because there are many of the basics that I still cannot define despite having been an active revolutionary socialist for pretty long.

When I discuss politics with fellow rev. socialists, a hot topic is about what made us into socialists. A common answer is "capitalism is unsustainable", which is something I've come across many times but never had explained to me. Is it simply because the earths resources are depletable, or is there more to it?

A marxist told me that production in western countries would inevitably start producing less and less profit and that we've seen proof of this in the past (the recent financial crisis, for instance), while a liberal told me that it was bollocks; that there's been no signs of production becoming less profitable and that the fault for crisis lies with the banks, the government and the politicians. I know this is a pretty standard answer for a liberal, but is there any truth to it?

tl;dr: Is Capitalism unsustainable in more ways than causing depletion of resources? Why wouldn't it theoretically be possible for most people to live in a prospering socialliberal society with welfare, free markets and high materialistic standards?

This is a very important question but the answer is complicated. I don't believe in "peak oil" or that we are about to run out of resources anytime soon. The problems of capitalism are internal to capitalism. the productive powers of the human race have to be subordinated to the need of a few people, the capitalists, to make a profit off our labor. A zillion contradictions flow from this.



Marx talked about a tendency for the rate of profitability to decline. As technology advances capitalists require fewer workers. On the other hand capitalists ultimately make their profit off of the surplus value produced by workers.So as technology advances, profitability declines (in Marxist terms this is a change in the "organic composition of capital".) There are countervailing trends to this and Marxists debate how significant this "tendency" actually is.

Profitability for companies have gone up in recent years but with savage attacks on the living standard of the working class.

Ultimately the problem is an over-accumulation of capital desperately seeking profitable returns. Surplus capital has to be destroyed. Capitalism is choking on its own vomit.

I don't think we are really up against resource depletion anytime soon but their are environmental constraints. Global climate change, however its calculated, is very real and the solution to this can only come though a democratically planned economy.

[Geiseric]

welcome to revleft comrade, capitalism is unsustainable because it's impossible to always profit. when they don't profit, they have to be ruthless in order to profit. there's a point when all of their tricks to keep profiting have been depleted, and that point, my friend, is where we are at.

[aworldsman]

Hey Scrounger -

Derreck Jensen wrote a book called "Endgame" which discusses this theory at length in an easy-to-read format. I'm not a huge fan of his writing style and I don't subscribe to his premises, but it'll broaden your perspective nonetheless.

[redtex]

tl;dr: Is Capitalism unsustainable in more ways than causing depletion of resources? Why wouldn't it theoretically be possible for most people to live in a prospering socialliberal society with welfare, free markets and high materialistic standards?

I don't think capitalism is unsustainable from depletion of resources because technology will be able to overcome the loss of a resource. Plus, resources can be managed. Sure, the capitalists could cut down every tree on earth and not replace them, but that wouldn't be as profitable. They replace the trees they cut down and find every thinkable way to fit as many trees as possible on the smallest piece of land possible. Same with every other resource.

I think the biggest reason capitalism is not sustainable because under pure capitalism the workers would quickly realize that capitalism is exploitation of the workers by the capitalists and their reign would end in a bloody revolution. So what the capitalists do is use a system of capitalism with just enough socialist tendencies to placate the workers keep us from having our revolution. Hence food stamps, welfare, and other "entitlements". Hell, I've read that in the US nearly half of all people are on some sort of government entitlement program.

The capitalists are not stupid. They know they need the workers. They have completely taken over the government in the US and used it to keep the workers placated. We have the two parties in the US, Democrats and Republicans, and the capitalists play both sides. Even saying "both sides" is ridiculous because they are essentially the same. The differences are all distractions and are played up by the capitalist media to make them seem different, but really, you get basically the same result no matter which puppet is elected.

They have people who work full time just to figure out the things they need to say and do to placate us. And it works. The vast majority of Americans are totally brainwashed. (I realize that the US is not the center of the universe and I don't know enough about other counties to speak of what goes on there so all my statements reference that.)

tl;dr - Capitalism is unsustainable because it is exploitation of the worker, and workers will eventually revolt.

[piet11111]

Capitalism does not allow for long term planning that is why they knowingly inflate bubbles knowing damn well that a crash is going to happen but for the sake of profits they have to keep going.

And with the for profit motive they can not invest in cleaner more sustainable productive methods if it doesn't lead to more profits.

Just look at global warming or the economic crisis they are unable to tackle these problems because its one massive clash of interests and none of them want to make concessions.

[Nox]

Surely the out-of-control depletion of resources would be all the justification you need to hate Capitalism?

[Rooster]

It's not really the depletion of resources that causes capitalism to be a problem (although, that is a big one). You have things like crises of over production and problems with accumulation of capital which usually lead to wars or to huge waste to keep profits up and/or markets crash leading to people starving and struggling, etc. Then you have the struggle within capital between workers and capitalists which generally lead to labour struggles which usually leads to crises of accumulation and production again.

[Nox]

It's not really the depletion of resources that causes capitalism to be a problem (although, that is a big one). You have things like crises of over production and problems with accumulation of capital which usually lead to wars or to huge waste to keep profits up and/or markets crash leading to people starving and struggling, etc. Then you have the struggle within capital between workers and capitalists which generally lead to labour struggles which usually leads to crises of accumulation and production again.

Oh yes I know that.

I was just making the point that even just one of the many problems with Capitalism is more than enough to reject it as a system.