Georgist Analysis as response to Marx?

[Oswy]

Any ideas on how I respond to this? I'm not even sure what he means.



Thanks, that was an interesting watch [David Harvey's Crisis of Capital animation (http://youtu.be/qOP2V_np2c0)].

He touched on what I consider to be the 'root' of the problem a couple of times - the anglo-saxon obsession with property ownership and speculation. In my experience Marxists tend to have a bit of blind spot when it comes to housing and instead focus their energies on analysing the monopolistic tendencies of capitalists, this is a bit of a mistake. Capital as a factor of production is inately replaceable which renders in unsuitable for monopolistic practice, in other words if you buy a spanner there's nothing to stop me from buying or creating my own: there's a level playing field in spanner ownership. This isn't so with "property" as a large part of it's value comes from exclusive ownership, if you purchase a bit of land the state will defend your claim with all the force at it's disposal.

I'm fully aware that there's a Crisis of Capitalism, it's just that it can't be adequately unpacked using traditional Marxist theory (although towards the end of his academic career Marx finally conceeded that even capitalists are constrained by the predatory nature of the land owners). But this is generally ignored by Marxists that havn't read Das Kapital all the way through.


Here's a video explaing the Georgist analysis of the economy: [Ricardo's Law video (http://youtu.be/qOP2V_np2c0)]



Any ideas?

[The Idler]

Karl Marx or Henry George? (http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/oct11/meetings_contacts.html)
Tuesday 18th October 2011, 8pm
Discussion between Socialist Party and David Wetzel,
Committee Room, Chiswick Town Hall, Heathfield Terrace, London, W4 4JN (nearest tube Chiswick Park).

[hatzel]

Okay okay...what? I can usually go for extended periods without hearing even a passing reference to George, yet not only has his name cropped up a few times on the forums over the last couple of days, now you're telling me there's a talk about his ideas? Is there some reason he's seemingly back in vogue after a hiatus lasting a few decades, or is this all just a coincidence? :confused:

[Broletariat]

His analogy is seriously flawed.

Sure you can buy/recreate a simple spanner. Good luck doing that with an entire corporate line of factories. Or out competing them with your spanner.

[Travis Bickle]

Interesting.

[Broletariat]

Unlike Karl Marx and the marxists that actually sees the corporation and non competition as a progressive step towards socialism and communism because it makes that final expropriation easier...the georgists would like to implement the competition marxists dislike. That includes breaking they money monopoly that channels money into the corporate sector and subdues labour. The lack of competition in banking increases wage labour and drives down the number of business. The enemy of the would be capitalist spanner factory is not productive capital but the lack of competition among financial capital. Georgist favour interest free money for the people but are currently prevented by the state and the socialists. Latter favour centralization of banking.

There is definataly a strand of georgist that wants to abolish the legal privilege of corporations. Disolve them as entiteties.

I even searched among fellow socialt comrades to set up a cooperative business. But you know, in the end it turned out that they prefered to stay in their current job and whine and complain about their employers profits. Among single taxers the cooperativist idea is upheld as en ideal. If I had discovered that earlier on I would have joined one of 'their' cooperatives.


Trouble is, you're not going to break those monoplies per say. Marx did note a tendency toward decentralisation in Volume three of Das Kapital, but the major point is that the big businesses exist already, and they wield political power. The only way to rid them of such political power is via revolution, you can't use the official channels to do so.

And even IF you establish the sort of competition you seek to create, it will simply destroy itself as it always does. Winners win and losers lose, when they compete again the previous winners have the obvious advantage.

A cooperative business isn't a step closer to Socialism, it's simply commodity production in a different form essentially. Worker run Capitalism, which will degenerate back into what we have now similarly to how the USSR/China State Capitalism dissolved to what we have now.