The meritocracy: "Anyone can be a capitalist"....

[CAleftist]

That's right. Anyone can, in theory, be a capitalist. That is, be 'at the top", in the top 1%, be "upwardly mobile," get rich, make it big.

Of course, some people have a much better chance than others. Some people have only a modest chance. Some people have almost no chance at all.

But there's always a chance.

Of course, "anyone' can get rich or at least, have a comfortable life. That doesn't mean, of course, that everyone will. Or even most people. No, the rest of you, your job is to do the work, for those lucky , lucky elite few who "win."

And of course, you cannot, under any circumstance, blame the system for your own personal failures, your own lack of a work ethic, your own stupidity, your own victim mentality, your own lack of personal responsibility....

....says the capitalist, fatter than ever on surplus value, and greedier for more.

[Seth]

All societies need a myth of egalitarianism.

[Jose Gracchus]

I am pretty sure there was no myth of egalitarianism in high feudalism.

[Tablo]

If everyone worked hard and was a capitalist then who would do the work? :confused:

[Revolution starts with U]

Not everyone can get rich through effort. If I decide to produce a cure for cancer and not sell it, ie give it freely I cannot get rich because of it.

BS arguments are BS arguments.

[ZeroNowhere]

Well, the 'meritocrats' do have a somewhat decent point, when you rub off the ideological filth (as such, it's somewhat surprising that most meritocrats, being utter wankers, seem to continue in their ignorance). In capitalism, it's not capitalists as individuals who rule, as it often was in feudalism, but capital itself; as such, it's not a person's bloodline, or unique personal qualities, which make them a capitalist, but simply their ownership of money which they may invest in capital. Indeed, in modern times, capital is very much separated from individuals, due to the stock market and so on, where the capital of individual firms comes from a wide-ranging collective of investors which frequently changes through the selling of stocks and such. Given this, their 'defence' simply comes down to the fact that capitalism is based not on the rule of man over man, but on the rule of man's own products over himself, in other words that capital is not a personal hierarchy but the rule of alien powers over humanity.

Now, such arguments ultimately had their origin, and their validity, in the struggle of capitalism against feudalism, where indeed the personal nature of power appeared as a fetter to the productive forces, and would even more so today, when the division of society's production is dynamic and requires the flexibility of the stock market and credit in order to function. However, they lose this validity in dealing with communists; unlike liberals, our issue is not ultimately that capitalist society is not 'mobile' or equal enough, but rather our issue with capitalist society is precisely the alien nature of power lauded by the argument itself. We are not concerned with whether an individual can, through his hard work and ability, raise himself up to be a capitalist, we rather see that the alienated nature of capitalist production leads to the formation of on the one side a unified mass of capital, and on the other hand a mass of wage labourers, on the social level. If it is said that many workers wouldn't mind becoming rich through becoming wealthy capitalists, then this is perfectly valid; however, the immediate struggle of the working class for their material interests nonetheless remains revolutionary in nature. Capital is, after all, only labour, and accumulation, capitalism's fundamental tendency, is contingent upon the continuous expansion of labour; this, then, must create the working class as a social phenomenon, regardless of the hopes and dreams of individuals.

If most labourers suddenly dropped out of work to become non-working capitalists, then capitalism would be forced into a crisis of overaccumulation, unable to easily expand its workforce; not because, as usually, it cannot afford to due to necessary expenditure upon means of production, but rather because there would be nobody to expand into. This would throw people into the working class, and cause a struggle against the rising wages which such a decline in the supply of labour-power would create, hence ultimately returning us where we were in the first place.

Why? Certainly not because a bunch of people happened to lack 'merit'; crisis is not an attempt by the spirit of meritocracy to spread the wealth in accordance with people's merits, but rather, one could say, a result of capitalism's lacking merit. The problem of evil cannot be explained by the fall.