Can there be such a thing as a 'fair' capitalism?

[Unclebananahead]

Tonight, whilst walking home from the grocery store, I pondered: could there be such a thing as a 'fair capitalism'? We anti-capitalists readily recognise that the 'start up capital' used to kick off capitalism is derived from land theft, colonization, and slavery--what us Marxists refer to as 'primitive accumulation.' This makes the present bourgeoisie seem as though their wealth is derived from ill-gotten sources, were you to trace back the process of wealth accumulation through succeeding generations.

My question is, suppose capitalism had a reset button. Suppose all wealth could somehow be suddenly evenly distributed among all society's members, regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation, transgender status, etc. What would happen, and how fair would it be? I'd like to get some thoughtful opinions on this if possible.

[tbasherizer]

The nature of economic relations under capitalism- the use of machinery by wage-labourers to make commodities for sale- lends itself to class stratification. Ignoring the historical problems of your situation and focusing on the hypothetical, there still would be the problem imposed on us by the state of the means of production- they necessitate the capitalist order. This would result in the inevitable re-setting up of the bourgeois class and all of the state accoutrement that comes with it.

If this is true, how will socialism come about? That terrible song -'Won't be fooled again' had it right in his case- If things were to be reset, the 'new boss' wouldn't be any different from the 'old boss'. Where the song gets it wrong is that revolution is a response to changing material conditions- which a societal reset wouldn't necessarily achieve-presuming, of course, that it's only the amount of money and legal status of people that has been equalised.

This is an interesting thought experiment- I will let it dig into my statistics studying time.

[Optiow]

If you distributed it equally it would soon turn into inequality over time because capitalism works by fleecing others to gain profit. There will always be inequality under capitalism, so while it may sound like a good idea to some to have 'fair' capitalism - it goes against all principles of the system.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

No,capitalism is exploitation and exploitation is never fair.

[~Spectre]

Putting aside the economics, consider that even under your scenario, you can't maintain this:

1) consider geographic factors. Areas like Bangladesh that are particularly vulnerable to destruction. Now you have an exploitable crisis.

2) how even is the distribution if person A is a loner, and person B is part of a conglomerate of friends and family putting their money together into a trust/corporation?

[Catma]

The acquisition of lots of money by a few is neither based on merit (not that you were saying it was) nor good for society, and it's inevitable under capitalism.

With financial inequality comes political/power inequality, and before long the system would be "corrupt" again.

When would you reset it again? New people are born every minute of every day. Are they not all entitled to this pristine capitalism, should it prove to work? Everything after minute 1 will be unequal. Should capitalism have "seasons"? How do you reset the immaterial gains that some have made by being raised in better environments, and by being groomed to command power in a capitalist society since birth (similar to ~Spectre's point 2 above)?

[Collectorgeneral]

tldr: The very nature of capitalism is incompatible with the concept of 'fairness'.
So no.

[Nox]

What would happen is the wealth would quickly shift in to the hands of the new bourgeoisie and then the next generation would have a head start.

The increasing gap between rich and poor is an unavoidable side affect of capitalism.

[Die Neue Zeit]

"Fair capitalism" under a socialist viewpoint? No.

"Fair capitalism" under an old radical-bourgeois viewpoint or under a modern radical-petty-bourgeois-democratic viewpoint? Lots of things have to come into play. If I have time, I'll detail these later today.

[Unclebananahead]

I was thinking that there would emerge a new bourgeoisie, who would accumulate more than others initially, primarily out of luck. Those with more advantageous circumstances, such as more friends and family, as well as more suitable geographic locale, would transform the foregoing into the 'start up capital' needed to establish themselves as the nucleus of the new bourgeoisie. That's my general take on it, but I'm curious as to the opinions others might have.

Of course, apologists for capitalism would insist that the most clever, resourceful, hard working people would struggle their way to the top. That they would achieve their wealth through merit. I'm trying to sharpen myself against this line of thought.

[Catma]

That's a worthy question to pursue, if only for counterarguments: Is the accumulation of wealth meritocratic? There are an endless list of ways to acquire wealth that don't require much merit. Crime is very profitable for some involved in it. If crime is inevitable in a society, some will succeed, and some will become wealthy from it. Maybe only the best and brightest criminal masterminds will succeed, thus ensuring some sort of merit. Aside from overlooking the role of luck and the statistical fact that some will succeed, this misses the point: their enterprise is no good for society and should not be encouraged.

What, then, about "legitimate" enterprises, and not crime? There may be a better argument for this point, but the one that jumps out at me is that there ARE no legitimate enterprises. Nearly all business extracts labor value out of workers under duress. The only reason this is not criminal is because the bourgeois state says it isn't.

Finally, why is it important that merit be rewarded? Does it really benefit society to do so?

[Rafiq]

Uh huh... Ethics aside, you still have the internal systematic contradictions. Whether it is fair or not is irrelivent.

[IndependentCitizen]

No, even Keynesian Capitalism is prone to disaster, and alas causing serious damage to the working class.

[robbo203]

Tonight, whilst walking home from the grocery store, I pondered: could there be such a thing as a 'fair capitalism'? We anti-capitalists readily recognise that the 'start up capital' used to kick off capitalism is derived from land theft, colonization, and slavery--what us Marxists refer to as 'primitive accumulation.' This makes the present bourgeoisie seem as though their wealth is derived from ill-gotten sources, were you to trace back the process of wealth accumulation through succeeding generations.

My question is, suppose capitalism had a reset button. Suppose all wealth could somehow be suddenly evenly distributed among all society's members, regardless of race, sex, sexual orientation, transgender status, etc. What would happen, and how fair would it be? I'd like to get some thoughtful opinions on this if possible.

Interesting question. There is some theoretical evidence to suggest that, given an initial "level playing field" money would soon enough begin to get more and more unevenly distributed till we arrrive back at where we are today. This would seem to suggest the even without primitive accumlation and assuming capitalism commenced "cleanly", things would turn out to be not that different

I am not too sure of the theory behind this claim but it was made by a physicist called Viktor Yakovenko in a paper entitled "The Statistical Mechanics of Money" . Yakovenko argued that money in a market economy plays a role rather analogous to that of energy in physics and that the distribution of money will end up taking the "same form as the distribution of energy between molecules in a gas: the so called Gibbs-Boltzmann distribution " in accordance with the laws of thermodynamics ( http://21stcenturysocialism.blogspot.com/2008/08/how-physics-is-validating-labour-theory.html)

Of course, the growth of inequality involves a posotive feedback loop which reinforces the tendency towards increasing inequality through the mechanism of exploitation. In other words, once inequality sets in, it unleashes forces that work to increase existing inequalities - quite aprt from the reasons advanced by Yakovenko

[Marxaveli]

Nope, its not possible. No matter how many regulations, benefits and safety nets you create for the working class, the fact of the matter is, there is still a ruling class that will have a reactionary party to protect its interests. Thus the system always leads to austerity when those parties come into power. There is no saving capitalism. Never was, never will be. Period.

[Belleraphone]

We know that in the current condition, capitalism can get less fair than it is and more fair than it is, depending on how reactionary the bourgeois is.

The same applies to what you said. If wealth and capital were evenly distributed, the enviornment would shape the hierarchy of the new society. Someone's parents will die in a fire and he'll have to force himself into working for a living instead of getting an education. Another guy will loan part of his equal capital to someone else with interest rate and get more back, making him richer. Eventually the present society would emerge again, this time with Proudhon's thesis invalid because the origin of property was fair.

[Red Rosa]

All methods of producing more surplus value (intensification of work, increased productivity, etc.) are at the same time methods of accumulation and every increase of accumulation is means for development of these methods. Therefore, when capital accumulates, position of the worker gets worse, no matter how high his wage is.
The money spent on machines, buildings, etc. is getting bigger in relation with wage. Wage could get higher, but it will always be lower than money spent on the former. So, with accumulation some workers are no longer needed and that's where the "army of the unemployed" is created. Workers can win a battle for higher wages, but all the power is still in hands of the capital, and not workers. Plus keeping in mind that worker is a commodity in capitalist system, crisis that occur, etc. All this and more is inherent in capitalism.
If you realize this so called better version of capitalism, such as Welfeare state, that still can't stand in comparison with socialism because the power is still in the hands of capital (state or private or both), who own you. The point is to abolish that.

[MaerF0x0]

This "reset" concept makes me think of biblical year of "Jubilee" they gave land back to those who lost it, released slaves etc.. Maybe there could be a small cycle of the sort like every 10 years the means of production and capital are entirely equalized. But yeah, if capital acquisition only occurs under exploitation, you'd just have cycles of declining fairness...

[MarxSchmarx]

No.

At best, capitalism promises equal opportunity. But all this means is that those that are really lucky, either in their financial transactions or in their genetic composition, can do extraordinarily well.

Can there be a capitalism based on effort and nothing more? This is ridiculous.

Capitalism is built on making a profit. This in turn depends on what the impersonal market demands. The market does not reward effort - it rewards being a rare supplier of an acute demand. This could come about through several mechanisms quite independent of mere effort. Anything else would not be capitalism.

To say that somebody who "tried really hard" but failed to supply that demand simply didn't "try hard enough" is like saying you didn't pray hard enough for your disease to be cured, therefore it is your own fault for being sick. The logic is basically that "If you want x, you should do y. Therefore, if you want FOR x, you simply didn't do enough y." this is a logically flawed argument; for it is like saying:

"If z is a square, it should be a rectangle. Therefore, if z is not a square, it is not a rectangle."

Absurd. On so many levels. Yet this is the logic of capitalism. Therefore, a "fair" capitalism is about as plausible as a round triangle.