should leftist support the collapse of capitalism or its stabilization

[campesino]

I'm on the fence on whether we should support the collapse of the capitalist system hastening the arrival of a chaos we can exploit, or whether we should do as the U.S democrat party does(very ineffectively and weakly) and work for the workers within the capitalist system. To me all leftist legislative goals of the leftist is to hand over the means of productions to the workers. Higher tax rates on the rich and higher minimum wages won't help the workers get the means of production. plus, class consciousness seems to develop as things get worse. although now, fascism seems more likely to develop than communism, due to the capitalist propaganda.

[Permanent Revolutionary]

You have to break some eggs to make an omelet ;)

[Omsk]

We should support it's crushing.

[ВАЛТЕР]

We support the complete and total destruction of capitalism. No matter the cost, the ends justify the means.

[Caj]

Why should we act like the acquisition of state power by the proletariat and the pursuit of reforms in favor of the working class are mutually exclusive? The latter is a means to bringing about the class consciousness necessary for the former.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Like Omsk said, we should support neither. We should support the proletariat crushing the capitalist system and bourgeoisie. This is neither the "collapse" of capitalism (considering it's deficiencies caused the system to crumble which in this case the social relations would still remain intact along with bourgeois dominance) or it's stablilzation.

[Blake's Baby]

Capitalism won't collapse as such; it'll just make everything worse and worse until enough of us organise to destroy it.

[L.A.P.]

False dichotomy

[Os Cangaceiros]

We need to plunder the public largess (and private largess, through leveraging unsustainably high wages/benefits) to such an extent that the economy crashes, then the state will say, OK guys, you gotta give us some of your money and stuff so we can get out of this unsustainable situation, then we'll say no way, you can't have any of our stuff, you can suck it.

And that's how the revolution will come about.

[campesino]

@ Bro Chi Minh
a higher minimum wage and better treatment of the workers will just lead to a situation of the working class forgetting that capitalism is awful and they will start believing in they can become rich e.g (temporarily embarrassed millionaire, consciousness.) The alternative model of communism will be forgotten. Instead of a capitalism leading to revolution, it will be a cycle of good feelings toward capitalism and then near revolt, then a recovery of capitalism. I'm of the view of the only meaningful change for the future of the working class, is worker control of the means of production. It is necessary to have a discontent working class, all power comes from discontent, whether it is directed rightly or not.

[the last donut of the night]

burn everything in front of you, that's what you should do

less revleft more fire

[Nox]

>Democrat Party
>Working for the workers

You've gotta be shittin' me...

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Thread Moved

[Keath]

False dichotomy

Can you elaborate on this?

[#FF0000]

I think we ought to work towards ending it on our own terms -- collapse of capitalism doesn't mean establishing socialism, and continuing capitalism is obviously off the table!

[Brosip Tito]

Socialism or barbarism!

[Fawkes]

Think of it like this:
You break into somebody's house and rob them of nearly everything. As a result of that, you're now very wealthy and they're pretty damn poor. You then tell the person "okay, now if you want your dining room table back, you're gonna have to give me that car I was nice enough to leave behind for you". How long do you think that relationship can last before the other person simply doesn't have anything left to exchange?


Capitalism as a system is inherently flawed given that, for all intents and purposes, as one's wealth increases, another's decreases. Capitalism needs a large consumer base with enough wealth to sustain the bourgeoisie. However, the bourgeoisie is able to accumulate such enormous amounts of wealth by stealing from the proletariat, i.e. the same consumer base that supports them. Eventually, the proletariat simply no longer has enough wealth to adequately support the bourgeois. Then comes an economic crisis/recession/depression/etc. This is why every 20 years or so capitalism partially self-destructs. So, like xx1994xx said, this is a false dichotomy. Capitalism can't be stable for more than a few years at a time, and we've got 200 years of history as proof.

[Raúl Duke]

I think it's a false dichotomy, as one said earlier, or at the very least you are presenting the dilemma in a limited and/or not with all the info.


Capitalism won't collapse as such; it'll just make everything worse and worse until enough of us organise to destroy it.

This is the trend I see...

Maybe it's historical inevitably or not
But in the first world there's a systematic trend since like the end of the 70s, which seems to be accelerating recently, towards worsening conditions for the working class and an increase in income inequality.

I remember when my parents told me "get a degree and you'll surely get a well-paying job!" in a way that implied I would get said job almost right after graduating with said degree. To some extent, this was true for them. But now we live in world where getting said degree requires getting student loans plus doesn't guarantee much in way of work as it did in the past, no matter what you major in. Currently half of college graduates will end up unemployed/underemployed.

Outside the realm of having a degree, in the work force all jobs now have worsening pay and conditions.

Capitalism is heading towards a "crisis" but a crisis for the working class. Everything is going swell if you're a bankster or a hedge fund manager.

It's not in the left's interests to wish for the worsening of these conditions but more to fight the root cause of these conditions. Now on the subject of reformism, theoretically the left could fight for reforms but perhaps this is an era where reforms under capitalism in the "developed" nations is not really possible and even if they were they're not permanent (many reforms and polices from the New Deal are gone).

[citizen of industry]

There is an interesting passage by Gramsci in volume III of the prison notebooks where he criticizes economic determinism with a military analogy. I couldn't dig it up, but basically he wrote that some communists see economic crisis as the artillery that opens up a hole in the enemy's front, allowing the left to form cadres or use already existing cadres to rush into the gap. He calls that line of thinking "the height of economic determinism" and goes on to say sometimes, like after an actual artillery barrage, the enemy's line is completely intact and their forces aren't so dissolusioned after all.

However, I think there is some truth to that kind of economic determinism. In Japan, for example, at the immediate end of the war there were only about 1,000 union members. By the end of 1946, there were over 4,000,000. Purely due to economic crisis, people flooded the unions and the communist party. They realized they had been betrayed and they were starving.

I saw a similar thing after the Fukushima crisis, with the largest demonstration since the 2003 invasion of Iraq. So I kind of sympathize with the OP, that economic crisis is kind of the motive force for mass organizing.

On the other hand, I work within the capitalist system in the union to improve existing working conditions. Not to organize would amount to sitting on one's ass, waiting for a crisis and then expecting revolution without any pre-existing organizations. So I guess I see it as an uphill battle, but one that creates cadres for present and future crisis and provides organization for current and future struggles.

I doubt even with one's best efforts we'd significantly improve conditions for workers under capitalism, but we win some battles here and there and build our organization. Was it Marx who wrote, "Now and then the workers are victorious, but only for a time. The real fruit of their battles lies, not in the immediate result, but in the ever expanding union of the workers."

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

Wtf are you talking about? The demise of capitalism does not necessarily imply chaos, mind you.

[roy]

leftists should support workers. capitalism is going to be awful on the whole no matter how much we support its stabilisation. of course we generally want conditions to improve within capitalism (i hope), but we understand that the current system must be replaced if oppression is to be curtailed in any significant capacity.

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Well, we are in fact seeing a collapse of the current neo-liberal market capitalist system. The neo-liberal and market part is collapsing now. The only solution for the ruling class theoretically would be to remove the market system and plan the system for the... which is pretty much an impossibility. I have thought very much about this: At first, if the capitalist states of the westcontinue the bailouts to the private sector, they will stop being able to get more debt, leading to an unprecedented global economic catastrophe. Even if capitalists were able to turn this situation into their class interest once again (which is again... quite an impossibility) they would set out to do what their class have done since centuries: create a market based class system. THAT Won't WORK. I personally believe that capital is caught in a corner now; it has rattled on through the 20th century through massive debt and extreme exploitation of other nations and the global working class, the rate of profit is down to unprecedented lows, we are essentially seeing a "third industrial revolution" replacing massive amounts of live exploitable labor with machines, imperialism is runnign out of new markets to capitalise upon and territory to expand to: Capitalism is truly at a place it has never been at before. The end of capitalism, and the stronger and faster the international proletariat take over their workplaces and abolish the market for democratic planning, the faster we will again see growth and a new era of humankind.

[MotherCossack]

well this is a no-brainer... big time...
cor blimey gov'nor.... i thought that was what we were here for!
preserve capitalism?
yer having a laugh arnt you....
why would anyone want to prolong the terrible awfulness that is capitalism for more than a split second?
THE entire system plainly
a/ is fundementally unjust, unfair and ensures that a massive proportion of the world's population will go hungry, not enjoy their life and never achieve their full potential or get their fair share.

b/ is a deeply flawed and unsustainable form of economics , imposed by governments who undoubtedly do not have the welfare and interests of their people at heart . [well, not the vast majority of them anyhow]

c can only walk a few steps on its own... then has to be supported from both sides ....and may have to stop and rest...or it soon collapses completely.

d/ only an idiot or someone with fingers in lots of pies would argue that it is the best we can hope for...

for my part... i fail to see a single redeeming feature.... and would dearly love to see the back of it... at the earliest possible opportunity......in fact there is not a lot i wouldn't do to contribute to its permanent demise

[Jimmie Higgins]

I'm on the fence on whether we should support the collapse of the capitalist system hastening the arrival of a chaos we can exploit, or whether we should do as the U.S democrat party does(very ineffectively and weakly) and work for the workers within the capitalist system. To me all leftist legislative goals of the leftist is to hand over the means of productions to the workers. Higher tax rates on the rich and higher minimum wages won't help the workers get the means of production. plus, class consciousness seems to develop as things get worse. although now, fascism seems more likely to develop than communism, due to the capitalist propaganda.Interesting question comrade. Welcome by the way.

I think the way this question is formulated makes it hard to answer. I think it sort of implies a passive working class in the process of working class emancipation.

As the already radicalized members of the working class, I think our activities and goals should be on how to help the class organize itself and develop independent politics and political networks and organizations. So there are legislative measures and reforms that I think would probably help workers lives be better, such as getting rid of the "corporate personhood" ruling or whatnot, but a campaign around such a thing would not help workers organize themselves IMO, it would just be strategies for trying to change things through the legal process and it would mostly involve workers passively supporting "good politicians" or "good judges". Other reforms though could help people directly defend themselves or change the balance of class forces and so if there are campaigns around them that actually help mobilize workers to express class politics and develop class and potentially revolutionary consciousness, then those might be worth considering.

Hoping for a collapse, again, would be a passive view of worker's revolution and doesn't give enough credit to consciousness IMO. If there was little class consciousness, then a systemic collapse would probably confuse and disorient people more than move them to democratic and class-based action. If there was little class-self-organization and a collapse, then whatever classes and forces in society which were more organized could probably come to power in the vacuum.

[Brosa Luxemburg]

Why should we act like the acquisition of state power by the proletariat and the pursuit of reforms in favor of the working class are mutually exclusive? The latter is a means to bringing about the class consciousness necessary for the former.

I don't think that people would disagree with this. I also do not believe that what you are describing here is "stabilizing" capitalism, but more of stabilizing the working class which I would argue is different. "Stabilizing" capitalism, as I interpret it, would be using government intervention to suppress the working class, their movements, and their leaders while holding up the bourgeoisie, their social relations, and their dominance in times of crisis.