Denying Capitalism

[Comrade #138672]

I thought Liberals couldn't surprise me anymore, but apparently they can. I said something about Capitalists to which he replied: "Capitalists do not exist as such anymore." He said that money and power were distributed in such manner that nobody is in control. He said there are only workers now, even though a few of them may be very rich.

By the way, this guy is an academic (postmodernist) Philosopher who considers himself a Rawls adept. He also asked whether there were any real academic Communists left, suggesting that non-academics have no credibility.

He claims the following things:

[1] Economy and politics exist separately.
[2] Capitalists do not exist as such anymore, because money and power are distributed over many people by shares and the like.
[3] So, from [2] he deduces that workers are in fact working for themselves.
[4] And from [3] he deduces that workers can not have interests that contradict the interests of capitalists, because then they would have self-contradicting interests and that would be impossible.

I know there are many problems with what he's saying, but I think I can learn a lot from your view on this matter. So, what's wrong with it?

[GPDP]

Tell this guy to take a break from chilling on top of his ivory tower, and take a walk through a barrio or ghetto, and then ask him if he's not too dizzy from the mental gymnastics he's putting himself through to deny capitalism.

[MustCrushCapitalism]

[2] Capitalists do not exist as such anymore, because money and power are distributed over many people by shares and the like.

The average proletarian doesn't actually own shares in business. You're clearly speaking to someone who's completely disconnected from the great majority of people's lives if he actually thinks that it even crosses the mind of the average worker to buy corporate shares, even if it were viable.

Beyond that, being rich off of investments in different businesses isn't working. You aren't actually contributing anything to society that is necessary outside of the capitalist system.

[ÑóẊîöʼn]

[1] Economy and politics exist separately.

Bailouts.


[2] Capitalists do not exist as such anymore, because money and power are distributed over many people by shares and the like.

Being a shareholder only matters if you have a majority of them in one company.


[3] So, from [2] he deduces that workers are in fact working for themselves.

Ask him who he thinks has the power when it comes to hiring and firing workers.


[4] And from [3] he deduces that workers can not have interests that contradict the interests of capitalists, because then they would have self-contradicting interests and that would be impossible.

Well since the two previous premises are total bollocks...

[TheGodlessUtopian]

He sounds like a fucking dipshit.I wouldn't waste my time arguing with him.His types are so far-gone they don't even see reality and are like the ultra-conservative Tea Party types who live in this false reality.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Other posters have shredded this academic liberal's ivory tower delusions well enough that I don't need to be redundant. I find that time is better spent with the honest masses of working people rather than privileged and pampered academics who wouldn't espouse Marxism even if they believed in it since that would jeopardize their career and privileged status.

[rti]

[1] Economy and politics exist separately.


How can that be when more political power will provide better economic position ?

He is delusional or he is protecting someones interests.

[Rational Radical]

How can that be when more political power will provide better economic position ?

He is delusional or he is protecting someones interests.

Exactly, or in reverse,if political representation depends on economic power

[PetyaRostov]

[1] Economy and politics exist separately.
[2] Capitalists do not exist as such anymore, because money and power are distributed over many people by shares and the like.
[3] So, from [2] he deduces that workers are in fact working for themselves.
[4] And from [3] he deduces that workers can not have interests that contradict the interests of capitalists, because then they would have self-contradicting interests and that would be impossible.

I know there are many problems with what he's saying, but I think I can learn a lot from your view on this matter. So, what's wrong with it?
1. There is a prevailing notion under capitalism that this ought to be the case. ought and are(is) are often confused.
2. Since when did all workers hold shares in the corporations they work for!? (I assume it is meant to state that public corporations are necessarily democratic when ultimately it amounts to tyranny of the obscenely wealthy - some would call them capitalists)

post-structuralism is not all bad though - "The label primarily encompasses the intellectual developments of prominent mid-20th-century French and continental philosophers and theorists. Poststructuralism denies the possibility of a truly scientific study of "man" or of "human nature". It disintegrates metanarritives of historical progress -- the idea that the gradual movement out of superstition and into reason is a necessary condition of man's being (see dialectical materialism)." - from wikipedia

[jookyle]

Throw a copy of Thomas Fergunsons "Investment Theory of Politics" and then tell him to go fuck himself.

[RedAtheist]

So this guys thinks we live in a communist society. I wish.

[ВАЛТЕР]

He's a professor? Do you have his class? Call him out on these points in front of the whole class. He should be embarrassed of himself making idiotic statements such as these.

[revangelis]

hi, I think he is wrong because where there is money, there is capitalism :)

[The Idler]

Its pretty standard liberal thinking, I used to think like that.

[o well this is ok I guess]

By the way, this guy is an academic (postmodernist) Philosopher who considers himself a Rawls adept Academic isn't the same thing as pomo. Nobody gets post-structuralist points in the Foucault Circle for knowing Rawls.

Asking if there are any academic communist intellectuals left is pretty silly. Run through your local university faculty list and you'll find at least 5 self-professed marxists. Take one from Verso's authors list. Name some New School asshole. I'd be more impressed finding a "Rawls adept", actually.

I don't for a second believe this guy exists. But if he does, look him in the eyes and make squealing noises.

[maskerade]

i think he is referring to changes in capitalism, and confusing that with the disappearance of capitalism itself. capitalist still exist, but in today's circumstances those who own capital are supported directly and indirectly by a managerial class that appropriates surplus-wages from workers without owning the means of production. capitalism is in many ways not as tied to nation-states anymore as it used to be; those who own and manage capital comprise a large and extensive network that is heterogeneous and often contains elements with conflicting short-term interests.

so, in some basic sense, he is right: there is no 'new world order' type group of capitalist that control everything, or a collection of localized robber barons that have ultimate power in a geographic space. power in today's capitalism is more fluid and dynamic but still very much tied to the management and control of capital, and that includes the actors that constitute a state.

[Mr. Natural]

There's a nugget of reality hidden within the liberal academic's typical postmodern crapola. Postmodernists, poststructuralists, postMarxists, et al, while resigning themselves to capitalism, often provide teasing insights into ugly realities of The System.

Wecandobetter's liberal academic suggests a most critical current reality when he states that in modern capitalism, "money and power were distributed in such a manner that nobody is in control. [The academic says] there are only workers now, even though a few of them may be very rich."

The academic's statement points to the reality that with its globalization, capitalism is now The System within which the entire human species lives. And thinks. The human species--bourgeois, proletarians--has been enveloped and captured by capitalist institutions and values, and we all face imminent extinction.

A ruling class still exists, but exercises less and less "rule." The System is in control and provides the game, playing field, and rules for all of us. Capitalism has become humanity's ecosystem.

"Class" is an unnatural social split manufactured by capitalism. Capitalist relations are opposed to life and unnatural. In developing a viable opposition to capitalism, might lefties consider engaging the entire human species as the "new class" that must go to revolution? Has the old Marxist revolutionary process wherein the proletariat opposes the bourgeoisie and ushers in classless, realized forms of human community missed its time?

If there is to be a human future, it will be lived in anarchist/communist forms of community--forms that mimic the communities of life. But how might we develop anarchist/communist revolutionary movements? The systemic process of capitalism has reached the end of its process and is nearing a collapse that will take us with it. Are the "old classes" still a valid basis for anarchist/communist revolution? Might there be a "new class" basis for revolution that re-revolutionizes Marxism and brings it into the 21st century?

Whatever comrades think of a "new class," the left is clearly stuck and must rethink old dogma. Marxism nails historical materialism and capitalism, but historically has failed at initiating revolutionary processes that lead to socialism. This failure must be corrected and time is running out.

Wouldn't Marx and Engels have been steadily updating their revolutionary theory as capitalism, science, and human understanding advanced? What changes would they have made?

My red-green best.

[Zealot]

Lenin addressed this "argument" almost 100 years ago in chapter three of his work on Imperialism (http://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1916/imp-hsc/ch03.htm).


As a matter of fact, experience shows that it is sufficient to own 40% of the shares of a company in order to direct its affairs, since in practice a certain number of small, scattered shareholders find it impossible to attend general meetings, etc. The “democratisation” of the ownership of shares, from which the bourgeois sophists and opportunist so-called “Social-Democrats” expect (or say that they expect) the “democratisation of capital”, the strengthening of the role and significance of small- scale production, etc., is, in fact, one of the ways of increasing the power of the financial oligarchy. Incidentally, this is why, in the more advanced, or in the older and more “experienced” capitalist countries, the law allows the issue of shares of smaller denomination. In Germany, the law does not permit the issue of shares of less than 1000 marks denomination, and the magnates of German finance look with an envious eye at Britain, where the issue of one-pound shares (= 20 marks, about 10 rubles) is permitted. Siemens, one of the biggest industrialists and “financial kings” in Germany, told the Reichstag on June 7, 1900, that “the one-pound share is the basis of British imperialism”. This merchant has a much deeper and more “Marxist” understanding of imperialism than a certain disreputable writer who is held to be one of the founders of Russian Marxism and believes that imperialism is a bad habit of a certain nation... (he is referring to Plekhanov I believe)

But the “holding system” not only serves enormously to increase the power of the monopolists; it also enables them to resort with impunity to all sorts of shady and dirty tricks to cheat the public, because formally the directors of the “mother company” are not legally responsible for the “daughter company”, which is supposed to be “independent”, and through the medium of which they can “pull off” anything.

He goes on to give examples and, while the sources used are old, it reads like it was written yesterday because the same general principles are still very much valid.