Business topic

[Pahayokee]

Hey guys, I'm in a college management class thats blended half online and half in class. My teacher posted a topic for debate on the discussion section online. "Discuss whether the gov't ( local, state and federal) should get more or less involved with business activities." I just want to see the leftist side of view and your opinions on this topic.

thanks

[citizen of industry]

It's really not a question to put to socialists, because we are after the abolishment of private property, class and therefore government. More or less government in business doesn't really figure in. However, government is controlled by the most powerful class, the owners of the means of production. Government having a large role in business is an inherent feature of capitalism. Even if individual employers are negatively affected by government, as a whole government serves to bail out failing enterprises, purchase heavy industry, institutionalize and weaken class struggle, secure markets, labor and resources with its military, enact favorable trade legislation, etc. so government benefits the capitalists quite a bit, even if Joe Producer is angry he has to pay taxes, minimum wage to his workers, can't work them 18 hours, etc.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Hey guys, I'm in a college management class thats blended half online and half in class. My teacher posted a topic for debate on the discussion section online. "Discuss whether the gov't ( local, state and federal) should get more or less involved with business activities." I just want to see the leftist side of view and your opinions on this topic.

thanks

Well for Marxists, "government" isn't a thing in of itself separate from the social forces and organization of society. "Government" is the legal organization of a particular class rule in society: so feudal governments were different from capitalist ones not because of "ideas" alone but because of the needs of the different ways that these societies functioned.

So in the absence of social movements or working class movements which force a government to make reforms, then any "involvement" by the government into business (which can be in the form of more involvement or less involvement, but the capitalist government is always in some way involved) will be in the interests of the capitalist system as a whole. Sometimes this means giving into popular demands to save face for the system, sometimes this means lazi-faire or neoliberal policies, sometimes this means bailing out companies to protect profits generally, sometimes it means breaking up monopolies to prevent problems in the whole system.

For our ruling class, the level of involvement is also not an absolute and depends on the conditions at the time: but always based on what is best for the whole profit-system at that given time (or their estimation of what would be the best course - we're all human and have to use judgement to figure out paths forward no matter where those paths lead). For Marxists, this question is also conditional and can only be answered IMO based on the relationship of that government action to the class struggle. If workers force the government to recognize strikes or if a movement forces the government to act on integrating schools, then these cases are where regular people from below organized themselves and made their own demands rather than negotiating on the terms of our rulers. So this is the context in which I'd evaluate some action by the government, some reform or whatnot.

To give a concrete example: if the government intervined with Wal-Mart and broke them up as a monopoly, then it would be neither here nor there for workers really. As much as people hate the company, working as clerks for Target instead won't really make that much of a difference and in the process as a whole was a legal one in which the non-ruling members of society have a total passive relationship to - so it doesn't help us organize ourselves and build our own voice and leadership as a class. This action too, wouldn't be because Wal-Mart mistreats workers the world over, but because the system was afraid of an imbalance that could cause larger economic problems for the whole system if Wal-Mart ran into problems (you know, becoming "too big to fail"). On the other hand if workers began an organizing drive and clerks tried to found a union and there were strikes resulting in the government intervening and ruling that it was illegal for Wal-Mart to prevent unionization... well this would only happen because workers had been effective and the government felt the HAD to rule in favor of the union or else face a larger backlash from the workers as well as any solidarity they have build among other people. So this government action would be the result of workers fighting in their own interests, it would give an example to other workers that you don't have to accept the conditions handed to you if you organize.

[x-punk]

As has been said, in the long term the goal of communists is abolition of the govt. However, looking at the short term, this question is more tricky to answer.

Many of the current govt functions have been established to partially offset the negative effects of capitalism. Many environmental regulations such as pollution control, building standards, land use controls and other regs such as health and safety, minimum wage and trading standards mitigate many of the negative effects of capitalism's unceasing need to grow and expand as well as other perceived market failures.

Some examples:

Pollution controls - To mitigate negative environmental externalities which occur as part of capialism's need to constantly strive for profit and expand and without controls the costs of these externalities are not incurred on the producer of the pollution.

Building Standards - To mitigate the effect of land ownership. Because only a small group of people have access to land and natural resources through land ownership, this formed an oligopoly over these land and resources meaning swathes of poor quality buildings were erected and living conditions were terrible. Certainly in the uk that is why building standards were introduced.

Trading Standards - To mitigate the market failure of imperfect information.

These are just some basic analysis of a few examples.

Thus it may seem that govt regulation is a good thing. But all these regs come at a cost to businesses. These regs constrain the efficient allocation of resources as the free market would like it to happen. It can be easy to say 'who cares' as its only the capialists losing out but in a capitalist system this leads to less employment, higher prices and slows technological development. Moreover, because the govt or state is primarily an arm of the bourgeoisie it can enact these regs to best suit the the prominent capitalist class. This is very evident for example in the UK with the land use planning system. It ties small developers up with red tape making it very hard for them to develop land, whilst at the same time allocating vast swathes of land for new housing which is owned by large housebuilders. Also, these regs help keep the capitalism monster from imploding and keep this insidious system going.

It really is a catch 22 situation and highlights all the problems and contradictions in a capitalist system. If you let capitalism run free you get massive environmental degradation, monopolistic problems and poor quality living environment for people. You regulate it and you get less wealth creation in the economy, higher unemployment and a poorer standard of living for many people. Either way its the same old story, the bourgeoisie benefit and the proletariat suffer.

So barring a socialist revolution what is the best way forward in the short term? I guess that really depends on your own personal viewpoint and the current circumstances in the locale you are looking at. For me, in the UK, I feel that a lessening of regs would be beneficial at this time. The UK has a heavily regulated economy, and is currently suffering from high unemployment, rising prices and a declining standard of living for many people. Thus, in the short term I believe lessing of regs would allow more wealth creation in the economy, reducing unemployment and allowing more people a better quality of life.

I hope this answer helps. I am not even skimming the surface of a hugely complicated subject but I will re-emphasise that these problems and contradictions are inherent in a capitalist system and unless we move away from capitalism we will never be free of them.

[Blake's Baby]

EDIT Damn, more answers here than were there when I started...

I agree with citizen here - as socialists we're opposed to capitalism and the state, we want them destroyed/abolished/dismantled. In theory at least, everyone on this site would support the position 'no, government should neither be more nor less involved with business, both should cease to exist.'

However, you will find that many people (maybe even a majority) also support the notion that, until the point where capitalism and the state can be abolished, the state can be used to control business to some extent, implementing precisely the sort of legislation that citizen mentions - minimum wage, length of working day or week, health and safety at work etc. I think this is part of the reason why people think socialism has something to do with increasing the role of the state. It really doesn't.

[Positivist]

The state is the organized expression of capitlaist power. It is designed to uphold a particular proprietary relationship, in this case that of free accumulation of private property with minor restrictions (since I have used the word free here, I should probably clarify. The absence of restrictions on the conditions of accumulation does not correlate to freedom on a mass scale as most accumulation is only significant following that it occurs across generations or through an act of dispossession), it lends an arm to the dispossession of foreign assets by the national bourgiose, and it mediates tension between different individual capitalists, and between different social groups.

The designation of the state to uphold said proprietary relationships is enthrined in the legal code, its sponsor of dispossession is manifested in war, and the mediation of conflicting interests is reconciled via regulation, or if considered on a social basis, repression (though regulation is possible.) This last element of government responsibility is that which you inquire of. The common conception is that regulation is concerned with the protection of citizens but this is true only insofar as it is necessary. Most regulation is enacted to avoid forms of corruption or disruption of the production of one company by another, each of which reduces the overrall rate of return or rate at which the economy "grows." In several cases, regulation has been the governments response to threatening popular organization as seen in the struggles of unionized workers and those targeting black and female emancipation. Here there were reforms enacted which genuinely fell within popular interest, though it is important to note that the "workers rights" laws are being repealed at a rapid rate and the oppression of women and minorities remains enforced through police techniques and compensation ratios (in others words, through profiling minorities and paying them as well as women less than white males. If you are curious why the division of the working class into stratified groups benefits capital, I could expand on some of the theories on that too.)

[Die Neue Zeit]

Hey guys, I'm in a college management class thats blended half online and half in class. My teacher posted a topic for debate on the discussion section online. "Discuss whether the gov't ( local, state and federal) should get more or less involved with business activities." I just want to see the leftist side of view and your opinions on this topic.

Corporate capitalism has actually accommodated this, so the thinking left should point this out:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-owned_corporation#Americas


The federal government chartered and owned corporations are a separate set of corporations chartered and owned by the federal government, which operate to provide public services, but unlike the federal agencies (Environmental Protection Agency, Bureau of Indian Affairs), or the federal independent commissions (e.g. the Federal Communications Commission, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, etc.), they have a separate legal personality from the federal government, providing the highest level of political independence. They sometimes receive federal budgetary appropriations, but some also have independent sources of revenue.

In the UK, they're called "quangos." In Canada, they're called Crown corporations. Whatever the form, this separation should be used to counter one key pro-capitalist argument: that "under socialism the government is both the owner-manager and the regulator" (then pointing out environmental disasters like Chernobyl).

That's the beginning, though.

The problem is that there's a real need for the thinking and non-thinking left to take a few lessons here and there on corporate governance: "Governance" vs. "management" adopted to left politics? (http://www.revleft.com/vb/governance-vs-management-t174993/index.html)

[ckaihatsu]

The Dutch East India Company (Dutch: Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC, "United East India Company") was a chartered company established in 1602, when the States-General of the Netherlands granted it a 21-year monopoly to carry out colonial activities in Asia. It is often considered to have been the first multinational corporation in the world [2] and it was the first company to issue stock.[3] It was also arguably the first megacorporation, possessing quasi-governmental powers, including the ability to wage war, imprison and execute convicts,[4] negotiate treaties, coin money, and establish colonies.[5]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

Hey guys, I'm in a college management class thats blended half online and half in class. My teacher posted a topic for debate on the discussion section online. "Discuss whether the gov't ( local, state and federal) should get more or less involved with business activities." I just want to see the leftist side of view and your opinions on this topic.

thanks

The United States has around 15% of its labor force unemployed, 8% officially looking for and not finding a job. The Federal Reserve August report said that the "production capacity utilization" in the US is below 80%. That means that 20% of all of america's means to produce are sitting still. The Statistics agree that over 2 Trillion dollars of cash are sitting on bank accounts of corporations and rich individuals, not being invested into businesses that would hire workers.

That means that you have millions of people who have unfulfilled needs and wants because corporations and rich individuals do not find it profitable to invest into the businesses that could put those people to work and produce those very needs they are lacking. If you do not think that government should tax the money that is not being invested and hire the masses of suffering unemployed to work to fulfill the needs and wants of the people, you are an idiot. Tell your teacher that she is an ideological fanatic for asking such blatantly misanthropic and inhuman questions.