How to refute John Green's defense of capitalism?

[Sugarmaple]

Hello all. If there are any fellow Vlogbrothers fans here, you've probably seen John Green's recent video about health care reform.

In the beginning of the video, John defends capitalism by pointing out that innovation and competition make the overall amount of wealth available greater, therefore making everyone richer. Even though he accepts that it is problematic that "40% of Americans get less than 0.3% of the pizza," he holds that even if the percentage of total wealth that you hold remains the same, under capitalism the amount of wealth you have will increase.

He also brings up some other arguments that seem relatively convincing, so I was wondering how you guys would counter these arguments if you ran into someone making them in real life.

I cannot post a link to the video, but it is the first result on YouTube if you search "bigger pizzas." The first 1:10 is the part I'm talking about.

[piet11111]

Except thats not what is happening.

An ever increasing amount of people are having to make do with less and less.

[ВАЛТЕР]

Capitalism only produces things for consumption. Their 'progress' is an illusion. There may be a new cell phone, or a new line of clothing, etc. However, very little is done to better the well-being of the working class as a whole. Rather, any benefit the working class has gained, it has gained through struggle against the class enemy.

[Thirsty Crow]

Hello all. If there are any fellow Vlogbrothers fans here, you've probably seen John Green's recent video about health care reform.

Ridiculous.

The production of more and more value doesn't necessarily lead to an increased standard of living for the working class. The point is the social distribution here, the appropriation of the product of labor.

How to refute this fairy tale? Look around you, observe the reality of the crisis ridden capitalism.


Capitalism only produces things for consumption.
Every mode of production produces things for consumption. Personal or productive, it hardly matters. The distinguishing criterion is the social form, the underlying class relations, of this production of use values.

In capitalism, what happens is generalized commodity production - production of exchange values. So it would be much more accurate to say that capitalism only produces for exchange, itself being a mechanism of the enlarged reproduction of capital forwarded, accumulation, through appropriation of surplus value in the form of profit.

[La Comédie Noire]

You should point out that the high standard of living some members of the working class enjoy today was brought about by collective struggle and the institution of socialist policies. It wasn't something granted by virtue of the system itself.

[Trap Queen Voxxy]

he holds that even if the percentage of total wealth that you hold remains the same, under capitalism the amount of wealth you have will increase.

This doesn't makes sense, this is essentially saying, even if you remain dirt poor you will become wealthier, the wealth is gonna trickle down eventually! Further, competition doesn't always produce the best and most efficient of products. Look at the feud between Tesla and Edison. Why did Westinghouse ultimately back Edison and why did Tesla fade into obscurity despite his obvious superiority and brilliance? You couldn't make money off of Tesla s method of electric generation however with Edison's method of electric generation you could. That's the key, all you need is a product that people reasonable need or could be conned into wanting, that is cost effective to produce, and that is disposable and or doesn't last long so people will have to purchase the product regularly; see disposable razors vs old school single blade.

As far as healthcare under capitalism is concerned, it's a fucking joke. I'm sure it's nice if you're rich but even if you're poor, and go to the ER, if you don't have state medical insurance like medicaid or PA, Compass, they won't do jack dick for you unless they have too. I was withdrawing from heroin, BAD and because I had no insurance, I couldn't be admitted to the inpatient detox centre so they gave me a "detox starter kit," and sent me to a homeless shelter. I couldn't even get into an inpatient or outpatient rehab because of insurance.

Not to mention, if you're poor and don't have insurance, even if you go to the ER and you can't get the county or state to pay for it, they will charge you tooth and nail. Another example, I went in to the ER because I thought I broke my foot because a car had ran over it; all I did was sit there, took x-ray pix, ate ONE bag of small pretzels and ONE cup of water and enjoyed 1 hour of cable or hour and a half; total cost? Close to a fucking grand, my foot wasn't even bruised, and I've since had to essentially tell the hospital, suck a dick, take it to collections, good luck finding me.

It's ridiculous, not mention the unbelievably horrid issue of psychology and pharmaceuticals. When I was still game to try this therapy horseshit, I saw a doctor whom I felt comfortable with and began to open up and began to show slow signs of improvement. It took us some adjusting of dosages but on the first go, aside from the sedatives I need for sleep, we had a good combination, it was really helping me out and it wasn't that expensive. Out of nowhere, after some talk therapy, he changes my meds completely and to brands which were way more expensive and eventually fucked me up more than I had been before I sought out therapy and this bullshit routine continued for months upon months till I said fuck it and stopped everything. It even took me a couple months to fully get back to normalcy.

That's just me too, I've heard even worse stories regarding this with people whom have had more serious psychological issue than myself and therapists have done that with horrid results. It's very disheartening for some with a laundry list of issues that hates opening up to someone to feel betrayed like that and to feel like they're just playing with your brain chemistry, possibly doing irreversible harm for profit. That's the problem with capitalism's influence on the healthcare system.

I would also point all the "pain clinics," you see down in Florida. It's a fucking joke, the healthcare industry just like everything under capitalism operates as a business to make profit, point blank, period. Healthcare, should be free.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

This whole "bigger piece of the pie" is ridiculous. Compare the health care systems of Cuba with that of every other Latin American country, who have varying degrees of private control over their health care system.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_Cuba#Comparison_of_pre-_and_post-revolutionary_indices

This is a country with a fairly weak economy that has been blockaded and embargoed, yet it somehow manages to get better results than countries operating on a market based system. The problem with capitalism is that as the wealth of those who own the means of production increases, so does their economic and political sway. As that increases, they are able to use political and economic manipulation to secure a higher % of this "bigger" pie. This is why income among poorer Americans has stagnated while income for the richest has gone up since deregulation began.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

Aye, John Green misses crucial questions about the pizza. Like, if part of the pizza has peperoni, green peppers - whatever, normal pizza toppings - but most of the pizza is made from industrial waste products, processed roundup ready soy product, and carcinogenic plastics . . . well, it doesn't matter how much more of that inedible pizza you get.

[the debater]

I would add that personally, I don't think competition is a good way to motivate companies. A competition implies there is going to be a winner. And in the truest form of capitalism, that winner is going to completely dominate or swallow up all the losers. And I believe that is when you have a monopoly, which is not very good. Now, many capitalists would argue that competition still is the best method we have of making sure that companies are accountable and will do their best to make high-quality cars or DVD players or computers or whatever. I would respond by saying why not have democratic socialism? Nationalize important industries/companies, and if those industries/companies don't do their job well, vote the CEOs/bosses out of office, and either vote for their replacements, or let a governor or president choose the replacements. With capitalist competition, the goal is to make money, even if that money is made dishonestly, and by ruining the environment and/or mistreating workers. With democratic socialism, the goal is simply to do your job, and to do it well. I may be generalizing a bit here, but overall, I think my main point still stands.

[Popular Front of Judea]

Hmm I actually watched the video in question.

R7LF5Vj2n64

There is little that is said that Marx would disagree with. Reread the Communist Manifesto, It's a paean to the expansive, dynamic nature of capitalism. Marx's insight was that as a social order capitalism has a finite lifespan. The profit that drives it will inevitably decline. A terminal crisis will ensue and the proletariat will take power. Someday.

Meanwhile we live in actually existing capitalism. Our present system of private insurance is failing us. The Affordable Care Act is a reform measure that ameliorates the worst aspects of it. Not single payer healthcare but it is a start.

[A Revolutionary Tool]

I think it's a weak sauce argument from a ideological standpoint. His argument comes down to saying we shouldn't have to pay for something because that money could be better spent innovating, starting up a company, etc, etc. What type of reasoning is this in capitalism? You know what else I wouldn't like to pay for that I need? How about food, clothes, a house, transportation, etc, etc. It's a flimsy argument from a capitalist viewpoint, especially considering he completely ignores the fact that innovations happen in the healthcare industry and that a lot of jobs are created there(which is what his argument was, correct, we shouldn't pay that so we can innovate and create more jobs for you).

[robbo203]

In the beginning of the video, John defends capitalism by pointing out that innovation and competition make the overall amount of wealth available greater, therefore making everyone richer. .

And how does he know everyone is getting richer? The usual method is to work out the GDP per capita - that is, the gross domestic product of a country divided by the number of people in it - and see if it is increasing. What is GDP? GDP is defined as the "monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period"

And here's the point - the "monetary value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country's borders in a specific time period" means precious little as for as your actual material wellbeing is concerned. Why?

Let me give a hypothetical example. Say the government decides to embark on a job creation scheme. It gets the erstwhile unemployed to dig a rather large hole in the ground. Let us say the intention is to create an recreational amenity like an artifical lake. Half way through the project it has a change of heart. The government tells the workers to fill in the big hole they've dug and get back to the dole queue.

What has happened here? What has happened is that GDP of the country has increased. Money has been spent on the project - both to dig the hole AND to fill it in. By that token everyone in the contry on average, including the unemployed, should be fractionally richer and more prosperous . This is so even though at the end of the project nothing really has changed in material terms. You are back to the same large flat peice of land you started off with. In real terms there has been no difference yet apparently, somehow, as a result of this particularly pointless project we have all become wealthier and more prosperous.


The point that I am driving at should be obvious (though it constantly surprises me how little this point is actually made in debate). In capitalism there is a huge chunk of economic activities that dont actually provide anything of any value whatsoever as far as meeting the needs of human beings are concerned. These activities exist only because they are indispensable to the manitenance and operation of a capitalist money economy. Not only do they not produce anything of any value from that point of view but they actually divert vast amounts of material resources and human labour AWAY from task of satisfying human needs. They are doubly wasteful in that sense.

There are literally hundreds of different kinds of occupations that fall under this category of socially useless labour - useless from the standpoint of meeting human needs. Check out chapter 4 of this pamphlet which lists some of these

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/pamphlets/capitalism-socialism-how-we-live-and-how-we-could-live


Various individuuals who have looked into the matter have come up with various estimate of the ratio of socially uselsss labour to total labour in the capitalist economy and these range from 50-60% to up to as high as 90-95% (Marshall McLuhan) I think the latter is excessively high. myself and would plump for something like 60%. Whatever the correct figure there is no doubt that the figure is large and that it is growing

So what does that mean? It means that capitalism, the money system - call it what you will - is becoming more and more inefficient at producing real wealth - goods and services that directly satisfy our human needs. We are supposed to be so much richer than we were even in the recent past judging by GDP growth but people dont feel that way. Intuitively perhaps they recognise that all this increased economic actvitiy has not left them better off at all and in some ways has left them worse off

And here we have the reason why this is the case. But you can only really appreciate what this reason is from the standpoint of a communist outlook, from the perspective of a society that gets rid of the market and the state and replaces capitalism with a moneyless wageless society in which the means of production are owned in common and wealth is produced solely for use.