Opposing big business: an opportunist adaptation to petit-bourgeois consciousness

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I've noticed that a lot of posters here - and certain ostensibly socialist organisations - make much of their opposition to big business, or to "corporations" and so on. Now, anyone familiar with socialist politics is surely aware that socialists oppose all forms of capitalism, business in general. Marx's critique of capitalism applies to small businesses as much as to the largest corporate entities. In fact some of the small businesses straddle the line between capitalist enterprise and artisans engaged in petty commodity production, a thoroughly obsolete social form almost wiped out by capitalism.

In fact, large-scale industrial cartels and trusts, chartered as corporations and closely connected to the financial oligarchies of the imperialist metropole, represent the most advanced form of capitalism, both the most rapacious and expansive, and the most orderly and rational - in fact these entities are the closest (along with wartime planning) that capitalism comes to the socialised planned economy that socialists advocate (although this "closest" is not that much). Hence Lenin's slogan - "through cartels into socialism".

It seems to me that the prevalence of anti-corporate views is due to the opportunism of many ostensible socialists, and the deeply reactionary climate of the current period, which draws ostensible socialists to the ruined petite-bourgeoisie (as the social-democrat traitors were drawn to these same strata after WWI). Because opposition to large-scale enterprise is characteristic of the small artisan or farmer, who wishes to protect his private property but is at the same time mortally frightened of being out-competed by the more efficient big business.

This is also notable in the adoption by many ostensible socialists of populist slogans about "the 99%", which obviously includes not just the petite bourgeoisie and all of the middleman strata but also a large section of the haute bourgeoisie, and even explicit theoretical revisions of Marxism that erase every class and social stratum except the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, implicitly extending the term "proletariat" to cover the petite bourgeoisie.

What does the rest of RevLeft think about this?

[helot]

You know, this is why i spend more time attacking small businesses than large ones. It's especially saddening when you come across a worker trying to defend the petit bourgeois despite the fact that often it's worse to work for them but to have supposed socialists doing it? Shit, they should know better.

[Rafiq]

The difference is that small businesses are reactionary even within capitalism, and are therefore worse.

[exeexe]

oppose all forms of capitalism, business in general

How do you define business in this context?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

How do you define business in this context?

In this context? Business (uncountable) is the same as capitalism - businesses (countable) are the commercial, privately-owned (or owner by the bourgeois state) entities that produce commodities for exchange on the market.

[Creative Destruction]

I agree with that. I never understood why Marxists, especially Marxists within the Occupy movement, thought that "99%" was a good slogan to attach to other than opportunism. Small businesses entail all the same issues as a large corporation does, and sometimes worse. You're more likely to get your wages ripped off and get shitty benefits with a small business than a corporation, for example.

[exeexe]

Business (uncountable) is the same as capitalism
The thing is under capitalism you have exploitation while business as a general term doesn't necessarily entails exploitation nor wage labor.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

The thing is under capitalism you have exploitation while business as a general term doesn't necessarily entails exploitation nor wage labor.

Perhaps, but I'm not overly concerned about what something means as "a general term" because, concretely, in 2014, capitalism is the dominant global mode of production, and the only businesses that don't have wage-labour and exploitation are, once again, small artisans engaged in petty commodity production. But socialists oppose petty commodity production as well.

[exeexe]

Production under socialism would be directly and solely for use. With the natural and technical resources of the world held in common and controlled democratically, the sole object of production would be to meet human needs. This would entail an end to buying, selling and money. Instead, we would take freely what we had communally produced. The old slogan of "from each according to ability, to each according to needs" would apply.
So how would we decide what human needs are? This question takes us back to the concept of democracy, for the choices of society will reflect their needs. These needs will, of course, vary among different cultures and with individual preferences—but the democratic system could easily be designed to provide for this variety.
http://www.worldsocialism.org/articles/what_is_socialism.php

So in socialism you have a society that can provide for ones needs. Thats nice. But most people would like to use stuff they dont need. Like toys for the kids or a gaming computer for the teenager or a boat for the adult. How would that come about when

the sole object of production would be to meet human needs?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I don't see how this is relevant to the topic, but whether things like games and boats are needs (you do realise how removing every form of entertainment would affect people, right?) is a semantic quibble, and is in any case besides the point. The members of society will reach an agreement on what is to be produced. If people want to have Playstation 9 units, then the general social plan will include production of Playstation 9. We certainly do not wish to limit people to the bare necessities of life, as if socialism could ever be equal to generalised poverty.

[GiantMonkeyMan]

http://www.worldsocialism.org/articles/what_is_socialism.php

So in socialism you have a society that can provide for ones needs. Thats nice. But most people would like to use stuff they dont need. Like toys for the kids or a gaming computer for the teenager or a boat for the adult. How would that come about when
?
Part of human need is the need to be mentally healthy and part of being mentally healthy is having the option of being able to participate in social activities that might require seemingly pointless commodities (video games, toys etc). In this way, creative production is just as necessary as agriculture etc.

[exeexe]

I don't see how this is relevant to the topic
Maybe i didn't understand the topic. So i read it again. Is the topic about how the 99% can cover small capitalists and how socialists can be in the same boat as the small capitalists?
And if we even should go down that road with the 99%?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Maybe i didn't understand the topic. So i read it again. Is the topic about how the 99% can cover small capitalists and how socialists can be in the same boat as the small capitalists?
And if we even should go down that road with the 99%?

What.

The topic is about ostensible socialists who proclaim themselves to be primarily (and sometimes only) against big business, or against corporations and so on, and about opportunistic slogans about the so-called 99%, which erase class distinctions between the proletariat and the petite bourgeoisie, and the "small" haute bourgeoisie for that matter.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I think there are a couple of possible causes which relate to the nature of the post-WWII economy. We should look for the explanation there, because I think it is a genuine rhetorical response to the actual social and economic conditions of many workers, and what socialist agitators think that they find appealing. It also relates to the long, hard ideological work of moderate social democrats and liberals to draw the working class into a "big tent" party with the interests of "good" big businesses and "nice" small businesses etc

There is first off, an ideological confusion, which confuses living standards with economic class. Working class people are not understood as those who have a certain relation to the means of production, but those who are generally poor. Middle class people are no longer understood as businessmen, but anyone with a moderate standard of living. As such, people lose sight of the traditional Marxist analysis.

Secondly, workers themselves in certain sectors have seen their living standards improve, to the point where a tenured teacher or professor with a decent amount of seniority can easily make as much money annually as the owner of a shitty diner downtown. In a world where class-based rhetoric is confused with rhetoric on living standards, this becomes an issue for anyone trying to raise class consciousness. This might be changing in the long-term with the economic slowdown and the stagnation of "middle class" wages since the 70s in the US.

I think this has made class-based rhetoric regarding the struggle between the working class and the owners of the means of production seem less relevant to workers. As such, socialists end up adopting a rich-vs-poor rhetoric which simplifies the class divisions.

Part of it also might just be the historical irrelevance of the petit bourgeoisie too. They are hardly a disappearing class, but they are not as relevant in the current political system as the "big businesses"/corporations/etc. I think the small business has become somewhat invisible outside of moronic myths like the "American Dream" which gets bandied about by politicians.


Perhaps, but I'm not overly concerned about what something means as "a general term" because, concretely, in 2014, capitalism is the dominant global mode of production, and the only businesses that don't have wage-labour and exploitation are, once again, small artisans engaged in petty commodity production. But socialists oppose petty commodity production as well.

It should be noted that socialists don't oppose the petty commodity producers themselves though, but the general system of petty production. Obviously we want such artisans to find a social use for their skills independently of the market.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I don't think anyone meant to say we ought to take artisans out back and shoot them. But then again, it is equally true to say we are not opposed to the bourgeoisie as persons.

As for the rest, I broadly agree, but I think saying that "socialists end up adopting a rich-vs-poor" rhetoric, first of all, oversimplifies the matter (as there are quite a few socialist or ostensibly-socialist organisations that have not done so), and second, can be read as an endorsement of this adoption (I'm not necessarily saying that was your intention).

And whatever the numbers of the petite bourgeoisie, their social power and power to stay on the market is as low as it has been since the beginning of capitalism. That is why we talk of them as a ruined class - this refers to the petite bourgeoisie in the strictest sense, mind. Some of the middleman layers are doing quite alright.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

I don't think anyone meant to say we ought to take artisans out back and shoot them. But then again, it is equally true to say we are not opposed to the bourgeoisie as persons.


Sure, I know you don't think think that. I think one rhetorical problem Communists face though (perhaps thanks to generations of anti-Capitalist propaganda, and the unnecessarily harsh violence of various Stalinist states) is that people really do think Marxists are proposing that when they declare their "opposition" to that class - or the very least, they think it means their impoverishment.

Of course we all know that in theory, true communism would give far more freedom to the average artisan since they no longer need to submit to what "the market" demands, but I don't think the average non-communist knows that.


As for the rest, I broadly agree, but I think saying that "socialists end up adopting a rich-vs-poor" rhetoric, first of all, oversimplifies the matter (as there are quite a few socialist or ostensibly-socialist organisations that have not done so), and second, can be read as an endorsement of this adoption (I'm not necessarily saying that was your intention).

Perhaps many groups don't, but it does seem to be a common tactic for socialists or left-leaning groups to reach out and get more attention or support from an otherwise unreceptive audience.

Nor do I want to endorse it. I just want to get at the conditions that lead to such rhetoric. I don't think these socialists are doing it to undermine their movement or the possibility of revolution. It is just a problematic response to certain conditions.

[exeexe]

What.

The topic is about ostensible socialists who proclaim themselves to be primarily (and sometimes only) against big business, or against corporations and so on, and about opportunistic slogans about the so-called 99%, which erase class distinctions between the proletariat and the petite bourgeoisie, and the "small" haute bourgeoisie for that matter.
Well i think its important to have class distinctions, but on the other hand if we observe how wealth is distributed in our society we observe a distribution of wealth that even for capitalists seems to be too unbearable.

I have my own little theory which is about that we are no longer living under capitalism or that we are in a transition period toward the next big thing and its not socialism, anarchism or facism. I think the next big paradigm gonna be financialism or bankerism (unless we stop it). The capitalist class is no longer powerful enough to produce so much instability so that society will come crashing down. The financial elite has become so powerful that they can steer society back into an economical balance. And with that comes a paradigm shift. When people talk about the 99% they dont refer to just distribution of wealth but also that the capitalist mode of production are no longer dominating society - consciously or not.

But ofcourse class distinctions are still important because as working class we can stop working and no bank or financial institute can recoup from the effects of that.

[Loony Le Fist]

I've noticed that a lot of posters here - and certain ostensibly socialist organisations - make much of their opposition to big business, or to "corporations" and so on. Now, anyone familiar with socialist politics is surely aware that socialists oppose all forms of capitalism, business in general. Marx's critique of capitalism applies to small businesses as much as to the largest corporate entities. In fact some of the small businesses straddle the line between capitalist enterprise and artisans engaged in petty commodity production, a thoroughly obsolete social form almost wiped out by capitalism.


Agreed. Capitalism is capitalism. Whether we are talking about an overall economic ecosystem consisting of large businesses or small ones. I like to call a spade and spade, so we are on the same page. However, IIRC, Marx did recognize that small businesses are exploited too. I know for a fact that Bakunin did.



Mikhail Bakunin, The Capitalist System (https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/various/capsys.htm)
Production thus constituted, monopolized, exploited by bourgeois capital, is pushed on the one hand by the mutual competition of the capitalists to concentrate evermore in the hands of an ever diminishing number of powerful capitalists, or in the hands of joint-stock companies which, owing to the merging of their capital, are more powerful than the biggest isolated capitalists. (And the small and medium-sized capitalists, not being able to produce at the same price as the big capitalists, naturally succumb in the deadly struggle.) On the other hand, all enterprises are forced by the same competition to sell their products at the lowest possible price. It [capitalist monopoly] can attain this two-fold result only by forcing out an ever-growing number of small or medium-sized capitalists, speculators, merchants, or industrialists, from the world of exploiters into the world of the exploited proletariat, and at the same time squeezing out ever greater savings from the wages of the same proletariat.


The biggest exploiters are big business. It would make sense to concentrate opposition on a common enemy. It's important to be principled, but I think it's acceptable to be opportunistic. There is nothing wrong with taking advantage of popular opposition to big business to provide us the wedge to catapult leftist ideas into the discourse. Theoretics don't elevate ideas into the consciousness of the masses. This is something we desperately need. When your enemy is large and well funded while you are small--sometimes you must sacrifice principle in the short run to gain the advantage.



In fact, large-scale industrial cartels and trusts, chartered as corporations and closely connected to the financial oligarchies of the imperialist metropole, represent the most advanced form of capitalism, both the most rapacious and expansive, and the most orderly and rational - in fact these entities are the closest (along with wartime planning) that capitalism comes to the socialised planned economy that socialists advocate (although this "closest" is not that much). Hence Lenin's slogan - "through cartels into socialism".


I can see your point about the similarities. However, the power structures of these institutions have many differences. These cartels and trusts are organized more like mini-dictatorships. As far as being the closest one comes to a socialist planned economy under a capitalist society, I think that's going to depend on the socialist you speak to. :grin:




It seems to me that the prevalence of anti-corporate views is due to the opportunism of many ostensible socialists, and the deeply reactionary climate of the current period, which draws ostensible socialists to the ruined petite-bourgeoisie (as the social-democrat traitors were drawn to these same strata after WWI).


Like I said before, nothing wrong with a little opportunism. :laugh: Leftists ought to take every opportunity to be heard. If it means taking advantage riding on some populist waves to introduce a more egalitarian society, I'm just fine with that. You can't win with an all or nothing attitude.



Because opposition to large-scale enterprise is characteristic of the small artisan or farmer, who wishes to protect his private property but is at the same time mortally frightened of being out-competed by the more efficient big business.


It is also this mortally frightened artisan or farmer who is now malleable to listening to information from opposition sources. We can use their fear as a way in. After all it is quite justified. Those who are scared seek answers. Should we allow some reactionaries to fill their heads with nonsense, or should we step in and engage and use their justifiable feelings as a galvanizing tool to spread our ideas and educate people.



This is also notable in the adoption by many ostensible socialists of populist slogans about "the 99%", which obviously includes not just the petite bourgeoisie and all of the middleman strata but also a large section of the haute bourgeoisie, and even explicit theoretical revisions of Marxism that erase every class and social stratum except the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, implicitly extending the term "proletariat" to cover the petite bourgeoisie.


I think we can actually have a discussion as to whether some of the so called petit bourgeois are actually like proletariat. After all, even the wage-slave proletariat have minimum wage protection from the state (though that doesn't apply to undocumented workers). SBOs in the petit bourgeois do not even get that protection. In some ways, they are worse off.

[thriller]

Speaking as just one out of the many workers of the world I can say I have been exploited and put in hazardous conditions just as much at small businesses as when I worked at big businesses.

Speaking as a socialist, the idea of anti-corporation and pro-"mom and pop" stores does seems prevalent in leftist thought today. I have heard many socialist argue along the lines that "we are not against the small grocery store in Small Town, USA, but against Wal-Mart which makes it harder for those small shops to grow." It can be easy to be apologetic for petite-bourgeois businesses in small towns because many people have an allegiance, or romanticized, view of the local shop. Socialists may feel cornered if they attack petite-bourgeois people right off the bat, so they put 'em on the back burner, and usually forget about them.


Because opposition to large-scale enterprise is characteristic of the small artisan or farmer, who wishes to protect his private property but is at the same time mortally frightened of being out-competed by the more efficient big business.

Here is a vital point, at least in relation to the US (my only in-depth experience with a capitalist society, I know the US is not the world). The typical farmer of the US has always know of the idea of private property. Further more the farmer has known owning the means of production, that is the farmers tools, seed, machinery, silos, etc. But now with corporate farms springing up, some leftists tend bring up the old idealized farmer as a counter to corporate infiltration into a town, which lead of course to the problem of private property and an old petty commodity way of production. This needs to be avoided, but can be difficult.

For myself, there are two classes, the bourgeoisie and the workers. The classes in between are not the main driving force of potential revolutionary change. But they can also not be completely ignored. Making socialist change at small businesses may be easier because there can be less numerical resistance. Starting in smaller shops, and working up to the global corporations may serve to help change society.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Sure, I know you don't think think that. I think one rhetorical problem Communists face though (perhaps thanks to generations of anti-Capitalist propaganda, and the unnecessarily harsh violence of various Stalinist states) is that people really do think Marxists are proposing that when they declare their "opposition" to that class - or the very least, they think it means their impoverishment.

Well - as you might be aware of, I live in a former glacis state, the former Yugoslavia (everything is former here, including my hair...). And I honestly haven't encountered this notion much, although I do talk to people about politics a lot. And I don't mean r-r-radical students, I mean people like janitors, taxi drivers and so on. The only people I have heard make this claim are our own little Solzhenitsyns.


Of course we all know that in theory, true communism would give far more freedom to the average artisan since they no longer need to submit to what "the market" demands, but I don't think the average non-communist knows that.

One has to be careful here, I think. In communism there will be no artisans, just as there will be no proles etc. And people will have to follow the social plan, although this is simply a matter of playing nice and cooperating with other people. In the transitional period, who knows? Kustar production in Russia had to be tightly regulated, for example (in fact I think one of the departments of the VSNKh was dedicated to that task alone).


Perhaps many groups don't, but it does seem to be a common tactic for socialists or left-leaning groups to reach out and get more attention or support from an otherwise unreceptive audience.

Nor do I want to endorse it. I just want to get at the conditions that lead to such rhetoric. I don't think these socialists are doing it to undermine their movement or the possibility of revolution. It is just a problematic response to certain conditions.

Well, of course very few people (then again, there are people like Marcus-LaRouche) consciously set out to sabotage the socialist movement, but their response shows the fatal flaw of their politics - ignoring the long-term historic mission of the proletariat in favour of limited, immediate appetites.


Well i think its important to have class distinctions, but on the other hand if we observe how wealth is distributed in our society we observe a distribution of wealth that even for capitalists seems to be too unbearable.

I have my own little theory which is about that we are no longer living under capitalism or that we are in a transition period toward the next big thing and its not socialism, anarchism or facism. I think the next big paradigm gonna be financialism or bankerism (unless we stop it). The capitalist class is no longer powerful enough to produce so much instability so that society will come crashing down. The financial elite has become so powerful that they can steer society back into an economical balance. And with that comes a paradigm shift. When people talk about the 99% they dont refer to just distribution of wealth but that the capitalist mode of production are no longer dominating society - consciously or not.

Sorry, but to be perfectly honest this sounds more like American (or American-derived) populism than socialism. First of all the wealth disparities today are generally not at the level of, for example, the Gilded Age (and now I'm thinking in American terms, akh), or the time of the Corn Laws, not in the metropole at least. Second, bankers are capitalists. They own capital which they invest in production - just as the industrial capitalists. The increasing role of the financial sector is something many Marxist theorists have noted. But it doesn't change the fundamental character of the system.


Agreed. Capitalism is capitalism. Whether we are talking about an overall economic ecosystem consisting of large businesses or small ones. I like to call a spade and spade, so we are on the same page. However, IIRC, Marx did recognize that small businesses are exploited too. I know for a fact that Bakunin did.

Marx recognised no such thing. He noted that, historically, the proletariat arose partly out of the mass of ruined artisans, and that petty commodity production can no longer compete with capitalism in the strict sense. But "exploitation" is a technical term in Marxist thought; it can not refer to small businesses.


The biggest exploiters are big business.

Actually, as several people have pointed out, small business-owners can and do bleed their workers dry, sometimes worse than the "evil" corporations.


It would make sense to concentrate opposition on a common enemy. It's important to be principled, but I think it's acceptable to be opportunistic. There is nothing wrong with taking advantage of popular opposition to big business to provide us the wedge to catapult leftist ideas into the discourse. Theoretics don't elevate ideas into the consciousness of the masses. This is something we desperately need. When your enemy is large and well funded while you are small--sometimes you must sacrifice principle in the short run to gain the advantage.

And here is the chief problem. You think opportunism is alright. Well, the entire history of the workers' movement shows that you are wrong. The opportunists do not accomplish anything, except perhaps kill some workers if they're really lucky and their bourgeois masters are particularly desperate. To talk about opportunism as something positive in light of the experience of WWI and the postwar period sounds like a particularly morbid joke.

And socialists do not want to "catapult leftist ideas into the discourse", we aren't selling socialism and throwing in a free milkshake (offer available while supplies last). Socialism requires class consciousness, something that is born from the conjunction of class struggle and socialist agitation and propaganda (Links is going to kill me for this, I think). Not advertisement and passive "oh it's a good idea maybe I'll vote for those people" acceptance.


I can see your point about the similarities. However, the power structures of these institutions have many differences. These cartels and trusts are organized more like mini-dictatorships. As far as being the closest one comes to a socialist planned economy under a capitalist society, I think that's going to depend on the socialist you speak to.

Small businesses are also "mini-dictatorship". The point was that these entities organise production on a large scale, over an extensive territory, in a manner that is more rational than the one used by small businesses, and where the administrative allocation of resources and services predominates.


It is also this mortally frightened artisan or farmer who is now malleable to listening to information from opposition sources. We can use their fear as a way in. After all it is quite justified. Those who are scared seek answers. Should we allow some reactionaries to fill their heads with nonsense, or should we step in and engage and use their justifiable feelings as a galvanizing tool to spread our ideas and educate people.

Why would the member of the petite bourgeoisie fight for socialism? They can, but it goes against their class interest. If something else ties them to socialism, the project of the liberation of humanity, then that should be addressed. But the mortally frightened petite bourgeoisie, pursuing its short-term interest, produces only - fascism.


I think we can actually have a discussion as to whether some of the so called petit bourgeois are actually like proletariat. After all, even the wage-slave proletariat have minimum wage protection from the state (though that doesn't apply to undocumented workers). SBOs in the petit bourgeois do not even get that protection. In some ways, they are worse off.

Perhaps they are, but the proletariat is the revolutionary class not because it is impoverished or worse-off than other classes, but because it alone has the social power to bring down capitalism, being the class of labourers in the modern economy.

[USAneedsCommunism]

870: the main problem is that you are not George Clooney, and I am not George Clooney of the left. You are not Amy goodman and I am not Amy Goodman.

By i am saying that we are not George Clooney, the point i am trying to make accross to you is that according to Edgar Allan Poe humans have a natural tendency to only have credibility, faith and loyalty and support on those individuals, organizations and movements that are very famous, economically powerful, full of pomposity and luxuries. So because of that nobody in the oppressed sectors of America will believe us in the argument that petit bourgeoise and many high-wage workers side with the oppressor class.

In most progressive liberal social-democrat alternative news sources, you will never hear a pure marxist analysis of the political tastes of the social classes of societies.

So because The Russia Today News, Free Speech TV, The Occupy Movement, Link TV, Chris Hedges, Michael Moore and the whole social-democratic left of USA have more economic power than the marxist left, and they preach the formula of 1% evil class and 99% oppressed class, most oppressed americans will believe that the 1% oppressor class and 99% oppressed class ratio is scientific and very marxist. And the marxist voices of revleft.com and other authentic leftist sources like marxist.com etc. will be ignored and alienated


What I mean is that even though you are corret 100% from a marxist point of view that small businesses, the middle classes, the lower middle classes and even a section of the lower working class and even a section of the unemployed are ultra-right wingers, pro-war, anti-communism, classists, racists, very anti-communism. Many well-read marxists, communists believe in the Occupy Movement formula of 1% oppressor evil class and 99% oppressed class.

From my own point of view and because a large section of the adult US population is so anti-politics (which according to Jose Ingenieros, politically apathetic citizens are the worst citizens of any society), and because of that what we might have in USA is like a ratio of 80% of US citizens who are all in the oppressor sector of the nation, who conspire either by being part of the oligarchic rich 10% class, another section is part of the middle petit bourgeoise class like around 30% (doctors, lawyers etc), and then a larger 60% class which is full of anti-communism workers, anti-communism poor people, and only a few pro-marxism americans

So at the end of the day what there might exist in USA is 80% of oppressors and 20% of US citizens who are pro-communism oppressed. Or who knows if it might be 90% of oppressors and 10% oppressed. From an economic point of view it is 1% oppressor and 99% oppressed, but in reality because according to Martin Luther King when an oppressed supports his oppressor he becomes more evil than his opppressor criminal. What we have in USA is 90% of the population of America who are anti-communism and oppressors and only 10% or even less who are oppressed




I've noticed that a lot of posters here - and certain ostensibly socialist organisations - make much of their opposition to big business, or to "corporations" and so on. Now, anyone familiar with socialist politics is surely aware that socialists oppose all forms of capitalism, business in general. Marx's critique of capitalism applies to small businesses as much as to the largest corporate entities. In fact some of the small businesses straddle the line between capitalist enterprise and artisans engaged in petty commodity production, a thoroughly obsolete social form almost wiped out by capitalism.

In fact, large-scale industrial cartels and trusts, chartered as corporations and closely connected to the financial oligarchies of the imperialist metropole, represent the most advanced form of capitalism, both the most rapacious and expansive, and the most orderly and rational - in fact these entities are the closest (along with wartime planning) that capitalism comes to the socialised planned economy that socialists advocate (although this "closest" is not that much). Hence Lenin's slogan - "through cartels into socialism".

It seems to me that the prevalence of anti-corporate views is due to the opportunism of many ostensible socialists, and the deeply reactionary climate of the current period, which draws ostensible socialists to the ruined petite-bourgeoisie (as the social-democrat traitors were drawn to these same strata after WWI). Because opposition to large-scale enterprise is characteristic of the small artisan or farmer, who wishes to protect his private property but is at the same time mortally frightened of being out-competed by the more efficient big business.

This is also notable in the adoption by many ostensible socialists of populist slogans about "the 99%", which obviously includes not just the petite bourgeoisie and all of the middleman strata but also a large section of the haute bourgeoisie, and even explicit theoretical revisions of Marxism that erase every class and social stratum except the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, implicitly extending the term "proletariat" to cover the petite bourgeoisie.

What does the rest of RevLeft think about this?

[USAneedsCommunism]

I think that it might be a thing of hope, I mean a false hope. Many small businesses think that in the future they can grow and evolve into big giant businesses like Wal Mart, Shell and Mcdonalds. The same happens with many right-wing workers who work in Wal Marts, Mcdonalds, Banks etc. that they have bought the lies, that by waiting patiently some day a Mcdonalds regular cashier and cook, can some day rise to become an owner of Mcdonalds. I think many people in America, Mexico, Europe etc. have that ultra-optimist mentality




The difference is that small businesses are reactionary even within capitalism, and are therefore worse.

[USAneedsCommunism]

870: By the way Facebook is full of leftist liberals who are part of the petit bourgeoise middle class, that's why I had to quit Facebook, I got tired of the extreme anti-communism views of most leftists of Facebook. All they do is post pictures of Monsato, GMO, pictures of Obama, Eric Cantor, Bush, Sarah Palin, i got tired of how the middle class leftists try to overthrow the capitalist system, of the cyber-activism of middle class petit bourgeoise liberal leftists in Facebook

You know another thing I don't like about the petit bourgeoise, high-wage workers, and the whole middle class is that they are so arrogant, so stuck-up, so social phobic, so family narcissist, so full of vanity, pompsity and behave with such an arrogance, specially when people of that economic class own and drive the newest luxury 20,000 dollars cars on the market like the Toyota Avalon, The Honda Accords, Lexus SUVs, KIAs, Hyundais Sonata, Ford Focus etc. at Wal Marts, at Target stores. etc.

These people behave on the defensive all the time. If you try to be friendly with them, they will attack you with an unfriendly frawn face, with a nuclear missile of an angry face. It's not a piece of cake to break the ice and strike a conversation with members of the middle classes and petit bourgeoise, they are so psychorigid, that some times I think that they need to chill out and have a few drinks or something in order to be more relaxed, sociable, cool and friendly

I am telling you all this, because I have a sister who was working in a blue collar low-wage job at a Wal Mart and now she is working in a high-wage white-collar job at a Law Firm, and because of emotional contagion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotional_contagion (the theory that claims that the people emulate the behaviour patterns of others around them), she has transformed her self from a humble person (when she used to work at Wal Mart to a self-absorbed stuck-up hockey mom family-narcissist arrogant person (working now at the law firm)







I've noticed that a lot of posters here - and certain ostensibly socialist organisations - make much of their opposition to big business, or to "corporations" and so on. Now, anyone familiar with socialist politics is surely aware that socialists oppose all forms of capitalism, business in general. Marx's critique of capitalism applies to small businesses as much as to the largest corporate entities. In fact some of the small businesses straddle the line between capitalist enterprise and artisans engaged in petty commodity production, a thoroughly obsolete social form almost wiped out by capitalism.

In fact, large-scale industrial cartels and trusts, chartered as corporations and closely connected to the financial oligarchies of the imperialist metropole, represent the most advanced form of capitalism, both the most rapacious and expansive, and the most orderly and rational - in fact these entities are the closest (along with wartime planning) that capitalism comes to the socialised planned economy that socialists advocate (although this "closest" is not that much). Hence Lenin's slogan - "through cartels into socialism".

It seems to me that the prevalence of anti-corporate views is due to the opportunism of many ostensible socialists, and the deeply reactionary climate of the current period, which draws ostensible socialists to the ruined petite-bourgeoisie (as the social-democrat traitors were drawn to these same strata after WWI). Because opposition to large-scale enterprise is characteristic of the small artisan or farmer, who wishes to protect his private property but is at the same time mortally frightened of being out-competed by the more efficient big business.

This is also notable in the adoption by many ostensible socialists of populist slogans about "the 99%", which obviously includes not just the petite bourgeoisie and all of the middleman strata but also a large section of the haute bourgeoisie, and even explicit theoretical revisions of Marxism that erase every class and social stratum except the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, implicitly extending the term "proletariat" to cover the petite bourgeoisie.

What does the rest of RevLeft think about this?

[Sperm-Doll Setsuna]

Trotskistmarxist, I see you have, yet again, made a new account, and is now at it again, spewing forth incomprehensible rubbish.


(which according to Jose Ingenieros, politically apathetic citizens are the worst citizens of any society)

ok, whatever he says, worthless. Anti-politics is a much more reasonable and rational position than any sort of activist tripe or common political organisation.

[exeexe]

Sorry, but to be perfectly honest this sounds more like American (or American-derived) populism than socialism.

Yes it begins in America or USA and from here it spreads. Just like the industrial revolution began in the UK.



Second, bankers are capitalists. They own capital which they invest in production - just as the industrial capitalists.
I thought about this too, but its not true. Capitalist produce commodities for the market while bankers offer finances. Commodities are sold on the market, finances (like loans) are neither sold nor bought. Capitalist primarily make money through production. Bankers primarily make money through nonproductive investments. Though the investments might be used in coordination with production, the bankers does not directly profit from the production as the capitalist does.
On top of that capitalist owns the means of production. And what can we say about the means of production?

This includes the "factors of production (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Factors_of_production)" described in classical economics (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classical_economics) minus financial capital (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_capital) and minus human capital (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_capital)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production

So there you have it. Bankers are not capitalists.


The increasing role of the financial sector is something many Marxist theorists have noted. But it doesn't change the fundamental character of the system.
Yes it does. It has created the 99%. And maybe many more fundamental characters, but i cant be arsed to think about more right now.

[Le Socialiste]

Capitalist produce commodities for the market

That would be the bulk of the working-class, actually. The capitalist produces nothing in the way of commodities. That power originates at the point of production, a role filled by those who must literally sell their labor in return for a pittance of what they're owed. The bourgeoisie does not work alongside the workers on the shop floor, or wherever said labor happens to take place.


It has created the 99%. And maybe many more fundamental characters, but i cant be arsed to think about more right now.

While I too acknowledge the term's more problematic aspects and shortcomings, the so-called "99%" has been around far longer than you seem to realize. Unless you're divorcing the term from the working-class as a whole, in which case I can't help but wonder what you're driving at. It's not as if this 99% suddenly appeared alongside the growing financialization of capital.

[Five Year Plan]

I thought about this too, but its not true. Capitalist produce commodities for the market while bankers offer finances. Commodities are sold on the market, finances (like loans) are neither sold nor bought. Capitalist primarily make money through production. Bankers primarily make money through nonproductive investments. Though the investments might be used in coordination with production, the bankers does not directly profit from the production as the capitalist does.
On top of that capitalist owns the means of production. And what can we say about the means of production?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production

Oh dear. You're basing your understanding of the role of finance in Marxian theory on a wikipedia article? Bankers invest the money commodity in order to make more of the money commodity. Even in cases where fiat currency acts a mediator for the money commodity, which is a nominal anchor for that currency. In cases where they are not directly capitalists, they function as a rentier class that leeches off capitalist production. But the system, as 870 says, remains the same in its fundamentals.


Yes it does. It has created the 99%. And maybe many more fundamental characters, but i cant be arsed to think about more right now.Extreme inequality is the product of class society, not specifically capitalism. The goal is to overthrow class society by, among other things, clarifying how it currently operates under capitalism. You obscure rather than clarify when you start issuing slogans about 99% cross-class coalitions.

[Loony Le Fist]

Marx recognised no such thing.
...


My mistake, then I guess Marx was wrong.



Actually, as several people have pointed out, small business-owners can and do bleed their workers dry, sometimes worse than the "evil" corporations.


While small businesses owners can and do bleed their workers dry, much if it is because they are being bled nearly as much. In fact, you recognize this later on. They have experience with exploitation, which opens the door for empathy.



And here is the chief problem. You think opportunism is alright. Well, the entire history of the workers' movement shows that you are wrong. The opportunists do not accomplish anything, except perhaps kill some workers if they're really lucky and their bourgeois masters are particularly desperate. To talk about opportunism as something positive in light of the experience of WWI and the postwar period sounds like a particularly morbid joke.


Opportunism is preferred to nothing is what I think. However, I understand that would be a problem for you, since humans are currently incapable of clairvoyance.



And socialists do not want to "catapult leftist ideas into the discourse", we aren't selling socialism and throwing in a free milkshake (offer available while supplies last).


Ok, so we aren't selling socialism? Except ...



Socialism requires class consciousness, something that is born from the conjunction of class struggle and socialist agitation and propaganda (Links is going to kill me for this, I think). Not advertisement and passive "oh it's a good idea maybe I'll vote for those people" acceptance.


...we are selling socialism? Which one is it?



Small businesses are also "mini-dictatorship". The point was that these entities organise production on a large scale, over an extensive territory, in a manner that is more rational than the one used by small businesses, and where the administrative allocation of resources and services predominates.


It depends on the services and the resources. It also depends on the customer base. Some customer bases don't appreciate big conglomerates. There's a lot of marketing research that goes into businesses. Small businesses can actually be more rational and in touch with the customer base. It's just that the big ones can often bully them out with their endless supply of money. You assume large businesses are somehow always more efficient. Large businesses have the added advantage of leverage. There is more to the dominance of large economic players than efficiency.



Why would the member of the petite bourgeoisie fight for socialism? They can, but it goes against their class interest. If something else ties them to socialism, the project of the liberation of humanity, then that should be addressed. But the mortally frightened petite bourgeoisie, pursuing its short-term interest, produces only - fascism.


I argue that it is in their interest! No longer do they have to chase this false hope, this dream, that will never come true! The PB are as utopian with capitalist fantasy as leftists are often accused of being. To open ones eyes and realize that it is all bogus, is liberating. That is why it is in their interest. Knowing that one doesn't need to chase the dream--it's made up propaganda--is a more powerful idea than all the material wealth in the world. It is a dangerous idea for elites: realizing that money doesn't matter and only human need and creativity does.



Perhaps they are, but the proletariat is the revolutionary class not because it is impoverished or worse-off than other classes, but because it alone has the social power to bring down capitalism, being the class of labourers in the modern economy.

Here you recognize it (see response to second block of text). Why exclude all other classes from the potential of participation in the emancipation? Everyone suffers as a result of capitalism. Some are very lucky in that they end up in a social strata where what they suffer from doesn't really impede them success. They grow up believing that through hard work anything can be achieved, without ever questioning that system.

I don't think we can afford to be an exclusive club. I'm willing to work side-by-side with anyone that recognizes things that I agree with. If that allegiance is only temporary, so be it. Though, I always prefer more permanent alliances to temporary comradery. As an aside--this is what I meant by opportunism.

[bropasaran]

Now, anyone familiar with socialist politics is surely aware that socialists oppose all forms of capitalism
Yes, socialism opposses all capitalism, including state-capitalism. Meaning socialism is anti-leninist and anti-trotskyist. Socialism is for workers emancipation, not for oppression and exploitation by the nomenklatura.

As far as concentrating on corporations is concerned- that's perfectly appropriate, if one capitalist business is a thousand times bigger and more powerful then another capitalist business, it's reasonable to be against the first one much more then against the second one.


and even explicit theoretical revisions of Marxism that erase every class and social stratum except the proletariat and the bourgeoisie
Marxism should be entierly rejected, it's class analysis besides being nonsensical is totally irrelevant to socialism, anarchist class analysis is incomparably more appropriate. Your meaningless talk about proletariat and the "petty-bourgeoise" makes my point.

[Sinister Cultural Marxist]

Well - as you might be aware of, I live in a former glacis state, the former Yugoslavia (everything is former here, including my hair...). And I honestly haven't encountered this notion much, although I do talk to people about politics a lot. And I don't mean r-r-radical students, I mean people like janitors, taxi drivers and so on. The only people I have heard make this claim are our own little Solzhenitsyns.


If you grow up in a place where kids are raised on a diet of cornbread and anticommunism, things might be different. Perhaps the FY has different reasons for such discourse? I think it has a lot to do with the comparative living standards and social relations of the particular individual.



One has to be careful here, I think. In communism there will be no artisans, just as there will be no proles etc. And people will have to follow the social plan, although this is simply a matter of playing nice and cooperating with other people. In the transitional period, who knows? Kustar production in Russia had to be tightly regulated, for example (in fact I think one of the departments of the VSNKh was dedicated to that task alone).


Artisan as people who have mastered a craft, not an economic class.

[exeexe]

Well maybe its wrong to talk about the 1%, instead we should be talking about the 0,1%:


While an after-tax income of $175k to $250k and net worth in the $1.2M to $1.8M range may seem like a lot of money to most Americans, it doesn't really buy freedom from financial worry or access to the true corridors of power and money. That doesn't become frequent until we reach the top 0.1%.
...
those in the top half and, particularly, top 0.1%, can often borrow for almost nothing, keep profits and production overseas, hold personal assets in tax havens, ride out down markets and economies, and influence legislation in the U.S. They have access to the very best in accounting firms, tax and other attorneys, numerous consultants, private wealth managers, a network of other wealthy and powerful friends, lucrative business opportunities, and many other benefits. Most of those in the bottom half of the top 1% lack power and global flexibility and are essentially well-compensated workhorses for the top 0.5%, just like the bottom 99%. In my view, the American dream of striking it rich is merely a well-marketed fantasy that keeps the bottom 99.5% hoping for better and prevents social and political instability. The odds of getting into that top 0.5% are very slim and the door is kept firmly shut by those within it.
...
Folks in the top 0.1% come from many backgrounds but it's infrequent to meet one whose wealth wasn't acquired through direct or indirect participation in the financial and banking industries
...
The picture is clear; entry into the top 0.5% and, particularly, the top 0.1% is usually the result of some association with the financial industry and its creations.
...
Only Wall Street could put the economy at risk and it had an excellent reason to do so: profit.

...
I could go on and on, but the bottom line is this: A highly complex set of laws and exemptions from laws and taxes has been put in place by those in the uppermost reaches of the U.S. financial system. It allows them to protect and increase their wealth and significantly affect the U.S. political and legislative processes. They have real power and real wealth. Ordinary citizens in the bottom 99.9% are largely not aware of these systems, do not understand how they work, are unlikely to participate in them, and have little likelihood of entering the top 0.5%, much less the top 0.1%. Moreover, those at the very top have no incentive whatsoever for revealing or changing the rules. I am not optimistic.

http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/investment_manager.html

Look how many times financial is mentioned and look how many times capitalist are mentioned. Look he said Only Wall Street could put the economy at risk. That means capitalist cant put the economy at risk.
It just proves the points i made earlier.

[Luís Henrique]

So in socialism you have a society that can provide for ones needs. Thats nice. But most people would like to use stuff they dont need. Like toys for the kids or a gaming computer for the teenager or a boat for the adult. How would that come about when?

If we want something, then we need it.

Luís Henrique

[exeexe]

While I too acknowledge the term's more problematic aspects and shortcomings, the so-called "99%" has been around far longer than you seem to realize.
Yeah i guess. But i still sense something new is happening. I think what they are trying to do is exporting this financial systems to other countries. And i think in the past it was impossible for them to do this, but recently the upperclass of other countries seems to be more open minded towards it. Or maybe its just that people are getting more aware of it.

[exeexe]

But the system, as 870 says, remains the same in its fundamentals.

No it doesnt, (well maybe for you) but not in the top 1% or top 0,1%, which is where all changes are being made.

[Five Year Plan]

No it doesnt, (well maybe for you) but not in the top 1% or top 0,1%, which is where all changes are being made.

Do you care to elaborate on which fundamentals of how capitalism sytemically functions have recently changed?

[USAneedsCommunism]

Takayuki: Dear brother, even though I am not perfect, I am not Karl Marx, and I am not Einstein, I am telling you from my heart that I am trying to do my best in this forum, in Facebook and in other internet websites, of spreading socialism knowledge to people, of waking people up about the importance of authentic leftist ideology based on the texts from the website Marxists.org, and to stay away from fake socialists, light socialists, like The Green Party, Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Denis Kucinich, and in other nations like The Socialist Party of France, and The Socialist Workers Party of Spain. I try to point out the differences to many liberals out there who might be fooled in the thinking that progressive-liberalism, is a true revolutionary radical leftist ideology, that Amy Goodman, Green Party and Russia Today News are radical marxist authentic leftist news sources.

Another thing that I try to do in these forums and other discussion boards, is that I tell leftists about the importance of book-reading of the basic writings of Marx, Engels, Lenin and other communist writers, the importance of general knowledge, of history, philosophy, psychology.

So don't offend my comments please.

So please don't hate my comments in such a harsh way. If you don't like my comments, all you have to do is ignore me. I personally need socialism because I am poor, not because I wanna be a hero. But like I told you i am not an expert on marxism, but I try to be emotionally motivated, and I am trying to change spiritually as well into a humble person. Because I used to be full of pride and stuck-up i the thinking that pride and behaving like an egocentric self-absorbed person will lead to personal power and personal wealth. But i was wrong, it is humility, love, solidarity and generosity with others that can lead to power. But I think that if most people of this world were so motivated, so desperate about wanting to see the overthrow of all capitalist governments of the world, to be replaced with communist systems in the whole world, the world would be a lot better




.




Trotskistmarxist, I see you have, yet again, made a new account, and is now at it again, spewing forth incomprehensible rubbish.



ok, whatever he says, worthless. Anti-politics is a much more reasonable and rational position than any sort of activist tripe or common political organisation.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Yes it begins in America or USA and from here it spreads. Just like the industrial revolution began in the UK.

What "begins in America"? American and American-derived populism? You don't say. Or did you mean to say that the increased role of the financial sector first manifested in the American economy? If so you are simply dead wrong. The economies of the United Kingdom and France were dominated by financial oligarchies at a time when the economy of the USA was divided between a vigorous industrial capitalism in the north and a slave-based capitalism focused on agriculture and resource extraction in the south (which was apparently preferable to the domination by banking interests, according to you).


I thought about this too, but its not true. Capitalist produce commodities for the market while bankers offer finances. Commodities are sold on the market, finances (like loans) are neither sold nor bought. Capitalist primarily make money through production. Bankers primarily make money through nonproductive investments. Though the investments might be used in coordination with production, the bankers does not directly profit from the production as the capitalist does.
On top of that capitalist owns the means of production. And what can we say about the means of production?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Means_of_production

So there you have it. Bankers are not capitalists.

Five Year Plan has already answered this. Perhaps you wouldn't have made such a glaring error if you read the primary sources - Hilferding's (flawed but accessible) work on finance capitalism, Lenin's work on imperialism etc. - instead of relying on what Wikipedia says about classical (not Marxist) economics.


Yes it does. It has created the 99%. And maybe many more fundamental characters, but i cant be arsed to think about more right now.

Except, of course, "the 99%" does not exist. To think that the proletariat has the same class interest as the petite bourgeoisie, the foreman and overseer stratum, the intelligentsia, the lower strata of the haute bourgeoisie and so on - this is the height of absurdity. Just to give a concrete example, minimum wage laws help the workers. Yet they spell ruin for small businesses. Should we, then, drop this demand in order to placate the petite bourgeoisie? Maybe we should stop talking about the socialisation of the means of production, too, and become American populist liberals.


While small businesses owners can and do bleed their workers dry, much if it is because they are being bled nearly as much. In fact, you recognize this later on. They have experience with exploitation, which opens the door for empathy.

Well that's nice. Except, again, socialists don't base themselves on "empathy" (and the only thing worse than a capitalist is a capitalist who spouts pious platitudes about the lot of the poor), but on class consciousness.

Whether small businesses are "bled dry" - and in fact most of them aren't - is perfectly irrelevant. In the eighteenth and nineteenth century the petty nobility was drained bloodless by the bourgeoisie; does this mean the socialists should have taken up the tattered flag of feudal privilege as their own?


Opportunism is preferred to nothing is what I think. However, I understand that would be a problem for you, since humans are currently incapable of clairvoyance.

I don't even know what the second sentence is supposed to mean. If you tried to pass through a wall a few dozen times, and the wall refuses to give in, it doesn't take clairvoyance to predict that it will not give in the next time you smash your head against brick.

As for the first sentence - as if we haven't heard that one before. "At least this inane reformist, opportunist or outright reactionary scheme is better than nothing." Well, no. No it isn't. Doing nothing doesn't help the cause - but engaging in opportunist pandering to the petite bourgeoisie, sowing bourgeois illusions among workers because "it's better than doing nothing", actively harms it.


...we are selling socialism? Which one is it?

Propaganda is not marketing. Propaganda is addressed to the proletariat in its struggle and strives to explain the position and the historic tasks of the proletariat, and to induce people to political, class-conscious action. Political marketing is addressed to "everyone", with no class distinctions, and aims to get people to support, primarily verbally, an ostensibly socialist party or campaign by downplaying socialism and what it is.


It depends on the services and the resources. It also depends on the customer base. Some customer bases don't appreciate big conglomerates. There's a lot of marketing research that goes into businesses. Small businesses can actually be more rational and in touch with the customer base. It's just that the big ones can often bully them out with their endless supply of money. You assume large businesses are somehow always more efficient. Large businesses have the added advantage of leverage. There is more to the dominance of large economic players than efficiency.

Yes, some people have an irrational attachment to small, local etc. business. That doesn't change the fact that, due to what bourgeois economists call economies of scale and other factors, the larger businesses can maintain a greater rate of profit and remain on the market long after the small businesses have been eliminated.


I argue that it is in their interest! No longer do they have to chase this false hope, this dream, that will never come true! The PB are as utopian with capitalist fantasy as leftists are often accused of being. To open ones eyes and realize that it is all bogus, is liberating. That is why it is in their interest. Knowing that one doesn't need to chase the dream--it's made up propaganda--is a more powerful idea than all the material wealth in the world. It is a dangerous idea for elites: realizing that money doesn't matter and only human need and creativity does.

Well that's nice. That doesn't address the fact that people don't live on the realisation that "only human need and creativity matter". They need to eat, they need somewhere to sleep, and if I'm not mistaken a lot of places have needless laws against public nudity so they have to have clothes as well. And socialism, in the short term, threatens the financial situation of the petite bourgeoisie. Or do you think we will be kinder to them than capitalism has been? Capitalism ruins them by way of the market, we will outright expropriate them.

[exeexe]

Do you care to elaborate on which fundamentals of how capitalism sytemically functions have recently changed?
Its not that capitalism in itself as changed but the system has. I cant point out exactly how it has changed because we are not allowed to see whats really going on inside the power corridors. However what we can see though is the effects of the measures that is being taken by the system.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/U.S._incarceration_rates_1925_onwards.png/1920px-U.S._incarceration_rates_1925_onwards.png
http://www.waronwant.org/campaigns/trade-justice/more/inform/18078-what-is-ttip
http://www.infographicslibrary.com/wp-content/uploads/economy/2011/12/rising-national-debt-usa-economy-infographic.jpg
Notice how the balance of national debt (US investors) and foreign debt (foreign investors) change since 2000.
http://www.brendan-nyhan.com/photos/uncategorized/wolf242506.gif


ul Krugman recently blogged--I forget where he got it from--made the observation, which I think is true, that much of the gain in the income share of the top 1% is actually accruing to the top 1/10th of 1%. I forget over what time period he was looking--at least the 1990s and the 2000s. This is not so clear. I like to stop at 2000 because this is was the last year of Bill Clinton's term. It was also the last year before the 2001 recession. A mini-peak. There the top 1% had 21.5% of income and the top .1% had about 11%. So, half of the top 1% went to a tenth of that group. Correct. And that seems to be--I'm looking at the pattern here--pretty consistent over time. Is that true in 2007? In 1980 the top 1% got 10%; the top .1% got 3.5%. In 1980 I guess it was 35%. Pretty big increase. More recently it's been close to 50%. So his point that it's gotten more skewed is correct. What about the 2007--have you got that? 2007 it was basically 23.5% and 12%. So, about the same as it was in 2000. In 2009 interestingly, 17.6% and 8%. So, 2009, the very top took the biggest hit in some ways. It's still about half. His data showed the share going to the top .1% starting around 1995, a year I think is somewhat significant and we'll come back to that later--could be a coincidence, a post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy on my part.
...
Again, the scalability--there are large pools of capital now, whether it's pension funds, sovereign wealth funds, whatever, that weren't so large 30 years ago. That's partially due to technology, partially to globalization. Partially due to growth.
...
there is also a similar explosion in hedge funds: $35 billion in 1991 to a trillion in 2004, and that's kept on going. Hedge fund and private equity managers really increased markedly over this period. And more than the CEOs.

http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2011/11/kaplan_on_the_i.html
http://rortybomb.files.wordpress.com/2011/10/1_percent_occupation.jpg
Notice in the 0,1% it is estimated that 80% are in the unknown. They are hidden from the public, probably because they are evading taxes.
So you dont know in which branch they are working. But what is estimated is that 50% of the known in the 0,1% are from the financial world.

So there is some stuff to go through there.

I think that in the past the finance branch was a customer to the capitalist branch, but today its changing so now the capitalist branch is a customer to the finance branch, and so the finance branch has most power. Economic power which they use to leverage on the state. A role the capitalist branch had been dominating in the past. And if you have enough economic power to leverage on the state then you do not only have economic power but also political power.

LOL at Zimbabwe being the nation which is loaning the most from USA :D


Can you imagine a bank with political power? LOL im happy im not gonna be alive in 100 years

[exeexe]

What "begins in America"? American and American-derived populism? You don't say. Or did you mean to say that the increased role of the financial sector first manifested in the American economy? If so you are simply dead wrong. The economies of the United Kingdom and France were dominated by financial oligarchies at a time when the economy of the USA was divided between a vigorous industrial capitalism in the north and a slave-based capitalism focused on agriculture and resource extraction in the south (which was apparently preferable to the domination by banking interests, according to you).

But the banks of Europe were never free from the state. Well the bank of England and France were nationalised in 1946. In USA the banks is one thing and the state is another.

The 12 Districts of the Federal Reserve System,
in contrast to the national central banks of the Euro-
system, do not correspond to political entities.

https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/review/03/01/Pollard.pdf


Except, of course, "the 99%" does not exist. LOL and you tell me to read?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

But the banks of Europe were never free from the state. In USA the banks is one thing and the state is another.

I genuinely don't think you know what you're talking about. If you want to see how dependent European banks were on the state, just consider the American Civil War and the number of banks that supported the Confederate States, causing significant diplomatic problems to the United Kingdom.


LOL and you tell me to read?

Yes, in fact I think you should read a serious treatment of the problem instead of regurgitating the opportunist slogans of a dead movement.

[Strannik]

In contemporary global capitalism finance branch is intimately tied to various violence monopolies. Together they are the only force capable of holding the global system of exploitation together; therefore they are the ones dictating the rules to rest of bourgeoise?

[exeexe]

I genuinely don't think you know what you're talking about. If you want to see how dependent European banks were on the state, just consider the American Civil War and the number of banks that supported the Confederate States, causing significant diplomatic problems to the United Kingdom.

Thats long time ago and the role of central banks have changed since then so i dont see how thats even relevant.


Yes, in fact I think you should read a serious treatment of the problem instead of regurgitating the opportunist slogans of a dead movement.
Contrary to you, im interesting in understand both theories while you, because of your marxist pride, discard everything that is not marxist. But thats callous. You know what they say in german?

Dummheit und stolz wachsen auf dem selben Holz

[thriller]

Thats long time ago and the role of central banks have changed since then so i dont see how thats even relevant.


You are right, it's not relevant at all. Up until 1862 money was printed by the independent banks themselves, such as Farmers Bank of Ohio, or New York City Bank, there wasn't even a uniform currency standard. Plus the UK's only interest in the South was due to cotton production, which was over produced by the time of the Civil War and made it harder to sell at an inflated price across the Atlantic (sorry if this is a tangent, just my historian side coming out :lol:).

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

You are right, it's not relevant at all. Up until 1862 money was printed by the independent banks themselves, such as Farmers Bank of Ohio, or New York City Bank, there wasn't even a uniform currency standard. Plus the UK's only interest in the South was due to cotton production, which was over produced by the time of the Civil War and made it harder to sell at an inflated price across the Atlantic (sorry if this is a tangent, just my historian side coming out :lol:).

It is relevant, because exeexe claimed that modern financial capitalism (which he doesn't think is capitalism at all, apparently) started in the United States, which is simply not true, to put it charitably. And in fact you seem to recognise this, when you mention private bill printing and so on.

On the subject of the Confederate States, though, I think European banks were inclined to support them because they were in the middle of a war, with little in the way of military materiel, with no arms industry to speak of, no banking system and so on. The South had to rely on foreign banks in order to wage war, and that would have translated into massive profits if the Civil War stalled. Cotton was important - it was supposed to generate the revenue that would be used to pay the banks. The naval stores industry likewise.


Contrary to you, im interesting in understand both theories while you, because of your marxist pride, discard everything that is not marxist. But thats callous.

Well, I'm a callous man. And being callous, I can openly state that your claims in the quoted paragraph are fertilizer-grade bullshit. You base your "understanding" of Marxism on Wikipedia articles, "the 99%" is not a theory but an opportunist slogan, and your "theory" is something you made up and can't even define properly.



In contemporary global capitalism finance branch is intimately tied to various violence monopolies. Together they are the only force capable of holding the global system of exploitation together; therefore they are the ones dictating the rules to rest of bourgeoise?

I don't know what a violence monopoly is. It sounds very Weberian. The various banking oligarchies are closely connected to the system of imperialist cartels in every nation of the imperialist metropole. But they are not omnipotent; particularly in relation to the bourgeois state.

[thriller]

It is relevant, because exeexe claimed that modern financial capitalism (which he doesn't think is capitalism at all, apparently) started in the United States, which is simply not true, to put it charitably. And in fact you seem to recognise this, when you mention private bill printing and so on.
I didn't see the argument of financial capitalism spreading out from the US :rolleyes:


On the subject of the Confederate States, though, I think European banks were inclined to support them because they were in the middle of a war, with little in the way of military materiel, with no arms industry to speak of, no banking system and so on. The South had to rely on foreign banks in order to wage war, and that would have translated into massive profits if the Civil War stalled. Cotton was important - it was supposed to generate the revenue that would be used to pay the banks. The naval stores industry likewise.
European banks, quite possibly. European nation-states had a few more concerns (I'm mainly speaking of the UK and France here). The United Kingdom had banned slavery in it's colonies before the Civil War broke out. A large part of this came from educated Abolitionists who had large influence in many social aspects of society. The UK, as a state, had to use restraint when supporting the Confederacy. As for cotton, the amount in Europe was maxed out, total surplus. The Northern US was shipping grain to Europe during the Civil War and profited immensely and continued this afterwards. I feel there is just too much evidence to show that the Republic of Wheat beat the Kingdom of Cotton before the end of the Civil War.

[Five Year Plan]

Its not that capitalism in itself as changed but the system has. I cant point out exactly how it has changed because we are not allowed to see whats really going on inside the power corridors. However what we can see though is the effects of the measures that is being taken by the system.

You aren't making a distinction between essential features of capitalism, the things that make capitalism capitalism, and the non-essential features that are constantly changing and in flux. The fundamental, systemic features of capitalism remain unchanged. The non-essential features have, in a way that actually provides important insight into the essential features. But capitalism is still capitalism, a system that is at once both immensely complicated and brutally simple.


I think that in the past the finance branch was a customer to the capitalist branch, but today its changing so now the capitalist branch is a customer to the finance branch, and so the finance branch has most power.

From where does the financial sector derive its power? Heaven? Of course not. It derives its power from title to congealed labor expended to produce commodities. At root, the power is a mediated form of class power exercised by industrial capitalists over workers. The fact that these industrial capitalists now require the creation of fictitious capital, and the playing of various other financial games, to shore up the appearance that the entire system is stable, does not alter the fact that the power of the industrial capitalists is primary, even in cases where they wield less of it than financiers do. It will always be primary. That's because we still live in a capitalist society whose fundamental unit is the commodity, defined narrowly so as to exclude financial instruments best deemed fictitious commodities.

[exeexe]

You aren't making a distinction ..

Ok let me explain what i meant. The system/society is a total of 3 elements. Element 1 is the capitalist sector. Element 2 is the financial sector. These 2 elements are economical. The 3rd element is the state. The state is political. And if you combine those 3 elements you get the system. Now if the financial sector and the state change, the system will change while the capitalist sector remain constant.

So making a distinction of something that has to do with capitalism is irrelevant..



From where does the financial sector derive its power?
From the political - the state. The financial sector can, through governing the economy, decide whether to keep the economy in balance or not. With this comes huge leverage power which the financial sector can act on the state. So now the state will feel it has to pay back. And it can do so with political power.



It derives its power from title to congealed labor expended to produce commodities. At root, the power is a mediated form of class power exercised by industrial capitalists over workers.What the financial sector and capitalists are getting from the workers is wealth, not power.

[Five Year Plan]

Ok let me explain what i meant. The system/society is a total of 3 elements. Element 1 is the capitalist branch. Element 2 is the financial branch. These 2 elements are economical. The 3rd element is the state. The state is political. And if you combine those 3 elements you get the system. Now if the financial branch and the state change, the system change while the capitalist branch remain constant.

But you're just skirting the main point: changes how? Changes qualitatively? I mean, everything is constantly in flux and changing in some respect. What I was trying to hone in on is whether or not these changes we both agree are happening amounts to a new kind of system. It's not. It's still capitalism.


From the political - the state. The financial sector can, through governing the economy, decide whether to keep the economy in balance or not. With this comes huge leverage power which the financial sector can act on the state. So now the state will feel it has to pay back. And it can do so with political power.Okay, and where does the state derive its power? In the first paragraph and in this one, you keep talking about the state as though it were only political and were not the conveyer of the very same power exercised every day on shopfloors across the world in the "non-political" and "economic" sphere. That's an idealist understanding of power you're wielding, being as it is not rooted in actual relations between people as human beings, but is instead rooted only in abstractly conceived institutions without reference to a mode of production.


What the financial sector and capitalists are getting from the workers is wealth, not power.Ah, yes, because access to necessities ("wealth") has no necessary relationship to power, coercion, or control.

[exeexe]

But you're just skirting the main point: changes how? Changes qualitatively? I mean, everything is constantly in flux and changing in some respect. What I was trying to hone in on is whether or not these changes we both agree are happening amounts to a new kind of system. It's not. It's still capitalism.

Where we disagree is that you perceive capitalism to be the system whereas i percieve capitalism to only be a part of the system. There is no point in talking about the system before this has been cleared.



Okay, and where does the state derive its power?From the 3 state-powers. The legislative, executive, and judicial branches.



Ah, yes, because access to necessities ("wealth") has no necessary relationship to power, coercion, or control.When you have wealth you have the option to spend it in many ways. Personal comfort? reinvesting in the factory? or you can spend it politically. But as has been discussed before you need to belong to the 0,1% in order to even be able to spend wealth politically etc. So its not something one just automatically is granted just because you have wealth. You need huge sums of money. And my guess is that its easier to reach the 0,1% when working in the finacial sector than in the capitalist sector.

[Jimmie Higgins]

In fact, large-scale industrial cartels and trusts, chartered as corporations and closely connected to the financial oligarchies of the imperialist metropole, represent the most advanced form of capitalism, both the most rapacious and expansive, and the most orderly and rational - in fact these entities are the closest (along with wartime planning) that capitalism comes to the socialised planned economy that socialists advocate (although this "closest" is not that much). Hence Lenin's slogan - "through cartels into socialism".i think this is a pretty static take on these ideas. First capitalism was generally smaller firms when Marx was writing, so there's no doubt that in the Marxist traddition, capitalist relations, not specific firms or scales of firms are the issue.

But to make an analogy to early 20th century Russia in order to make an appeal to authority is pretty absurd. In the late-coming countries, maybe this is a factor, but in most of the industrialized world, small capitalism is not a major factor in the overal organization of capitalism. In addition, most large monopolies subdivide everything now (in part as a way to undermine past labor militancy strategies) so that the "organizing" and concentration of laborers is not the same as the huge factories in developing Russia. For Russia, monopolistic enterprise was progressive, today this process has done it's "rationalizing" in Western Europe and most of the Americas. The increased surplus of modern big firms does not go towards transforming craft into industry, but goes to competing over market shares, etc. on a World scale, this tendency is turning rural people in china and Africa and other places into proletariets, but the battle over feudal relations is done on the whole. And since I reject a statgist view of development, I don't think on a world scale that it's necessary to see the development of very corner of the earth for socialist revolution to happen world-wide. I also think that if there was a working class movement in industrial areas, it would be counterproductive to dismiss the struggles of people in rural areas who are trying to resist capitalist development.

Which comes back to American populism and anti-corporate sentiment. So where does this sentiment come from? Not socialists, since there isn't a movement to speak of. But workers and middle class people resent the concentrated power of big business, though for different class reasons. Frankly, in practical terms it's pretty easy to see where the class lines are. People who are anti-wal-mart who think workers there are "dupes" and "slaves" and pose "buy local" on the one hand, people who think that wal-mart workers should organize and (if they aren't social democrats or just trade unionists) have international solidarity and organizing throughout the whole circuit of companies like wal-mart.


This is also notable in the adoption by many ostensible socialists of populist slogans about "the 99%", which obviously includes not just the petite bourgeoisie and all of the middleman strata but also a large section of the haute bourgeoisie, and even explicit theoretical revisions of Marxism that erase every class and social stratum except the proletariat and the bourgeoisie, implicitly extending the term "proletariat" to cover the petite bourgeoisie.

the 99% is a pretty apt slogan for occupy since it wasn't a workers movement, but a populist one in which working class people and ideas were in the mix with middle class and reformist and radical liberal ideas. It's also a slogan of inequality and so has a general objective truth to it. With the lack of a class movement and no apparent renewal of general class militancy and action, any political development of class ideas will probably be expressed in these ways. But I have not heard Marxist socialists use 99% as a synonym for the working class or proletariets! just one for "the masses".

The role of Marxists in this context shouldn't be to pooh-pooh popular anger about inequality but to try and figure out practical ways for class politics and strategy to begin to distinguish itself as the most capable and powerful way forward for the whole 99%. Workers and middle class people have reasons to oppose big powerful firms, but have different reasons which lead to different possibilities for organizing and strategy. Rather than sit in the balcony mocking existing movements, it would be better for revolutionaries to take part and try and counter pose the middle class strategies of lobbying against Supreme Court decisions or trying to pass laws against "big box stores" and all that bullshit with efforts of the organized and unorganized workers who have real and direct power to oppose the control these firms have over us, city development, etc.

[Five Year Plan]

Where we disagree is that you perceive capitalism to be the system whereas i percieve capitalism to only be a part of the system. There is no point in talking about the system before this has been cleared.

What is the essence of your "system"? What do you call your "system" And from where does it originate?

I ask you where state power comes from. Your response:


From the 3 state-powers. The legislative, executive, and judicial branches.So state power comes from the three state powers. Yeah, we call that a tautology.

None of the other stuff is worth discussing until we clarify these basic methodological issues, because we'll just end up talking past one another.

[Five Year Plan]

Which comes back to American populism and anti-corporate sentiment. So where does this sentiment come from? Not socialists, since there isn't a movement to speak of. But workers and middle class people resent the concentrated power of big business, though for different class reasons.

Even if socialists were a sizable chunk of the population, workers wouldn't be able to rely on them for clear class lines if such socialists followed your opportunistic advice. 99% isn't a class line, and it never will be. In fact, while you accuse 870 of being stuck in static models, the 99% slogan is the ultimate in static empiricist modeling (on the basis of income). It says nothing about the relationship between the 99% and the other 1%. Discussion of capitalism is necessary for that relationship to become clear, but then the 99% will unravel along class fault-lines.


Frankly, in practical terms it's pretty easy to see where the class lines are.Really? Then what class comprises 99% of the population? Because that's the line people are easily drawing.


People who are anti-wal-mart who think workers there are "dupes" and "slaves" and pose "buy local" on the one hand, people who think that wal-mart workers should organize and (if they aren't social democrats or just trade unionists) have international solidarity and organizing throughout the whole circuit of companies like wal-mart.I have no idea what this means. Why are you grouping together people supporting workers' organization with people who think that workers are dupes?


the 99% is a pretty apt slogan for occupy since it wasn't a workers movement, but a populist one in which working class people and ideas were in the mix with middle class and reformist and radical liberal ideas. It's also a slogan of inequality and so has a general objective truth to it. With the lack of a class movement and no apparent renewal of general class militancy and action, any political development of class ideas will probably be expressed in these ways. But I have not heard Marxist socialists use 99% as a synonym for the working class or proletariets! just one for "the masses".Ok, and 870 is saying that revolutionaries who parrot these slogans are adapting to the existing backward consciousness and political climate, rather than struggling to advance it in the right direction.


The role of Marxists in this context shouldn't be to pooh-pooh popular anger about inequality but to try and figure out practical ways for class politics and strategy to begin to distinguish itself as the most capable and powerful way forward for the whole 99%.The role of Marxists is to show that inequality is the product of a capitalist system that doesn't just benefit 1%, but wider swaths of the population. You call the Occupy movement populist, say that the 99% slogan was appropriate for it, but then express a desire to advance the populist movement. Do you not see a contradiction between pushing for independent working-class politics, and pushing for a cross-class populist coalition which, implicitly, would have to have a middle-class program in order to erect a big enough tent for all members of the coalition?

[Jimmie Higgins]

I have no idea what this means. clearly. But not all of that can be due to my poor writing skills*.

You are arguing against straw-figures. I never said that the 99% was a class, but that it was a slogan that came out of a broad anger about inequality. Socialists had little to do with creating this slogan or popularizing it, we are all pretty marginal. But in subjective ways revolutionaries can play a part in trying to organize workers within a generalized anger. In my view, It's this organizing of real forces of workers and strategies around building class power, not rhetoric and "lines" and lecturing or posturing, that will begin to make socialism a force.


*i don't think it was clear in that particular sentence I wrote, but I was drawing a distinction between middle class and working class anger at big capitalism. One thinks that people who work for wal-mart are part of the problem and the solution is to buy local. The other who thinks that wal-mart workers should organize and fight for more power.

[Five Year Plan]

You are arguing against straw-figures. I never said that the 99% was a class, but that it was a slogan that came out of a broad anger about inequality.

You're right, but then I never said you claimed it was a class. You said that people easily understand class lines, but then don't explain how, if that is the case, people developed a slogan about 99% vs. 1%, instead of workers vs. capitalists. 99% vs. 1% isn't a class line, but it defined many workers' consciousness about what was wrong with society.


Socialists had little to do with creating this slogan or popularizing it, we are all pretty marginal. But in subjective ways revolutionaries can play a part in trying to organize workers within a generalized anger. In my view, It's this organizing of real forces of workers and strategies around building class power, not rhetoric and "lines" and lecturing or posturing, that will begin to make socialism a force.Yes, we all know that you think explaining to workers revolutionary tasks while struggling beside them has no part in your opportunistic political world. God forbid we actually tell somebody somewhere that their ideas aren't perfect. We all know that ass-kissing and adapting to existing retrograde levels of political consciousness is the way forward for revolutionary socialists. Tell us something we don't know already.

[Thirsty Crow]

The difference is that small businesses are reactionary even within capitalism, and are therefore worse.
If they are worse since they are reactionary "even within capitalism", does this mean that larger businesses aren't necessarily reactionary within capitalism?

I don't think this makes sense, especially with the comparative rates of being reactionary when applied to different business sizes.

EDIT:



And socialists do not want to "catapult leftist ideas into the discourse", we aren't selling socialism and throwing in a free milkshake (offer available while supplies last). Socialism requires class consciousness, something that is born from the conjunction of class struggle and socialist agitation and propaganda (Links is going to kill me for this, I think). Not advertisement and passive "oh it's a good idea maybe I'll vote for those people" acceptance.

Watch your back, I know where you live.

Or not, really :lol: Anyway. I don't see a problem with this other than "catapulting leftist ideas into the discourse" might be seen as synonymous with socialist agitation and propaganda. Though, as you probably know, I don't think that propaganda and political work are in any meaningful way autonomous in relation to class struggle; you could say it's a secondary factor which ultimately depends on the former. But that's something entirely different from a position stating that agitation and propaganda are useless.

[Comrade Jacob]

I oppose all business. I remember when I was 10-12 I wanted to be a business man, damn me.

[Comrade #138672]

870 makes a great point about the opportunism of the left. We ought to reflect on this a lot more.

"The 99%" terminology obscures the class relations which are the core of the problems of this society.

[Luís Henrique]

Ok let me explain what i meant. The system/society is a total of 3 elements. Element 1 is the capitalist sector. Element 2 is the financial sector. These 2 elements are economical. The 3rd element is the state. The state is political.

How about labour, or agriculture, or commerce?

How about press, or church, or NGOs?

Your theory has too few sectors.

But it has too many sectors, on the other hand: how is the "financial sector" not a part of "capitalist sector"?


And if you combine those 3 elements you get the system.

What "system"?


Now if the financial sector and the state change, the system will change while the capitalist sector remain constant.

But how can the "financial sector" change if the "capitalist sector" doesn't, even if we stick to the notion that they are two separate "sectors"?


From the political - the state. The financial sector can, through governing the economy, decide whether to keep the economy in balance or not.

No, they certainly can't. The economy is unbalanced by definition, since there is no way that capitalist production isn't going to produce crises.


With this comes huge leverage power which the financial sector can act on the state. So now the state will feel it has to pay back. And it can do so with political power.

There is no such leverage power. The "financial sector" is a slave to its delusions - which are by the way capitalist delusions - just as anybody else.


What the financial sector and capitalists are getting from the workers is wealth, not power.

What they are getting is value, not wealth. But value brings power with it, doesn't it?

Luís Henrique

[Jimmie Higgins]

You're right, but then I never said you claimed it was a class. You said that people easily understand class lines, but then don't explain how, if that is the case, people developed a slogan about 99% vs. 1%, instead of workers vs. capitalists. 99% vs. 1% isn't a class line, but it defined many workers' consciousness about what was wrong with society.

Yes, we all know that you think explaining to workers revolutionary tasks while struggling beside them has no part in your opportunistic political world. God forbid we actually tell somebody somewhere that their ideas aren't perfect. We all know that ass-kissing and adapting to existing retrograde levels of political consciousness is the way forward for revolutionary socialists. Tell us something we don't know already.

There's really little point in engaging you if staw-men are all you have to offer a discussion. You pose this issue so abstractly that it's meaningless for anything but weak and crude attempts at point scoring in the leftist echo-chamber.

Occupy was a larger thing with a bunch of different politics and people, 99% became a meme to describe the inequality of society. Anarchists and Marxists are not influential enough to have purposeful impact on popular consciousness, so the question is not to adopt or not adopt a broader meme that existed with or without us, but how to relate to this much larger thing of growing anger at inequality. I think rather than trying to preech to people about slogans, it's much more effective in building class consciousness and confidence to actually try and organize networks and forces that demonstrate and lead to strategies that show in effect that the working class is the force in society that can actually liberate the whole 99%. In order to build such forces, OF COURSE arguing revolutionary understanding and politics (while arguing against liberal politics of lobbying or reforms-as-solutions or localism or small capitalism on the one hand and moralistic radical liberalism of induvidual strategies on the other) is part of building up the ability for workers to fight as a class.

There are no pristine movements, especially in a time of disorganization and inactivity among workers, so if people are mad at inequality our efforts should be how to put class forces and politics at the lead of it, not make abstract debates about terminology. Rather than a stance of "oh, you support occupy and talk about the 99%, so you're a fool" it would be better to argue from a position of "yes there is inequality and most people don't benifit from the system, but only workers as a class have the interest and potential power to change this situation".

[Luís Henrique]

"The 99%" terminology obscures the class relations which are the core of the problems of this society.

Evidently that if we start from a "workers vs the bourgeois" standpoint and descend into "99% vs 1%" vulgarity, we are obscuring the class relations.

However, if we start from a "everybody is a capitalist, and workers are just capitalists with very small capital" standpoint and then discover that there is a difference between the 1% that owns 50% of all wealth and the 99% that own the other 50%, then we are starting, though in a confuse way, to realise that there are classes, after all.

Luís Henrique

[exeexe]

What is the essence of your "system"?

There is no essence of the system. The system is just the same as society. The system is a product of the elements it consists of.



So state power comes from the three state powers. Yeah, we call that a tautology.

Well i think the reason why the state is like that is because most people wants it to be that way. And when a big part of the population agree to something, then you create political power which in this example manifests in a state.
You could say that political power derived from people has been used to create even more political power derived from the state.

[exeexe]

How about labour, or agriculture, or commerce?

How about press, or church, or NGOs?

Your theory has too few sectors.

But it has too many sectors, on the other hand: how is the "financial sector" not a part of "capitalist sector"?labour, or agriculture, or commerce is a part of the capitalist system. Yeah its a simplification when talking about agriculture but thats how i used it.

From where i come from churches dont play any role anymore so they have been discarded.

Well any revolutionary NGOs, because those are the only ones worth mentioning, quickly realize that they are powerless against the state, so instead of doing revolutionary actions they retreat to a position where they sit on their knee with folded hands in front of them and begs the state to change some kind of politic/police. Just look at Greenpeace as an example.


Quote:
And if you combine those 3 elements you get the system.
What "system"?Society as a whole.


Quote:
Now if the financial sector and the state change, the system will change while the capitalist sector remain constant.
But how can the "financial sector" change if the "capitalist sector" doesn't, even if we stick to the notion that they are two separate "sectors"?The financial sector can become more influential. They then pursuade the state to give them more freedom (take away restrictive laws on the financial sector) which only result in the financial sector to become even more influential.
Thus they squeeze the capitalist sector out of influence.


Quote:
From the political - the state. The financial sector can, through governing the economy, decide whether to keep the economy in balance or not.
No, they certainly can't. The economy is unbalanced by definition, since there is no way that capitalist production isn't going to produce crises.Yes the capitalist sector will produce instability. But not more than that the financial sector can recover it. And when the financial sector proves its strong enough to recover the crisis produced by capitalism, it becomes an asset to the state.

Why do you think USA has so much debt? Is it because of capitalism? The debt is the glue which binds the American economy together and keep the crisis away. And who produces this glue? The financial sector.


Quote:
What the financial sector and capitalists are getting from the workers is wealth, not power.
What they are getting is value, not wealth. But value brings power with it, doesn't it?So what does this mean?

Marxian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxian) economics (see labor theory of value (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_theory_of_value)) distinguishes in the Grundrisse (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grundrisse) (basic sketch) between material wealth and human wealth, defining human wealth as "wealth in human relations"; land and labour were the source of all material wealth.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth

[exeexe]

What do you think?
QwE9Jo6u3sg

[Five Year Plan]

There's really little point in engaging you if staw-men are all you have to offer a discussion. You pose this issue so abstractly that it's meaningless for anything but weak and crude attempts at point scoring in the leftist echo-chamber.

Occupy was a larger thing with a bunch of different politics and people, 99% became a meme to describe the inequality of society. Anarchists and Marxists are not influential enough to have purposeful impact on popular consciousness, so the question is not to adopt or not adopt a broader meme that existed with or without us, but how to relate to this much larger thing of growing anger at inequality. I think rather than trying to preech to people about slogans, it's much more effective in building class consciousness and confidence to actually try and organize networks and forces that demonstrate and lead to strategies that show in effect that the working class is the force in society that can actually liberate the whole 99%. In order to build such forces, OF COURSE arguing revolutionary understanding and politics (while arguing against liberal politics of lobbying or reforms-as-solutions or localism or small capitalism on the one hand and moralistic radical liberalism of induvidual strategies on the other) is part of building up the ability for workers to fight as a class.

There are no pristine movements, especially in a time of disorganization and inactivity among workers, so if people are mad at inequality our efforts should be how to put class forces and politics at the lead of it, not make abstract debates about terminology. Rather than a stance of "oh, you support occupy and talk about the 99%, so you're a fool" it would be better to argue from a position of "yes there is inequality and most people don't benifit from the system, but only workers as a class have the interest and potential power to change this situation".

I asked you quite specific questions, and responded to your literal statements with pointed, specific challenges. Your response was to claim, without evidence, that I was crafting strawmen, to issue a few meaningless generalizations about how no movement is pristine (no kidding!?), then to attribute to me things that I never said, ACTUAL strawmen, like my non-existent claim that "you support occupy so you're a fool!"

Let me know when you have an interest in seriously addressing my points. If you are having a hard time discerning what those points are, let me know, and I'll give you a bullet-point list for easy reading.

[Five Year Plan]

There is no essence of the system. The system is just the same as society. The system is a product of the elements it consists of.

You can't change a system according to a plan if you don't understand it. And what you're saying right now is that either there is a system, which you don't understand enough to be able to point out how it functions at its core, or that there isn't really a system to speak about, but instead just a society with a lot of contingent and often random things happening.


Well i think the reason why the state is like that is because most people wants it to be that way. And when a big part of the population agree to something, then you create political power which in this example manifests in a state.
You could say that political power derived from people has been used to create even more political power derived from the state.

So political power is derived from the consent of the people, their desire and will? This isn't a liberal view, you don't think?

[Rafiq]

So political power is derived from the consent of the people, their desire and will? This isn't a liberal view, you don't think?

It's absolutely a liberal understanding of the nature of power, actually. Mass submission to the power of the state is a result of the mechanisms of the state which in turn is a result of a collection of social relationships to production and the class of which's interests are actively fulfilled by. Not the other way around, the power of the state does not originally derive power from popular consent - popular consent is a rather trivial thing that is easily molded and changed - and does actively change through different historical epochs within the right circumstances. Our democratic politics does not derive from liberalism (which states legitimacy is derived from consent of the people), but from a fundamental understanding of the democratic nature of revolutionary proletarian consciousness.

[Jimmie Higgins]

I asked you quite specific questions, and responded to your literal statements with pointed, specific challenges. Your response was to claim, without evidence, that I was crafting strawmen, to issue a few meaningless generalizations about how no movement is pristine (no kidding!?), then to attribute to me things that I never said, ACTUAL strawmen, like my non-existent claim that "you support occupy so you're a fool!"frankly you are being absurd here and wierding me out. I wasn't literally attributing that to you specifically :lol:

And your wierding me out because it's like I say that you are using straw men (your argument that socialists use the "99%" interchangeably with "working class" rather that as a slogan of inequality in general) then you accuse me of using straw men. It's like some strange tit for tat game where you have to deflect every charge by counter-charging the same thing. I'm not playing for points here... An internet chat is more of a free-foarm exchange in my view.

So if you want to continue, why not bullet-point you questions. Clarifying them for me might help the discussion move forward.

[Five Year Plan]

frankly you are being absurd here and wierding me out. I wasn't literally attributing that to you specifically :lol:

And your wierding me out because it's like I say that you are using straw men (your argument that socialists use the "99%" interchangeably with "working class" rather that as a slogan of inequality in general) then you accuse me of using straw men. It's like some strange tit for tat game where you have to deflect every charge by counter-charging the same thing. I'm not playing for points here... An internet chat is more of a free-foarm exchange in my view.

So if you want to continue, why not bullet-point you questions. Clarifying them for me might help the discussion move forward.

For starters, you can address the point I made about how, if class lines are clear to everybody, including workers, then why do those people adopt a populist cross-class slogan about the 99%? Are you suggesting that workers secretly know about layers of middle-class people, part of the upper half of the 99%, not being proletarians, but instead openly adopt the cross-class slogan for some specific reason? Or are you prepared to accept my point that, while inequality in general is clear, class lines are not clearly understood by many, perhaps most, workers?

[Rafiq]

If they are worse since they are reactionary "even within capitalism", does this mean that larger businesses aren't necessarily reactionary within capitalism?



The bourgeoisie is not reactionary solely within capitalism as they are in power. From what basis would they be reactionary? Why would the hegemonic bourgeoisie possess the desire to turn back the wheels of time (which is impossible, but that's besides the point)? The bourgeoisie becomes reactionary almost always solely in the midst of the class conscious proletariat which attempts to abolish the existing order. The hegemonic liberal bourgeoisie can also take a reactionary role in those circumstances where the demands of capital necessitate it. This can be seen historically, with fascism being distinguished by the unification of Bourgeois and petty bourgeois interests.

[Rafiq]

For starters, you can address the point I made about how, if class lines are clear to everybody, including workers, then why do those people adopt a populist cross-class slogan about the 99%? Are you suggesting that workers secretly know about layers of middle-class people, part of the upper half of the 99%, not being proletarians, but instead openly adopt the cross-class slogan for some specific reason? Or are you prepared to accept my point that, while inequality in general is clear, class lines are not clearly understood by many, perhaps most, workers?

While here I don't think I can agree with Jimmie Higgins, I think when he claims class lines are clear, they are clear as far as class being defined as the wealthy and those who aren't wealthy. While completely anti-Marxist, this is the general consensus of the populace.

While there is grounds for argument, you're not doing it properly. Once again you're arguing with a straw man, which isn't surprising as it is a distinctive characteristic of your posts, it would now seem.

[Five Year Plan]

While here I don't think I can agree with Jimmie Higgins, I think when he claims class lines are clear, they are clear as far as class being defined as the wealthy and those who aren't wealthy. While completely anti-Marxist, this is the general consensus of the populace.

I foolishly assumed when JH talked about class lines, that he, as a Marxist, was referring to class in the Marxian sense of the term, not some bourgeois sociological understanding of the term as referring to abstract income brackets.

The vast majority of workers might have some sense of class in mind when they argue about how crappy the 1% is, but my point is that they won't get very far with that slogan, since it interpolates them into a cross-class (from a Marxian understanding of class) coalition that, without clearly articulated working-class leadership (defined according to the Marxian definition), will have an implicit petty-bourgeois program with petty-bourgeois hegemony and petty-bourgeois leadership.

Marxian class lines are NOT clear to the majority of workers in this country. JH is fine with that. At least, he is comfortable enough with it not to try to impress upon workers that their interests are distinct from those of the petty bourgeoisie. Otherwise, we will be guilty of shutting ourselves into a tiny leftist echo chamber, etc.

[Jimmie Higgins]

While here I don't think I can agree with Jimmie Higgins, I think when he claims class lines are clear, they are clear as far as class being defined as the wealthy and those who aren't wealthy. While completely anti-Marxist, this is the general consensus of the populace.
no, I am claiming that I have never heard any revolutionary who uses 99% in regards to occupy ever say that the 99% is the working class or that it is anything other than an expression of income inequality. This is a straw-man argument!

Plenty of non-revolutionaries talk about all sorts of social formations or income groups or whatever. Yeah make as case with them, But the o.p was claiming that socialists argue this.

Rather than make semantic arguments... Since general inequality is something that exists in the population as a whole. I think the argument to make regarding class is that the proletariat is the only part of the 99% that can liberate the population.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Marxian class lines are NOT clear to the majority of workers in this country. never claimed that.


JH is fine with that. no, I organized a labor committee in occupy in order to try and build organization and politics among organized and unorganized workers. I also tried to do educational meetings, etc. what about you.. Wank and flogging yourself afterwards for penance like usual?


At least, he is comfortable enough with it not to try to impress upon workers that their interests are distinct from those of the petty bourgeoisie. Otherwise, we will be guilty of shutting ourselves into a tiny leftist echo chamber, etc.yeah i never claimed any of that, Sound and Fury.

[Jimmie Higgins]

For starters, you can address the point I made about how, if class lines are clear to everybody, including workers, then why do those people adopt a populist cross-class slogan about the 99%?i never said they are clear to everyone. I said that I have never heard socialists use the 99% terminology to describe class.

As an expression of income inequality, the 99% works! but the answer to the problem of the 99% is not the 99%


Are you suggesting that workers secretly know about layers of middle-class people, part of the upper half of the 99%, not being proletarians, but instead openly adopt the cross-class slogan for some specific reason? Or are you prepared to accept my point that, while inequality in general is clear, class lines are not clearly understood by many, perhaps most, workers?is George bush a great president, or the greatest?

I can I be "prepared to accept" an argument I never disagreed with outside of your assumption-addled mind in the first place?!

Here's what I said at the beginning:


I think rather than trying to preech to people about slogans, it's much more effective in building class consciousness and confidence to actually try and organize networks and forces that demonstrate and lead to strategies that show in effect that the working class is the force in society that can actually liberate the whole 99%. In order to build such forces, OF COURSE arguing revolutionary understanding and politics (while arguing against liberal politics of lobbying or reforms-as-solutions or localism or small capitalism on the one hand and moralistic radical liberalism of induvidual strategies on the other) is part of building up the ability for workers to fight as a class

[Rafiq]

I think this is the quote he was referring to


Frankly, in practical terms it's pretty easy to see where the class lines are. People who are anti-wal-mart who think workers there are "dupes" and "slaves" and pose "buy local" on the one hand, people who think that wal-mart workers should organize and (if they aren't social democrats or just trade unionists) have international solidarity and organizing throughout the whole circuit of companies like wal-mart.

Actually I think you're right - Five Year Plan is formulating a straw man. You claimed that it's easy to see class lines as far as the differences in attitude people have towards people like Wal Mart workers - on one hand we have the petty bourgeois consensus, that they are "sheeple" and on the other you have those who call for workers to organize (in other words, trade union consciousness). I think that it is easy to see the class lines here. What he's trying to say is that it's easy for Marxists to see the class lines that divide the occupy movement and the variations in different sentiments.

By some miracle Five Year Plan managed to twist this into a straw man: That it's easy for worker's to see class lines as some kind of argument being made. The fact that I myself overlooked this speaks volumes, he's a master at obfuscating arguments and taking them out of context. It could be trolling, who knows. But this is completely a straw man, what FYP is saying has nothing to do with anything.

[Five Year Plan]

i never said they are clear to everyone. I said that I have never heard socialists use the 99% terminology to describe class.

You're right. I apologize. You never said that class lines were clear to everyone. What you actually said was, and I am quoting you directly: "Frankly, in practical terms it's pretty easy to see where the class lines are."

Do you care to explain to me why, if class lines are "easy to see" (to whom? everyone? workers?), there was (a) a mass movement that attempted to articulate the fundamental divide as being one between the exorbitantly wealthy and everybody else, rather than between workers and capitalists, and (b) why reiterating that fundamental class divide would be confining us supposedly sectarian types to a "leftist echo-chamber"?


As an expression of income inequality, the 99% works! but the answer to the problem of the 99% is not the 99%

It works in doing what? In saying that there is great inequality? Of course. But what does it explain? What is the implied remedy when inequality is packaged this way?

[Five Year Plan]

SNIP

Ah, yes. You again. IF Jimmie's argument is that workers often instinctively know where the class lines are in specific, concrete instances of struggle, such as in supporting or opposing the organizing of workers at a Wal-Mart then that's one thing, though he would have to more precisely formulate his argument. (And even then, the argument itself is problematic.) It's another thing to say that class lines are easy to see in general. This is a particularly bad argument to make when we're discussing Occupy, which was where a good number of workers got sucked into the most petty-bourgeois forms of politics, and an incredibly petty-bourgeois slogan that made it seem that only the greatest excesses of capitalism were the problem, rather than capitalism itself. If class lines were indeed easy to see, then workers simply ignored them during the Occupy movement. My question to JH was, why? And does he agree that that was a bad thing?

[Rafiq]

It's not about workers seeing class lines, *trade union* consciousness develops organically. The difference in attitude toward wal Mart workers outlined by JH is real and identifiable, and yes it reflects different class interests. Proletarian attitudes exist, but are often muddied into the heap pile with petty bourgeois and reactionary views. Thus the necessity of revolutionary consciousness, which JH claims they do not currently possess.

But yes, frankly class lines are easy to see by Marxists as far as differences in rhetoric go - that doesn't mean they're sophisticated or developed.

[Rafiq]

Your argument rests on the notion that workers have to be conscious of class differences in order to engage in petty trade union struggles which are proletarian in nature.

This reflects a greater poverty in your understanding of class. Marx said "They are doing it, but they don't know it". The big bourgeoisie can fulfill its interests without being aware of class lines. The petty bourgeoisie the same. Actually this is almost always the case really. Ideology does not say I am ideology.

Revolutionary consciousness is when workers understand the nature of things consciously. And that isn't formed organically.

[Five Year Plan]

It's not about workers seeing class lines, *trade union* consciousness develops organically. The difference in attitude toward wal Mart workers outlined by JH is real and identifiable, and yes it reflects different class interests. Proletarian attitudes exist, but are often muddied into the heap pile with petty bourgeois and reactionary views. Thus the necessity of revolutionary consciousness, which JH claims they do not currently possess.

But yes, frankly class lines are easy to see by Marxists as far as differences in rhetoric go - that doesn't mean they're sophisticated or developed.

I think you are taking the words way too literally, and actually misconstrue how Lenin used them. If workers "organically" form "trade union consciousness," then why do workers in the United States, especially those in the South, frequently cast their ballots not to unionize in a workplace?

The "trade union consciousness" concept that Lenin hashed out is useful for pointing out the fact that workers "organically" understand that they are disempowered in the workplace, and need to resist that disempowerment actively. The actual political manifestations of that resistance (whether to support a unionizing effort, whether to support this or that strike) aren't automatic at all, and can be the result of the internalization of bourgeois ideas and ideologies by workers in a way that leads them down a political road that objectively harms their own interests as a class: for instance, voting not to unionize a workplace, voting in elections for the candidate of a bourgeois party, and so on. Lenin's point wasn't that trade union consciousness was automatic or obvious, but that it was the most that workers could achieve without mastering and incorporating socialist politics into their struggles.

As Lenin said, "We have said that there could not have been Social-Democratic consciousness among the workers. It would have to be brought to them from without. The history of all countries shows that the working class, exclusively by its own effort, is able [not guaranteed through an easy, obvious process] to develop only trade union consciousness, i.e., the conviction that it is necessary to combine in unions, fight the employers, and strive to compel the government to pass necessary labour legislation, etc"

[Rafiq]

Okay but evidently this is something that often does develop - no one is claiming its a given. Likewise some workers in occupy did possess such tendencies undeniably. The whole point is that nothing is so rigid. Often there are hybrids of confused and obscure rhetoric, often workers just as easily fall into the rhetoric of reactionary sentiments. This is also something Lenin understood very well.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

It's not about workers seeing class lines, *trade union* consciousness develops organically. The difference in attitude toward wal Mart workers outlined by JH is real and identifiable, and yes it reflects different class interests. Proletarian attitudes exist, but are often muddied into the heap pile with petty bourgeois and reactionary views. Thus the necessity of revolutionary consciousness, which JH claims they do not currently possess.

But yes, frankly class lines are easy to see by Marxists as far as differences in rhetoric go - that doesn't mean they're sophisticated or developed.
Then for those who aren't as Marxist as you seem to be, please explain how class lines are easy to see. How you do yourself spot them every day? I guess that factory worker I passed the other day must have colored all over himself with red magic marker--pity that I was too blind to notice it the first time.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Ah, yes. You again. IF Jimmie's argument is that workers often instinctively know where the class lines are in specific, concrete instances of struggle, such as in supporting or opposing the organizing of workers at a Wal-Mart then that's one thing, though he would have to more precisely formulate his argument. (And even then, the argument itself is problematic.) It's another thing to say that class lines are easy to see in general. This is a particularly bad argument to make when we're discussing Occupy, which was where a good number of workers got sucked into the most petty-bourgeois forms of politics, and an incredibly petty-bourgeois slogan that made it seem that only the greatest excesses of capitalism were the problem, rather than capitalism itself. If class lines were indeed easy to see, then workers simply ignored them during the Occupy movement. My question to JH was, why? And does he agree that that was a bad thing?

Ok, these posts and the one by rafiq were clarifying. I think that quoted part about wal mart was not written very clearly by me.

Just to step back, I intended to respond to the idea in the o.p. that anger at corporations was always counterproductive. My argument was that both middle class people and workers have anger at the powers these institutions have over our lives in general. And so there is a pretty clear difference in approach when people on the one hand want to stop wal-mart because it represents an attack on "local" small capital or just don't like "consumer culture". On the other hand, it's perfectly legitimate working class persoective to resent wal-Marts power directly as a worker or indirectly through rudimentary class consciousness where people realize that wal-mart's shitty model is THE model for that kind of employment.

Yes, for Marxists, I think the lines between what are middle class or working class strategies and views on issues like this are pretty easy to see in this particular case. So you have middle class tendencies that generally take a moralistic (and elitist) attitude about wal mart and wal mart workers themselves; strategies that call for bans on big box stores, "buy local" etc. There are also reformist labor views of union leaderships who are organizing but only want to embarrass the company and cut a deal. Contrary to that is what I think would be a Marxist view of attempting to actually build organization and workplace power in the shops and solidarity with the truckers and shippers and maybe even manufacturers.

But for the population generally, no the class lines are not apparent.

Where I disagree maybe is that I don't thinks ultimately it is socialist propaganda or education which holds the key to changing this in the big picture, but organization of class movements and in order for there to be effective class movements IMO. Why do workers get pulled today towards middle class ideas rather than the other way around? Because the middle class is mythologized in propaganda, sure, but because they have some social weight behind them... They have political organizations and they offer answers that don't involve challenging the system so when there aren't movements, "not challenging the system" seems like a much more "realistic" option even to workers. To change that Balance, workers have to have more organization, more revolutionary strands within the class, and the ability to see that confrontation with the bosses is possible and "realistic" and therefore that in a time of crisis, revolution is actually the most realistic solution.

Why I'm personally fine with "99%" as a popular shorthand for economic inequality is because it's a popular counter to the idea broadly heald just a few years ago that "everyone's middle class in the u.s. and everyone generally has upward mobility". What's worth arguing with non radicals about IMO, is less the terminology, and more what are the ramifications of this inequality, what maintains it, who has the power to alter that.

[MEGAMANTROTSKY]

Why I'm personally fine with "99%" as a popular shorthand for economic inequality is because it's a popular counter to the idea broadly heald just a few years ago that "everyone's middle class in the u.s. and everyone generally has upward mobility". What's worth arguing with non radicals about IMO, is less the terminology, and more what are the ramifications of this inequality, what maintains it, who has the power to alter that.
I think you're missing the point. It is not whether the slogan by itself dispels bourgeois myths in particular regarding the "middle class". What matters are the programmatic implications as far as making socialism attractive to workers and bringing them to Marxism, specifically the Transitional Program. The "99%" does not do this in the slightest, it cannot rise beyond the superficial populism that created it, and in that respect it can only serve opportunist ends.

[Five Year Plan]

Ok, these posts and the one by rafiq were clarifying. I think that quoted part about wal mart was not written very clearly by me.

Just to step back, I intended to respond to the idea in the o.p. that anger at corporations was always counterproductive. My argument was that both middle class people and workers have anger at the powers these institutions have over our lives in general.

Yes, we agree on this.


Yes, for Marxists, I think the lines between what are middle class or working class strategies and views on issues like this are pretty easy to see in this particular case. So you have middle class tendencies that generally take a moralistic (and elitist) attitude about wal mart and wal mart workers themselves; strategies that call for bans on big box stores, "buy local" etc. There are also reformist labor views of union leaderships who are organizing but only want to embarrass the company and cut a deal. Contrary to that is what I think would be a Marxist view of attempting to actually build organization and workplace power in the shops and solidarity with the truckers and shippers and maybe even manufacturers.Where do you get the idea that the working class isn't sucked into buy-local campaigns, organic dieting, and campaigns for zoning laws restricting big-box retailers as ways, often foregrounded, of opposing big business? I mean, it's a pretty sweeping generalization to make, and it honestly doesn't jibe with my experiences at all as a worker. Those middle-class forms of struggle you indicate have penetrated deep into consciousness of the American working class, and now resides alongside the older barriers of racism and sexism.


But for the population generally, no the class lines are not apparent.

Where I disagree maybe is that I don't thinks ultimately it is socialist propaganda or education which holds the key to changing this in the big picture, but organization of class movements and in order for there to be effective class movements IMO. Why do workers get pulled today towards middle class ideas rather than the other way around? Because the middle class is mythologized in propaganda, sure, but because they have some social weight behind them... They have political organizations and they offer answers that don't involve challenging the system so when there aren't movements, "not challenging the system" seems like a much more "realistic" option even to workers. To change that Balance, workers have to have more organization, more revolutionary strands within the class, and the ability to see that confrontation with the bosses is possible and "realistic" and therefore that in a time of crisis, revolution is actually the most realistic solution.You and I agree that learning only occurs through struggle. For the working class, this struggle can be collaborationist and adopt the political ideas and slogans of the bourgeoisie and petite bourgeoisie. The role of socialists in that context is to support the struggle, but to criticize the non-working-class political umbrella under which they are being pursued. Even if it makes some people upset to hear that their views of the world aren't perfectly formed.


Why I'm personally fine with "99%" as a popular shorthand for economic inequality is because it's a popular counter to the idea broadly heald just a few years ago that "everyone's middle class in the u.s. and everyone generally has upward mobility". What's worth arguing with non radicals about IMO, is less the terminology, and more what are the ramifications of this inequality, what maintains it, who has the power to alter that.I disagree. I think that framing the over-arching problem with American society as being one of an exorbitantly wealthy stratum standing far above everybody else implies that the solution is to pass reforms to distribute people's income more equitably as a way of strengthening the middle class, of reconciling class antagonisms between the two extremes of society (what Marxists call the capitalist class and the working class).

Our goal as revolutionaries isn't just to sand off the extreme edges of capitalism. It's to overthrow capitalism. Now, does that mean that sanding off the edges might not be a necessary first step in getting the struggle going? Well, of course, but revolutionaries should be fighting from the beginning to make clear that the purpose of the edge-sanding is to scrap the entire edifice. If you just let the 99% slogan stand, the default understanding will be the middle class one. That needs to be challenged right now, even if the revolution isn't going to happen right now.

There is no such thing as a social movement without a class basis. In a movement that represents a coalition between two classes, one will exercise leadership. Who do you think exercised this hidden leadership in the Occupy movement?

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Apologies for not keeping up with this thread; I have been busy moving these last few days. I'm still a bit tired, so this will probably not be an exhaustive reply.


i think this is a pretty static take on these ideas. First capitalism was generally smaller firms when Marx was writing, so there's no doubt that in the Marxist traddition, capitalist relations, not specific firms or scales of firms are the issue.

But to make an analogy to early 20th century Russia in order to make an appeal to authority is pretty absurd. In the late-coming countries, maybe this is a factor, but in most of the industrialized world, small capitalism is not a major factor in the overal organization of capitalism. In addition, most large monopolies subdivide everything now (in part as a way to undermine past labor militancy strategies) so that the "organizing" and concentration of laborers is not the same as the huge factories in developing Russia. For Russia, monopolistic enterprise was progressive, today this process has done it's "rationalizing" in Western Europe and most of the Americas. The increased surplus of modern big firms does not go towards transforming craft into industry, but goes to competing over market shares, etc. on a World scale, this tendency is turning rural people in china and Africa and other places into proletariets, but the battle over feudal relations is done on the whole. And since I reject a statgist view of development, I don't think on a world scale that it's necessary to see the development of very corner of the earth for socialist revolution to happen world-wide. I also think that if there was a working class movement in industrial areas, it would be counterproductive to dismiss the struggles of people in rural areas who are trying to resist capitalist development.

Monopoly trusts and cartels were an established feature of Russian economic life when Lenin wrote that. His point was not that socialists should support the further development of large monopoly capitalist enterprise - that would be monstrously stupid - but that they should not call for its dissolution. And that, when the socialist revolution comes (the quote is from 1916), the workers' state should seize the apparatus of monopoly finance capitalism and use it for socialist construction.

What actually happened in the agricultural sector was the complete opposite - the peasantry seized the large landed estates and divided them up, with the Bolshevik government being powerless to do anything but acknowledge the facts on the ground. This proved to be a massive burden to the Russian workers' state.

Generally, if the socialist party opposes large monopoly enterprise separately from its opposition to capitalism in general, it sows illusions about the desirability of small business.


Which comes back to American populism and anti-corporate sentiment. So where does this sentiment come from? Not socialists, since there isn't a movement to speak of. But workers and middle class people resent the concentrated power of big business, though for different class reasons. Frankly, in practical terms it's pretty easy to see where the class lines are. People who are anti-wal-mart who think workers there are "dupes" and "slaves" and pose "buy local" on the one hand, people who think that wal-mart workers should organize and (if they aren't social democrats or just trade unionists) have international solidarity and organizing throughout the whole circuit of companies like wal-mart.

the 99% is a pretty apt slogan for occupy since it wasn't a workers movement, but a populist one in which working class people and ideas were in the mix with middle class and reformist and radical liberal ideas. It's also a slogan of inequality and so has a general objective truth to it. With the lack of a class movement and no apparent renewal of general class militancy and action, any political development of class ideas will probably be expressed in these ways. But I have not heard Marxist socialists use 99% as a synonym for the working class or proletariets! just one for "the masses".

The role of Marxists in this context shouldn't be to pooh-pooh popular anger about inequality but to try and figure out practical ways for class politics and strategy to begin to distinguish itself as the most capable and powerful way forward for the whole 99%. Workers and middle class people have reasons to oppose big powerful firms, but have different reasons which lead to different possibilities for organizing and strategy. Rather than sit in the balcony mocking existing movements, it would be better for revolutionaries to take part and try and counter pose the middle class strategies of lobbying against Supreme Court decisions or trying to pass laws against "big box stores" and all that bullshit with efforts of the organized and unorganized workers who have real and direct power to oppose the control these firms have over us, city development, etc.

Well, at the risk of sounding "sectarian" as most of RevLeft apparently understands that term, I think this shows that the groups we sympathise with have radically different strategies. Because as I recall it the ISO have always tried to organise some sort of "left of the Democrats", "third party" movement, which I think is suicidal. If there is real class content to a struggle - and I don't think this was the case with the Occupy "movement" - then socialists need to intervene, among other things to split the movement along class lines, to expose opportunists and centrists and so on. The point is not to get a "strong" movement with muddled politics, but to fight for proletarian militancy. And proletarian militancy does not occur unless the class line is clearly drawn.

As for socialist groups that have replaced the proletariat with "the 99%", here (http://www.solidarity-us.org/site/node/3528) is something from the peeps in Solidarity (US). I'm sure the "World Socialist Movement" (ha) also do this, but I can't find any examples now.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Generally, if the socialist party opposes large monopoly enterprise separately from its opposition to capitalism in general, it sows illusions about the desirability of small business.yes I think this is a straw-man when it comes to Marxists opposing these companies. It's not a staw-man if you mean "progressives" or liberals because they do argue to "buy local" etc. But that didn't seem to be the main point in your opening post... It came off as grandstanding off a staw-man, frankly.

Then I guess I misinterpreted your intent in appealing to lenin with that quote, but it came across as if you were saying there's no reason for Marxists to oppose powerful big business. I disagree, I think that if those buy local arguments aren't counter-posed in a practical way with worker organizing or at least class-based arguments against these companies, then the resentment workers feel towards their own control at the hands of these entities will gravitate to these middle class answers or individual solutions.


Well, at the risk of sounding "sectarian" as most of RevLeft apparently understands that term, I think this shows that the groups we sympathise with have radically different strategies. yes, the group you sympathize with talks about the need for workers to distinguish their demands from the populist mass while the group I organize with (I sympathize with a lot of revolutionary groups ;) ) tried to organize labor committees in occupy linking rank and file union workers and unorganized workers.


Because as I recall it the ISO have always tried to organise some sort of "left of the Democrats", "third party" movement, which I think is suicidal. straw-man, incorrect, and a distraction. Sectarian? Well sect-oriented at least. I could explain the internal arguments and decisions behind a tactic (like supporting Nader in 2000) and strategy (breaking working class support away from the Democratic Party) but I don't think you are interested in a real discussion of this. Just trying to invalidate my argument here through association and muddying waters. Weak and slimy, friend. And doesn't do much to dissuade me of my suspicion that your motive behind the o.p. was not clarification but using a banal truism (small capitalism is not an alternative to big capitalism for workers) to beat a staw-man with in order to grandstand as the only "true" revolutionary on the site.

Frankly, You make good points elsewhere. My totally unsolicited and probably obnoxious-sounding advice: drop the affectations. Try being more patient. Loose the fake-studder (it's offensive for people who had speech problems) and the spart "ostensible" b.s. and you would probably be a good asset and good teacher to people new to these politics.

[Five Year Plan]

straw-man, incorrect, and a distraction. Sectarian? Well sect-oriented at least. I could explain the internal arguments and decisions behind a tactic (like supporting Nader in 2000) and strategy (breaking working class support away from the Democratic Party) but I don't think you are interested in a real discussion of this.

My understanding was that support for Nader was to create an alternative to the two-party dominance of the Republicans and Democrats and stimulating "grassroots movements" associated with the campaign. This is also the reason why Brian Jones is running as a Green Party candidate in his NY race for Lt. Governor. Is this incorrect?

[Jimmie Higgins]

I think you're missing the point. It is not whether the slogan by itself dispels bourgeois myths in particular regarding the "middle class". What matters are the programmatic implications as far as making socialism attractive to workers and bringing them to Marxism, specifically the Transitional Program. The "99%" does not do this in the slightest, it cannot rise beyond the superficial populism that created it, and in that respect it can only serve opportunist ends.ok, but what do any of these terms mean in our context? I know what Trotsky meant in his circumstances.., but then there were a whole international experienced traddition that had been built up, working class organizations and traditions of struggle, etc. In this context there were real opportunists who talked about socialism, wide number of workers who were attracted to the vague idea of socialism, and so having the right "line", distinguishing revolutionary socialism from the "socialism" of reformists, creating a program (for the existing class forces already in play and acting as a class in itself, but not yet for itself) all makes sense in it's importance.

But honestly today when people talk of lines and programs, I think they are really just trying to make their propaganda sound more important. Having good and accurate and thoughtful propaganda is important, but it is not really a transitional program because there's no there there to transition anything. We are always in a "proto-phase" of any of these things for the time being.

So that's why I don't understand the obsession over slogans or popular memes that revolutionaries do not influence one way or another in the first place. Revolutionary Marxists in the Bolshevik tradition always seek to try and organize the class movement to be the tribune of the oppressed... The working class is the force that can liberate the "99%". The danger is not in workers being a part of a mass they are always a part of anyway, the danger is in being led by other class interests. And personally I don't think arguing over slogans most of the time counteracts the influence of the middle class... We need to organize otherwise working class politics are just another idea among many... And the other ideas can lead young activists to paying jobs with NGOs or liberal politicians... So which one is in the long run more appealing if it's just an abstract idea-basis?:grin:

It seems obvious to oppose popular slogans that are actively misleading and counterproductive ("peace is patriotic" for example) but otherwise, it just seems rather pointless since terms are always contested anyway. If we want our ideas to be more appealing than a low paid NGO gig, then we have to show in practice how our ideas are useful.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

Two points: "r-r-revolutionary" is a fairly common phrase, used by Lenin among others, and it is not supposed to represent stuttering but prolonging the first syllable (if it was supposed to represent stuttering, the syllable would be repeated: "re-re-revolutionary") as someone selling wares on the street might do.

Second, I think I have already mentioned why I started this thread: not because of ISO but because of a slew of new users who only seem to be opposed to "big business", and in fact some of which have explicitly supported small business. There is my ulterior motive.

[Jimmie Higgins]

Second, I think I have already mentioned why I started this thread: not because of ISO but because of a slew of new users who only seem to be opposed to "big business", and in fact some of which have explicitly supported small business. There is my ulterior motive.ok, sorry if I was being overly jerky. I didn't think you were directing this at any groups specifically, I just read it as being like grandstanding and fighting against some kind of phantom problem on the left that I have not really observed outside of liberals or people new to revolutionary politics. I guess I missed the "small capitalism" members while arguing against the pro-Zionist and men's rights ones :D