Creating a Cancer Within the Capitalist System

[Sinister Intents]

Is it at all possible? The possibility that social revolutionists could start businesses, seize them, or acquire them through some means. To seize capital, for laborers to successfully take businesses into their hands for the goal of out competing the capitalist class at their own game. To create worker's organizations within the capitalist system to educate, agitate, and further organize. Creating a cancer in the capitalist system to bring the creature to it's knees and then its eventual death? To garner enough support from the proletariat to lead a mass revolution against the fat cats at the top of the pyramid, to have enough organizations started, to have a huge base below with a defined goal in mind? Could the system not be used against itself to kill it?

[motion denied]

Destroy capitalism by becoming a capitalist?

[Sinister Intents]

Destroy capitalism by becoming a capitalist?

I mean for workers yo seize businesses and use the businesses as cooperatives with the goal of gaining wealth for the whole of united collectives to out compete the capitalists and Destroy capitalism and class society by taking the system out of their hands like they're children and destroying it in front of them. So in a way becoming the capitalists, but having it set up so all individuals in united collectives have equality within ands eliminating all class boundaries, eliminating bosses, entrepreneurs, and other higher ups by making the business a workers run collective

[Sinister Intents]

I'm mostly bored and want to discuss this and see where it goes

[GiantMonkeyMan]

I'm sure your post will garner a lot more vehement responses than my own. Essentially, no it's not possible for the working class to utilise capital to 'out compete' other capitalists. Rosa Luxemburg discusses co-operatives in Reform or Revolution, dismissing the argument of Bernstein that co-operatives could gradually replace commercial capital.


Co-operatives – especially co-operatives in the field of production constitute a hybrid form in the midst of capitalism. They can be described as small units of socialised production within capitalist exchange.

But in capitalist economy exchanges dominate production. As a result of competition, the complete domination of the process of production by the interests of capital – that is, pitiless exploitation – becomes a condition for the survival of each enterprise. The domination of capital over the process of production expresses itself in the following ways. Labour is intensified. The work day is lengthened or shortened, according to the situation of the market. And, depending on the requirements of the market, labour is either employed or thrown back into the street. In other words, use is made of all methods that enable an enterprise to stand up against its competitors in the market. The workers forming a co-operative in the field of production are thus faced with the contradictory necessity of governing themselves with the utmost absolutism. They are obliged to take toward themselves the role of capitalist entrepreneur – a contradiction that accounts for the usual failure of production co-operatives which either become pure capitalist enterprises or, if the workers’ interests continue to predominate, end by dissolving.

I do believe that things like FaSinPat and the workers' co-operative movement in general offer massive propaganda opportunity for the movement for socialism. Not as a 'proof' that capitalism can be transformed to ameliorate the exploitation of workers but rather to show the potential for workers to organise a society of their own and to dismiss the idea that capitalists are anything but a parasite on production. I think the co-operative movement, worker-owned businesses etc are a tactic, amongst many, that workers shouldn't be afraid to employ but they should be under no illusion that it could offer a path to socialism. Individual examples such as FaSinPat are exceptions that have generally only maintained their existence due to the good will and solidarity of the wider workers movement.

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I mean for workers yo seize businesses and use the businesses as cooperatives with the goal of gaining wealth for the whole of united collectives to out compete the capitalists

So, the workers would become capitalists, or at best members of the petite bourgeoisie, and outcompete other capitalists - which can only be done by increased exploitation.

We actually had people who advocated this on the site. They sort of lost support when they started talking about United Fruit hegemony in Latin America as a model.

[Sabot Cat]

Is it at all possible? The possibility that social revolutionists could start businesses, seize them, or acquire them through some means. To seize capital, for laborers to successfully take businesses into their hands for the goal of out competing the capitalist class at their own game. To create worker's organizations within the capitalist system to educate, agitate, and further organize. Creating a cancer in the capitalist system to bring the creature to it's knees and then its eventual death? To garner enough support from the proletariat to lead a mass revolution against the fat cats at the top of the pyramid, to have enough organizations started, to have a huge base below with a defined goal in mind? Could the system not be used against itself to kill it?

We can't out-compete the capitalists because the entire system is built to preserve a dynastic succession of wealth and to perpetually enrich the rich e.g. interest, inheritance, etc.

There's only one way we can wrest from them these means of production- revolution.

[DOOM]

The notion of socialism isn't to turn everyone into a petty bourgeois, so no, socialisation of the means of productions doesn't work that way.

[motion denied]

The principal agents of this mode of production itself, the capitalist and the wage-labourer, are as such merely embodiments, personifications of capital and wage-labour; definite social characteristics stamped upon individuals by the process of social production; the products of these definite social production relations.


But here individuals are dealt with only in so far as they are the personifications of economic categories, embodiments of particular class-relations and class-interests.

The capitalists are merely personifications of capital, they are obligated to act as agents of capital regardless of their intentions or will. Without the valorisation of value no capitalist (or workers' coop, w/e) survives. Though capital originates from determinate social relations, in the end, it has control over the individuals to its own ends.

[Sinister Intents]

@GMM: I haven't read that fully yet! I'll read that soon actually.

I asked the question because I own a business and thought of educating the people I work with and thought of using it as a cooperative for activism.

[Remus Bleys]

Today we see that SI, contrary to what Father Engels instructed, is not merely satisfied with individual members from other classes joining the ranks of the proletarian party (a reasonable and sensible command), but instead wants the program to reflect the interests of the petty-bourgeoisie, that SI desires that the workers become led by the small business owners (unlike the instructions of our brilliant theoreticians - from Marx to Engels to pre renegade Kautsky to Luxemburg to Lenin to Damen to Bordiga, this invariant red thread that expands across the whole history of the party organ, confirmed daily by the experience of the class), SI desires that the business owner and get manager are the "vanguard" who get a populist and democratic affirmation from the domesticated workers (promising them a carrot, giving them a lash from the stick) somehow these small business owners will outcompete the "capitalists" and establish a system v voluntarily and from on its own foundations. Except then, SI would become a haute-bourgeois, bound by all the laws and rules of capital necessarily followed in order to out compete the "capitalists". Not only is this a utopia, it is a poor one, one which damns us all to the same hell we live every wretched day in this parody of human life; whilst SI lives comfortably as a bourgeois, convinced our exploitation is no more, convinced that production is now done for human goods and not for SI's profit. I daresay SI would think these two things are identical.

[Remus Bleys]

@GMM: I haven't read that fully yet! I'll read that soon actually.

I asked the question because I own a business and thought of educating the people I work with and thought of using it as a cooperative for activism.

What happened to all the idiotic noise about completing capital? The story keeps changing - you haven't even begun it, have you?

[Sinister Intents]

Or how about I'm trying to further my knowledge.

[Remus Bleys]

Or how about I'm trying to further my knowledge.

You have been on this forum for 2, almost 3, years, and you are still talking about small business socialism. There's no excuse for it, at this point, you shouldve at least attempted to read something or come to a conclusion from reading more knowledgeable users. You have talked to me for how long before you started to just hate me (because I pointed out we have incompatible political positions), acting like a spoiled little brat whining about "wah wah wah i am exploited", whereby I spent countless hours explaining to you and recommending communist literature to you - and it was all for naught! The truth is, SI, youre not the least bit interested in learning, you just want to be popular and to protect your class interests (you act appalled about this, but it is true, you know it's true - and you can't even see far enough to realize the abolition of the pb will likewise help you).

[Sinister Intents]

I'm not even going to bother with you.

[DOOM]

No reason to be so mad, Remus, not everyone spends 24/7 on an online "revolutionary" board just to learn about the finesse of emancipating the working class masses.

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

The capitalists are merely personifications of capital, they are obligated to act as agents of capital regardless of their intentions or will. Without the valorisation of value no capitalist (or workers' coop, w/e) survives. Though capital originates from determinate social relations, in the end, it has control over the individuals to its own ends.

And yet, I think there is a real danger of lapsing into idealism here, because capitalists are not "merely" the personification of capital, but real material subjects created by capital whose singular ability to command living labour has real consequences. Similarly, the embodied realities of proletarians can't be abstracted. "Capital" does not control individuals - this is a mystification: capital produces the appearance of a relation among things which commands whereas the reality is that of social relations among humans - definite humans carrying out particular roles.

[Remus Bleys]

No reason to be so mad, Remus, not everyone spends 24/7 on an online "revolutionary" board just to learn about the finesse of emancipating the working class masses.

I'm not mad. Why does everyone say this? I'm not even swearing for crying out loud!
And no few people do this and there's stuff that gets in the way of course. But si posts a lot, has been here a lot, and has feigned an interest in supposed revolutionary literature, if only to pass it off as "lol I got high instead" and get attention.

If one has the time to spend hours on a forum, create their own political forum, and sludge their drama to various Facebook messages, one surely has the time to read Marx. If what SI is saying is true, then surely, there exists also motivation, no?

[Sinister Intents]

Good job in successfully showing bow much of an ass you are, and for trying to make an exposé thread about someone you barely know. No, I'm talking about workers seizing businesses and eliminating bosses. Trying to build enough power to create a social revolution to destroy capitalism. I won't bother with you though Remus. I've had enough exposure to your abrasive personality. You make me think of my ex girlfriend which honestly triggers me. I wanted to have a discussion on my laptop, but you succeed in ruining my day again. Yeah I'll admit it, you affect me a lot, very negatively. No I'm not here for popularity. I have a life unlike you. You're the one starting drama because you obviously enjoy making someone have a panic attack or making them feel like shit.

[DOOM]

I'm not mad. Why does everyone say this? I'm not even swearing for crying out loud!
And no few people do this and there's stuff they gets in the way of course. But si posts a lot, has been here a lot, and has feigned an interest in supposed revolutionary literature, if only to pass it off as "lol I got high instead" and get attention.

If one has the time to spend hours on a forum, create their own political forum, and sludge their drama to various Facebook messages, one surely has the time to read Marx. If what SI is saying is true, then surely, there exists also motivation, no?

Well you're ranting about an user in a thread which subject has nothing to do with the user itself. This is precisely what angry/frustrated people do. I don't give a fuck if you're holding any resentment against SI, but there are other, better places to sort this out than a thread about theory.

[Remus Bleys]

And yet, I think there is a real danger of lapsing into idealism here, because capitalists are not "merely" the personification of capital, but real material subjects created by capital whose singular ability to command living labour has real consequences. Similarly, the embodied realities of proletarians can't be abstracted. "Capital" does not control individuals - this is a mystification: capital produces the appearance of a relation among things which commands whereas the reality is that of social relations among humans - definite humans carrying out particular roles.

This is something most Marxists ignore you're right, but largely, mystification becomes reality. A lot of different people are involved in business firms and demand that profit (or something similar to that) is the most pursued goal, thus people allow the social relations created by their own social relations to be the thing that controls their social relations. Reification is enforced by human beings, but it's so complex and incestual that its difficult to say that this abstraction of real things isn't now existing, ie capital become so enforced by people that now x group enforces "laws of Capital" on y group, and y group in turn enforces the same Laws on x group.

[Redistribute the Rep]

I don't think capitalism can be abolished this way, it must be through a working class movement; however, if some individual capitalists/rich people want to donate funds to help organize the workers, I don't see a problem with that. As a class their interests are to oppress the workers, but on the individual level some just won't see a future in capitalism and will support the revolutionary cause. They shouldn't be trusted, but I don't care if they want to donate Money or whatever

[consuming negativity]

Remus isn't trying to be a dick. He's just abrasive as fuck and doesn't know when to shut up and keep his opinions to himself. Eventually he'll figure out that he misjudged you and he'll say he's sorry. Or he won't and he won't. But either way you know what he says isn't true, and that's what matters.

In the meantime, though, you got some good answers to your question. You should probably just go ahead and read "Reform or Revolution?", but honestly, Sabot Cat hit the nail on the head and saved you a lot of time. It won't work because the system is designed otherwise. We can and should try, but we will fail, and when we do, we'll fuck shit up. ¡Viva la revolución!

[Anglo-Saxon Philistine]

I don't think capitalism can be abolished this way, it must be through a working class movement; however, if some individual capitalists/rich people want to donate funds to help organize the workers, I don't see a problem with that. As a class their interests are to oppress the workers, but on the individual level some just won't see a future in capitalism and will support the revolutionary cause. They shouldn't be trusted, but I don't care if they want to donate Money or whatever

Except you can't "donate funds to organise the workers" in abstract, you can donate to certain organisations. These organisations have a leadership that will possibly quite appreciate your donation and will try to get more money, changing their line to appeal to you. That happened with Helay's group and the Libyan and Iraqi regimes.

[Rosa Partizan]

I've heard some of this argumentation (not exactly the same, but similarly thought out) within feminist discourse, namely: If you want to smash patriarchy, get those high positions in corporations and make feminist politics, even if it means playing by the enemie's rules. So in fact you just reproduce the male patterns without actually challenging them and in the course of your career become one of "them" by sticking to typically "male" (and within this career context capitalist) values. I see a pretty clear analogy here.

[Redistribute the Rep]

Except you can't "donate funds to organise the workers" in abstract, you can donate to certain organisations. These organisations have a leadership that will possibly quite appreciate your donation and will try to get more money, changing their line to appeal to you. That happened with Helay's group and the Libyan and Iraqi regimes.

If I'm not mistaken the Bolsheviks had a couple of rich benefactors. Anyway, i'd say that's a problem with the leadership of said organizations. if they're willing to change their line so readily they probably aren't good respresentatives of the working class anyway.

[Sinister Intents]

Except you can't "donate funds to organise the workers" in abstract, you can donate to certain organisations. These organisations have a leadership that will possibly quite appreciate your donation and will try to get more money, changing their line to appeal to you. That happened with Helay's group and the Libyan and Iraqi regimes.

What about blatantly giving money to activists? Probably won't happen though, like: "Hey, here is 1000000 dollars! Go buy sbit to help your cause!"

Also thanks Communer.

I actually have written stuff in a journal on this and perhaps I'll add more later perhaps. No, Remy, I'm not lying like you insist. I've read Capital butb only the first volume.

Dropping the original subject: How could a Cancer be created? Outside of social revolution. How can organizations be created with the purpose of educating, assisting t, and organizing?

[motion denied]

And yet, I think there is a real danger of lapsing into idealism here, because capitalists are not "merely" the personification of capital, but real material subjects created by capital whose singular ability to command living labour has real consequences.

I agree.


Similarly, the embodied realities of proletarians can't be abstracted. "Capital" does not control individuals - this is a mystification: capital produces the appearance of a relation among things which commands whereas the reality is that of social relations among humans - definite humans carrying out particular roles.It does control though. The actions and decisions of the capitalist, roughly speaking, are conditioned and aimed to maintain their position of capitalists. And that only can be done obeying the the laws of capital accumulation. Sorry another quote:


Possessing the social form of "capital," things make their owner a "capitalist" and in advance determine the concrete production relations which will be established between him and other members of society. It seems as if the social character of things determines the social character of their owners. Thus the "personification of things" is brought about. In this way the capitalist glows with the reflected light of his capital, but this is only possible because he, in turn, reflects a given type of production relation among people. As a result, particular individuals are subsumed under the dominant type of production relations [...] In this way, the apparent contraction between the "reification of people" and the "personification of things" is resolved in the dialectical, uninterrupted process of reproduction.

Of course, social relations appear as relations between things, alright. I'm not disputing it. [edit] What I mean is: capitalism is more about capital, the social relation (producers having no control of production), than capitalists (as seen from the failure of really existing socialism, where arguably there was no capitalism but extraction of surplus labour and no socialism at all).

[Remus Bleys]

Good job in successfully showing bow much of an ass you are, and for trying to make an exposé thread about someone you barely know. No, I'm talking about workers seizing businesses and eliminating bosses. Trying to build enough power to create a social revolution to destroy capitalism. I won't bother with you though Remus. I've had enough exposure to your abrasive personality. You make me think of my ex girlfriend which honestly triggers me. I wanted to have a discussion on my laptop, but you succeed in ruining my day again. Yeah I'll admit it, you affect me a lot, very negatively. No I'm not here for popularity. I have a life unlike you. You're the one starting drama because you obviously enjoy making someone have a panic attack or making them feel like shit.

I haven't been here for a couple months, I only recently logged in again looking around because I'm bored. Its not my fault that you are having a panic attack, except somehow my very existence gives you a panic attack.

What you are talking about is "social revolutionists" "starting businesses" "garner[ing] enough support from the proletarians" you are talking about self proclaimed revolutionaries starting businesses and appealing to the workers to help these revolutionaries outcompete these bastards and somehow from then establishing "socialism". This is pretty undeniable as to what you're saying, besides since red-rhetoric.


Well you're ranting about an user in a thread which subject has nothing to do with the user itself. This is precisely what angry/frustrated people do. I don't give a fuck if you're holding any resentment against SI, but there are other, better places to sort this out than a thread about theory.

The thread has everything to do with the user - its SI's attempt at the Oh so common revleft "this is my political position" thread, that proclaims a thoroughly petty-bourgeois "program" in it. Other users have pointed out why such a program is pb, I'm merely saying the same except for the fact that I'm pointing out more precisely this is petty-bourgeoisie and the poster is giving in to pb interests. This is not something I'm doing because it's SI, this is something I do. I'm not ranting about SI, I'm "ranting" about SI's position being petty-bourgeois, for the benefit of the few (if any) who care to acutely read. I'm not seeing this updated as I write, but there are other posts in this thread and they are political, or justification of my political statements. And the statement that its pointless to engage with someone because of their inability to attempt to have well read politics is surely much less personal and much more political than SI's whining that I causer "panic attacks" and "ruin days". I don't understand why I'm that important.

I don't hold resentment against SI and I'm not angry. Am I frustrated? Yeah, things are pretty frustrating especially when your a communist. At this? No not necessarily. I do not understand how you say I'm complaining about a user when the post has nothing to do with some trait of the user, yet do the same thing with me being "angry."

if you would be so kind, please do not emotionalize my posts as anything other than communist zealotry.

[Remus Bleys]

There have historically and recently been cases of millionaires donating a shitton of money to leftist organizations

[Sinister Intents]

I love how you talk about me like I'm an idiot. Actually my idea isn't my position. My position is that of immediate revolution to destroy the state and the class system. If anything the statist approach is inherently reformist because states are bourgeois constructions

[Sabot Cat]

I'm sure your post will garner a lot more vehement responses than my own. Essentially, no it's not possible for the working class to utilise capital to 'out compete' other capitalists. Rosa Luxemburg discusses co-operatives in Reform or Revolution, dismissing the argument of Bernstein that co-operatives could gradually replace commercial capital.


Co-operatives – especially co-operatives in the field of production constitute a hybrid form in the midst of capitalism. They can be described as small units of socialised production within capitalist exchange.

But in capitalist economy exchanges dominate production. As a result of competition, the complete domination of the process of production by the interests of capital – that is, pitiless exploitation – becomes a condition for the survival of each enterprise. The domination of capital over the process of production expresses itself in the following ways. Labour is intensified. The work day is lengthened or shortened, according to the situation of the market. And, depending on the requirements of the market, labour is either employed or thrown back into the street. In other words, use is made of all methods that enable an enterprise to stand up against its competitors in the market. The workers forming a co-operative in the field of production are thus faced with the contradictory necessity of governing themselves with the utmost absolutism. They are obliged to take toward themselves the role of capitalist entrepreneur – a contradiction that accounts for the usual failure of production co-operatives which either become pure capitalist enterprises or, if the workers’ interests continue to predominate, end by dissolving.

An auxiliary point, but Rosa Luxemburg has been proven wrong here. Worker cooperatives actually have the highest rate of survival among all enterprises, which gives some grounds to suggest that when the means of production are socialized by revolution, the resulting economy won't be marked by the crises of capitalism.

[Remus Bleys]

I love how you talk about me like I'm an idiot. Actually my idea isn't my position. My position is that of immediate revolution to destroy the state and the class system. If anything the statist approach is inherently reformist because states are bourgeois constructions

If I talk to you like you're an idiot its only because of things such as saying "States are bourgeois constructs. "
You've read Capital supposedly but you think that before capitalism there were no States.
Besides, you'd have been able to come up with Camattes favorite argument that the surgical changing of the economy under dicprol is reformist, because marx called it revolutionary reformism.

[Remus Bleys]

An auxillary point, but Rosa Luxemburg has been proven wrong here. Worker cooperatives actually have the highest rate of survival among all enterprises.

And became purely capitalist by doing so. Besides where are all the big coops, why don't they run the economy? Rosa was not wtong and has been proven correct

[Sabot Cat]

And became purely capitalist by doing so.

So they weren't purely capitalist before?

And if they weren't purely capitalist, what made them less capitalist?

If what made them less capitalist is that they necessitated consensus decision-making among the workers of that business, then no, that didn't have to change for these enterprises to survive.


Besides where are all the big coops, why don't they run the economy?

Did you miss my post about how we can't out-compete the capitalists due to factors like interest, inheritance, etc.?

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

The thread has everything to do with the user - its SI's attempt at the Oh so common revleft "this is my political position" thread, that proclaims a thoroughly petty-bourgeois "program" in it. Other users have pointed out why such a program is pb, I'm merely saying the same except for the fact that I'm pointing out more precisely this is petty-bourgeoisie and the poster is giving in to pb interests. This is not something I'm doing because it's SI, this is something I do. I'm not ranting about SI, I'm "ranting" about SI's position being petty-bourgeois, for the benefit of the few (if any) who care to acutely read. I'm not seeing this updated as I write, but there are other posts in this thread and they are political, or justification of my political statements. And the statement that its pointless to engage with someone because of their inability to attempt to have well read politics is surely much less personal and much more political than SI's whining that I causer "panic attacks" and "ruin days". I don't understand why I'm that important.

I don't hold resentment against SI and I'm not angry. Am I frustrated? Yeah, things are pretty frustrating especially when your a communist. At this? No not necessarily. I do not understand how you say I'm complaining about a user when the post has nothing to do with some trait of the user, yet do the same thing with me being "angry."

if you would be so kind, please do not emotionalize my posts as anything other than communist zealotry.

I don't know BIAZED's politics that well so I can't speak for him, but what he is getting at I think is that you're wasting your breath. As you say yourself, "the poster is giving in to petty-bourgeois" interests. And why would someone do that? Obviously because the proletarian reality is not their's yet, their community of people that they interact with is petty-bourgeois and there's nothing anyone can do against that except live our own prole lives, build community and push our proletarian reality onto society.

[Remus Bleys]

So they weren't purely capitalist before? they were. I was just lifting rosa's phrasing.


And if they weren't purely capitalist, what made them less capitalist?
"Co-operatives – especially co-operatives in the field of production constitute a hybrid form in the midst of capitalism. They can be described as small units of socialised production within capitalist exchange.

But in capitalist economy exchanges dominate production. As a result of competition, the complete domination of the process of production by the interests of capital – that is, pitiless exploitation – becomes a condition for the survival of each enterprise. The domination of capital over the process of production expresses itself in the following ways. Labour is intensified. The work day is lengthened or shortened, according to the situation of the market. And, depending on the requirements of the market, labour is either employed or thrown back into the street. In other words, use is made of all methods that enable an enterprise to stand up against its competitors in the market. The workers forming a co-operative in the field of production are thus faced with the contradictory necessity of governing themselves with the utmost absolutism. They are obliged to take toward themselves the role of capitalist entrepreneur –*a contradiction that accounts for the usual failure of production co-operatives which either become pure capitalist enterprises or, if the workers’ interests continue to predominate, end by dissolving."




If what made them less capitalist is that they necessitated consensus decision-making among the workers of that business, then no, that didn't have to change for these enterprises to survive.
lol but no. Read Marx, whatever "non capitalist" traits a coop will have, will also be shared by a joint stock company.




Did you miss my post about how we can't out-compete the capitalists due to factors like interest, inheritance, etc.?
This is why the pb and the coops are doomed to failure. Kinda sad in the case of the co-ops, historically progressive in the case of the pb.

[Sabot Cat]

they were. I was just lifting rosa's phrasing.

lol but no. Read Marx, whatever "non capitalist" traits a coop will have, will also be shared by a joint stock company

This is why the pb and the coops are doomed to failure. Kinda sad in the case of the co-ops, historically progressive in the case of the pb.

So if you disagree with Rosa's basic conceit that they're somehow less capitalist, what are you debating? I merely said that these worker cooperatives do not fail at greater rates than other businesses; in fact, the converse is true, and this is without sacrificing the way Rosa saw them socialize the means of production on a small scale.

If you don't think there's anything being sacrificed in the first place, do you dispute that co-ops are a more resilient enterprise than others in general?

[Q]

Closed by request of the OP.