Oppressiveness Of Capitalism

[Noah]

I have heard this statement made a few times by people, it makes sense to a certain extent but I need to know the 'hows' of it...

'Capitalism will become more oppressive in the future'.

I know how it will become more oppressive but why does this happen?

[CCCPneubauten]

People know more than me about this...but there was a good picture I saw of the USA's prison system, where the whole country was pretty much comprised of dots representing prisons...I wish someone could find that, for me and you.

[Sadena Meti]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2006, 06:13 PM
I have heard this statement made a few times by people, it makes sense to a certain extent but I need to know the 'hows' of it...

'Capitalism will become more oppressive in the future'.

I know how it will become more oppressive but why does this happen?
It happens because exploitation works on a margin. Or pauperization (took me forever to spell that).

OK, so, you are a thief. You steal from a community. Because you suck out, and don’t put anything back in, they get poorer. To keep up your personal lifestyle, you have to steal more frequently now, because each raid nets you less money, because your victims have less. And then they have less, so you have to steal even more, etc. etc.

Any system that takes out more than it puts in drains the body like a vampire.



Or think of it like oil pumping. Work is easy at first, you tap the rich fields, oil just shoots out. Then the rich fields get used up, you have to tap the more difficult fields. You have to put in more work, so you have to whip the slaves harder, just to get the same amount out. Eventually, you end up with crazy schemes like the new "fire and ice" method for oil shale extraction, which will likely poison the water of anyone with a few hundred miles.


Ain't greed grand?


So, the "why" is, because the system steals from the world, there is less for the next generation of thieves to steal, so they have to be more brutal, because they will be damned if they will accept a lower lifestyle then the thieves before them. In fact, they want an even grander lifestyle.

[Whitten]

The reason capitalism becomes more oppressive is a) that the bourgeois become a more defined and seperated class, the more capital they gain (we'll make the assumption that the bourgeois gain more capital per capita than the proletariate, its a given), and so have more capital to put into gaining more. and b) because the proletariate gain less and less capital as tjings go on, leaving them less to fight back with. We call this plutocracy

[Janus]

I know how it will become more oppressive but why does this happen?
Less and less markets and slowed expansion may make the "machine" start grinding down and the situation for the people worse.

[RebelDog]

Originally posted by [email protected] 18 2006, 06:13 PM
I have heard this statement made a few times by people, it makes sense to a certain extent but I need to know the 'hows' of it...

'Capitalism will become more oppressive in the future'.

I know how it will become more oppressive but why does this happen?
If capitalism starts to lose its grip in the future then I would not put anything past the reactionary elements as regards oppression. If it overproduces (or slowing markets, same thing) it will react by large reductions in the labour force (like the depression). Lots of people out of work and pissed of with the system usually means control methods. We have seen this in the past.

Globalisation of labour markets has seen the general slow eroding of our wages and conditions worldwide. Globalisation is slowly making wages and conditions worse and state oppression is a great tool when attracting the huge international exploiters of labour to your country. Capitalist globalisation is a race to the bottom of the league and corporations don't like states that treat people well and give them freedoms, whilst they themselves demand to act with impunity.