Anti-Capitalist Manifesto

[Matty_UK]

After a frustrating night in the pub trying in vain to explain to my politically apathetic friends that being bourgoise isn't just a case of having a job where the hard work and rare talent needed deserves extraordinarily high pay, I've been toying with the idea of writing not an anarchist or communist manifesto (I think that's potentially dogmatic) but writing an anti-capitalist manifesto that explains in laymans terms the failings of capitalism and why it has to go.

I'm thinking we could write it collectively here and now, starting with making a list of problems with it and then using our combined knowledge expand on them.

I'll start with some and if you want you can start writing about some of these points in detail:

-Capitalism's need for growth combined with the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.
-The necessity of war.
-Regular unavoidable crises causing poverty despite production happening at a normal rate.
-Reduction of potential free time through creation of unnecassary jobs to create capital.
-Increasingly centralised control of resources leading to poverty and malnutrition.
-Abolition of private property for all but the wealthy; for the vast majority their capital is owned by the bank and their homes are owned by landlords or indeed the bank.
-Get back a fraction of what you earn
-Boredom as a consequence of the prevalence of passive entertainment which is necassary in order to turn "fun" into a commodity.

[ComradeOm]

Good luck explaining the failings of capitalism without using anarchist or communist reasoning.

[KC]

See: Capital.

[which doctor]

Well, too often us leftists concentrate on capitalism as it was practiced in Marx's time. This is evident by KC's post. Kapital was a good critique of capitalism in the 1800's. We not longer live in the 1800's and we must take into account how capitalism has evolved into neo-capitalism.

Anyways, you seem to be on the right track.

[Phugebrins]

"Good luck explaining the failings of capitalism without using anarchist or communist reasoning."
I don't think that's necessarily what's intended. You can use a variety of different criticisms, anarchist, Marxist, whoever, without taking on their technical register.

"-The necessity of war."
This is a good one to break down into parts.
- War as a tool to maintain the domestic social arrangement
- Political/civil authoritarianism
- Upwards redistribution by corporate subsidies and defence procurement
- War as an imperialist tool
- Territorial control, seizing of natural resources, and/or the setting up of easily controlled governments
- Countries who defy the west (esp. through free election) suffer as an example to warn off the rest.

[Matty_UK]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2006, 09:28 PM
Well, too often us leftists concentrate on capitalism as it was practiced in Marx's time. This is evident by KC's post. Kapital was a good critique of capitalism in the 1800's. We not longer live in the 1800's and we must take into account how capitalism has evolved into neo-capitalism.

Anyways, you seem to be on the right track.
Yeah thanks that's what I was thinking, update it a bit. And Capital is too academic for most people to understand unless they have patience and there's new criticisms that people might find relevant and important; e.g. situationist ideas. And I'm pretty sure Capital doesn't mention how the bourgeoisie reacts to revolution which is relevant to explain, with regards to propaganda we should focus on the events surrounding the last capitalist collapse where we saw a world war and fascism as necassary parts in the recovery of capitalism. There's probably more stuff if anyone has any ideas.

[Eleutherios]

You should definitely have a section on how capitalism removes any semblance of democracy from the workplace.

[Severian]

This is not a bad idea. And I'm all for making communist ideas more accessible, and expressing them with less jargon.

But anybody's gonna ask you: OK, you're anti-capitalist - what are you for? You've shown capitalism is bad - but is anything better possible?

Also: it's possible to be against capitalism - but for something more reactionary. Fascists and some other radical ultrarightists also consider themselves opponents of capitalism, after all. And write stuff condemning it.

So for those two reasons, I think you do have to include something pointing in some general direction away from capitalism and towards...a more progressive alternative.

Meaningful democracy that includes political power for working people, for example.

[emokid08]

I think it's a good idea that should be taken seriously. It may be a drawn out project though if we all get involved. So maybe just doing it with those who r intrested, and then discussing it from there after a few drafts have been knocked out.

I like the basic premise though, but we especially have to make it relevent to today's War Corporatism. It also has to grab attention and have a text that is noticable, in other worsd not trite or mundane.

:marx: :engles: :hammer: :AO: :A: :redstar:

[Matty_UK]

Originally posted by [email protected] 14 2006, 06:34 AM
This is not a bad idea. And I'm all for making communist ideas more accessible, and expressing them with less jargon.

But anybody's gonna ask you: OK, you're anti-capitalist - what are you for? You've shown capitalism is bad - but is anything better possible?

Also: it's possible to be against capitalism - but for something more reactionary. Fascists and some other radical ultrarightists also consider themselves opponents of capitalism, after all. And write stuff condemning it.

So for those two reasons, I think you do have to include something pointing in some general direction away from capitalism and towards...a more progressive alternative.

Meaningful democracy that includes political power for working people, for example.
Yeah I agree, but you can't really have an explicitly anarchist or explicitly socialist outlook. Perhaps we could talk about the need to end division of labour which unifies only progressives.

[Matty_UK]

OK, over the course of tonight I'm gonna start writing about the problem of overproduction in capitalism and then I'll post it here to be improved on. In the meantime, if anyone willing to write something about the following or better yet write out a table of contents which is the first step that has to be done.

An Introduction to Capitalism

Overproduction (i'm doing this)

War Corporatism

Situationist Theory

Inevitability of Crises

Failure to distribute resources

Failure to create a sustainable ecosystem (maybe that's worded wrong but you know what I mean....anyone who knows about green issues would be useful here)

Lack of workplace democracy (is there much to say here that won't be touched on in other topics, given that this is the definition of capitalism pretty much?)

And maybe something explaining the state's relationship with capitalism? So people don't think "Oh we can just vote it out in the next election."

And something explaining why the west is so powerful and how it exploits the third world?

-------------------------

Please, any suggestions of topics to discuss or anyone volunteering to write about the above would be much appreciated.

[Matty_UK]

A key problem with capitalism is that it actually suffers from overproduction. You might have found yourself wondering when all these fantastic new technologies like GM foods and hydroponics are going to be put to full use, so then we can see an end to world hunger and a far lower cost of living. …Right? Wrong.

Capitalists require profit, and the supply-and-demand nature of capitalism means that if a product is in plentiful amounts it is sold for less and therefore there is less profit for the capitalist. So under Capitalism it will never be possible for the huge majority of us to enjoy the fruits of industrialisation and technological progress; when so much is produced that prices begin to drop, capitalists will throw away their excess production. Huge supermarket chains will destroy 30-40% of the food that is produced by their exploited workers while 800,000,000 people are chronically undernourished and countless other millions toil relentlessly just to feed their family.

And this is just 30-40% of what is produced; what could be produced if we were to make full use of our industry will without a doubt make concerns about food irrelevant. We know that hydroponics reduce the land needed to grow crops by 75% and reduce water use by 90%, and …

OK I started this but I don't know enough. I need more information on the potential of new technology to increase production if anyone has any. I would also like an explanation to why capitalists NEED to have profit? Is there any reason other than they are greedy?

If anyone can copy this out and improve it that'll be great cheers.

[anti-cappie]

just so you all know the last stage of capitalism is socialism. my prediction is that america will fall into socialism within 20 years

[r`n`l]

Originally posted by anti-[email protected] 17 2006, 01:31 AM
just so you all know the last stage of capitalism is socialism. my prediction is that america will fall into socialism within 20 years
And socialism is last stage after slavery..same shit ...socialism sets people free, don`t care what sistem was first before socialism.
Don`t you think they don`t predict everything ... they kill even they own people to preserve power they have. Like they would let socialism come to power just like that and lose everything. War against capitalism is long lost only the resistance live.

[MrDoom]

Originally posted by anti-[email protected] 17 2006, 01:31 AM
just so you all know the last stage of capitalism is socialism. my prediction is that america will fall into socialism within 20 years
Being a bit liberal with the predictions, eh? On what basis are you making these claims?

Oh, and socialism is not the last stage of capitalism. It's the very opposite of capitalism.

[Comrade Kurtz]

I'm highly interested in writing my own draft of a similar document, taking into account modern problems in the world. It needs to be written without resorting to political terms. I would completely avoid using the Marxist vocabulary.

Perhaps we should all write one based on topics we feel are relevant to the socialist's 21st century struggle and compare notes at the end of the month? How do you all feel about that idea?

[cb9's_unity]

i think you need to point out common problems like capitalisms need for a poor class and the fact that we can never raise minimum wage because every time we do the capitalists just raise prices and void the raise. things like that tend to piss people off and start them to at least think about alternatives. we should probably keep our critisisms kind of simple at fist just to get people interested
the only problem i really see with it is the fact that people have it driven into there minds that nothing else can work. there would have to be a section somewhere in this manifesto about how alternatives to capitalism can work and how most of what people know about the alternatives is mainly lies spead by the gevernment and media

[Angry Young Man]

Originally posted by [email protected] 13 2006, 01:25 PM
After a frustrating night in the pub trying in vain to explain to my politically apathetic friends that being bourgoise isn't just a case of having a job where the hard work and rare talent needed deserves extraordinarily high pay, I've been toying with the idea of writing not an anarchist or communist manifesto (I think that's potentially dogmatic) but writing an anti-capitalist manifesto that explains in laymans terms the failings of capitalism and why it has to go.


S'been done. I saw it in a bookshop in Bath but I didn't have the money so I had them keep it for a couple of days. Got money in three days time but they sent it back to the publisher cos it was closing down the next day :angry:

[The Feral Underclass]

Originally posted by Khayembii [email protected] 13 2006, 02:42 PM
See: Capital.
I don't see how telling someone to simply read "Das Capital" is a solution here. For someone who belongs to such a workercentric organisation surely you should realise how elitist that is.

People shouldn't have to trall through 1000+ pages of dense economic scripture in order to conceptualise the material problems with capitalism. I don't think there is anything wrong in simplifying Marx's anti-capitalism.

[Whitten]

Perhaps we should all write one based on topics we feel are relevant to the socialist's 21st century struggle and compare notes at the end of the month? How do you all feel about that idea?

That idea works. It would be amazingly complicated to compile this thing line by line over these boards. If we all write our own version, we can take the best bits from them, and mix some ideas arround, and compile it into a joint manifesto, and then edit the bits we feel we need to.

[Matty_UK]

Originally posted by RedStarOverYorkshire+Sep 25 2006, 11:39 AM--> (RedStarOverYorkshire @ Sep 25 2006, 11:39 AM)
[email protected] 13 2006, 01:25 PM
After a frustrating night in the pub trying in vain to explain to my politically apathetic friends that being bourgoise isn't just a case of having a job where the hard work and rare talent needed deserves extraordinarily high pay, I've been toying with the idea of writing not an anarchist or communist manifesto (I think that's potentially dogmatic) but writing an anti-capitalist manifesto that explains in laymans terms the failings of capitalism and why it has to go.


S'been done. I saw it in a bookshop in Bath but I didn't have the money so I had them keep it for a couple of days. Got money in three days time but they sent it back to the publisher cos it was closing down the next day :angry: [/b]
Could you tell me the name of it?

[Rodack]

The Capitalistic System can best be defined as 'Buy low, sell high'. I did not see anywhere in this thread about the failings of Capitalism all I read was defence of Marxism, could we at least stay focused on the topic of this thread and discuss the failings of Capitalism, Comrades?

[Comrade Kurtz]

Originally posted by [email protected] 25 2006, 03:18 PM

Perhaps we should all write one based on topics we feel are relevant to the socialist's 21st century struggle and compare notes at the end of the month? How do you all feel about that idea?

That idea works. It would be amazingly complicated to compile this thing line by line over these boards. If we all write our own version, we can take the best bits from them, and mix some ideas arround, and compile it into a joint manifesto, and then edit the bits we feel we need to.
I have something in the works, although from the looks of things it may take me more than a month.

[BurnTheOliveTree]

Point to major fuck-ups, not the every day treadmill. Everybody knows that wage slavery is shit, even apolitcals, but everybody sits on their arses about it. Point to Enron, everyone's up in arms, it's stuff like that that hits home. Anything's better than mumbling into our beards on message boards. :rolleyes:

-Alex