One of Marx's theories

[A CLOCKWORK ORANGE]

Marx was right when he predicted about recurring depressions, giant firms coming to dominate the industrial scene, and workers being paid less than the value of goods among other things.

But he was wrong when he suggested capitalism would inevitably collapse. Why is that?

[which doctor]

Originally posted by A CLOCKWORK [email protected] 28 2006, 09:53 PM
But he was wrong when he suggested capitalism would inevitably collapse. Why is that?
That can't be proved to be wrong, but it can't be proved to be wrong either.

In my view the state will not wither away unless direct action is taken against it.

[A CLOCKWORK ORANGE]

Originally posted by FoB+Sep 29 2006, 03:00 AM--> (FoB @ Sep 29 2006, 03:00 AM)
A CLOCKWORK [email protected] 28 2006, 09:53 PM
But he was wrong when he suggested capitalism would inevitably collapse. Why is that?
That can't be proved to be wrong, but it can't be proved to be wrong either.

In my view the state will not wither away unless direct action is taken against it. [/b]
I see what you mean, one can say he was wrong or one can say the collapse just hasn't been bourne out yet. But remember this was said over 100 years ago. So I think he was wrong.

I think capitalism hasn't collapsed because goverments have passed some economic reforms. Marx didn't think governments could pass economic reforms because captalism was (is) completely dominated by the greed of capitalists. But some laws and reforms did pass.

[Demogorgon]

When you consider how long it took for feudalism to collapse, capitalism is still well within the time period it can be expected to still be surviving in. It certainly doesn't prove Marx wrong. If it's still showing no sign of collapse in say 250 years from now then yes he was probably wrong, but we'll cross that bridge if we get to it, eh?

[afrikaNOW]

And once you reallly think about it, feudalism didn't collapse in some areas until imperialism started exploiting them and neo-colonialism brought capitalism to them.

[Floyce White]

Marx observed the increasing amount of fixed capital in machinery, which means relatively less in labor. This makes the rate of profit go down. Marx did not realize that this tendency could be effectively countered by other business practices that make the rate of profit go up.

Even so, today's "Marx-ists" often recite nonsense about how capitalism will supposedly destroy itself, and how such a view is "scientific" and "historically determined."

[SPK]

Originally posted by A CLOCKWORK [email protected] 28 2006, 09:53 PM
Marx was right when he predicted about recurring depressions, giant firms coming to dominate the industrial scene, and workers being paid less than the value of goods among other things.

But he was wrong when he suggested capitalism would inevitably collapse. Why is that?
I'm not a good Marxologist -- I'm sure someone else will drop quotes from the man himself into this thread, demonstrating exactly what he believed and when he believed it. :D Particularly concerning his revolutionary political work.

But, historically, few Marxists worthy of the name have actually proposed that capitalism will automatically collapse solely of its own internal contradictions. Instead, the characteristics of capitalism are viewed as providing, at certain points in time, the economic conditions for political intervention to overthrow the system. In other words, capitalism provides the objective conditions: the practical, concrete, material situation out in the real world. Revolutionaries, on the other hand, must build the subjective conditions: ideological lines and political organizations that are broadly taken up by workers and oppressed peoples. Both conditions are required for the overthrow of the system.

The short-term business cycles of boom-and-bust are generated by periodic bouts of overproduction. They create downturns or recessions in which the exploitation of the working class is intensified, in an effort to maintain profit levels. Because these periods can lead to an upsurge of mass resistance, they are viewed as ripe for political intervention by revolutionaries. Longer term cycles, called Kondratieff waves, are based on technological developments (there are disputes about this) and can also create downturns with similar effects on workers. Again, the increased possibility for mass resistance is an opportunity for political intervention by revolutionaries. From an even more expansive historical vantage-point, capitalism as a whole is distinguished by a long-term falling rate of profit, which will require that the bourgeoisie continuously attempt to squeeze out further surplus-value from the working class. Again, this is the objective context for revolutionary work. It is possible from that standpoint to imagine capitalism's final day, when it will ultimately be replaced: at that point, revolutionaries had better be ready to make a move, and construct a new world on our own terms, or we will be in worse shit that we already are. :lol: (See my final note.)

Capitalism also creates sharper kinds of ruptures and events which have significant potential for political intervention, namely war. World War II saw the Communist Party in Italy (the PCI) become one of the largest resistance forces against Mussolini’s fascist regime, with tremendous legitimacy and credibility in the eyes of the people. By the end of the war, it was – arguably – possible for the PCI to overthrow the capitalist state. But the Communists there were in thrall to the USSR, and Stalin merely wanted to stabilize the global, postwar order. The PCI didn’t make a move, and the opportunity was wasted.

Revolutionaries like Lenin and Mao obviously understood that overthrowing capitalism requires decisive political intervention. Without such intervention, capitalism can, as has been demonstrated consistently over the past centuries, always pull out of a crisis, reconfiguring or rejuvenating itself if required.

(As a side note, there are some interesting neo-Marxists around the world systems theory school who do propose that, essentially, capitalism can -- in the absence of political intervention by revolutionaries -- collapse purely of its own internal contradictions. However, they do not believe that in such a situation it would be replaced by socialism or communism or a more just society. Instead, they suggest that a new economic mode of production could arise, one that is implemented by elements of the current ruling elites and that is just as bad as capitalism, if not worse. Immanuel Wallerstein is one of these prominent world systems theorists.)

[KC]

That can't be proved to be wrong, but it can't be proved to be wrong either.

It could be proven true by the collapse of capitalism.


In my view the state will not wither away unless direct action is taken against it.

The bourgeois state is destroyed. The proletarian state withers away.



I see what you mean, one can say he was wrong or one can say the collapse just hasn't been bourne out yet. But remember this was said over 100 years ago. So I think he was wrong.

I think capitalism hasn't collapsed because goverments have passed some economic reforms. Marx didn't think governments could pass economic reforms because captalism was (is) completely dominated by the greed of capitalists. But some laws and reforms did pass.

You've gotta be an idiot to think that a socio-economic system can last forever, especially one so dependent upon expansion and consolidation as capitalism. I suggest you read some of Marx's basic economic works, or you could just read Marx's Kapital for Beginners which you can find stickied in the Theory forum.


And once you reallly think about it, feudalism didn't collapse in some areas until imperialism started exploiting them and neo-colonialism brought capitalism to them.

What's your point?


Marx observed the increasing amount of fixed capital in machinery, which means relatively less in labor. This makes the rate of profit go down.

Actually it increases the tendency of the rate of profit to fall.


Even so, today's "Marx-ists" often recite nonsense about how capitalism will supposedly destroy itself, and how such a view is "scientific" and "historically determined."

This is unfortunately a well-represented belief on this board.



But, historically, few Marxists worthy of the name have actually proposed that capitalism will automatically collapse solely of its own internal contradictions.

You'd be surprised. What they don't realize is that the mode of production is based on the class struggle and not the other way around.


(As a side note, there are some interesting neo-Marxists around the world systems theory school who do propose that, essentially, capitalism can -- in the absence of political intervention by revolutionaries -- collapse purely of its own internal contradictions. However, they do not believe that in such a situation it would be replaced by socialism or communism or a more just society. Instead, they suggest that a new economic mode of production could arise, one that is implemented by elements of the current ruling elites and that is just as bad as capitalism, if not worse. Immanuel Wallerstein is one of these prominent world systems theorists.)

Wow, that's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard.

[Severian]

Originally posted by [email protected] 29 2006, 12:43 AM
But, historically, few Marxists worthy of the name have actually proposed that capitalism will automatically collapse solely of its own internal contradictions. Instead, the characteristics of capitalism are viewed as providing, at certain points in time, the economic conditions for political intervention to overthrow the system.
Exactly. Which makes it a political question: why hasn't capitalism been overthrown in more countries? Why have some revolutionary upsurges been defeated, and others victorious?

One of the most vivid examples, I think is Russia and Germany after WWI. In both, there were mass revolutionary movements of workers. In Russia, the revolution won; in Germany it was defeated.

That defeat, along with others, meant the Russian Revolution was isolated, besieged by world capitalism, in a country lacking the objective conditions for socialism. This produced the bureaucratic degeneration of the revolution.

So why was the German revolution defeated, and the Russian Revolution victorious? The objective conditions in Germany were better....but in Russia there was this thing called the Bolshevik Party. Which had broken with the reformists years before, put down solid roots in the working class, gained experience in all kinds of mass actions.

In Germany, revolutionaries had remained in the same party with reformists until WWI. The communists (Spartakusbund) were a new organization, small, only beginning to win influence. Also inexperienced and prone to mistakes.

The rest is, unfortunately, history.

[Hit The North]

So why was the German revolution defeated, and the Russian Revolution victorious? The objective conditions in Germany were better....but in Russia there was this thing called the Bolshevik Party. Which had broken with the reformists years before, put down solid roots in the working class, gained experience in all kinds of mass actions.

The 'subjective' element represented by the Bolsheviks also needs to be placed in the wider context of a weak, underdeveloped bourgeosie and the lack of a credible reformist programme amongst Russian workers, due to Tzarist absolutism. Meanwhile, in Germany there was a strong bourgeosie and, crucially, a strong reformist social democratic party with deep roots in the organised working class.

In that sense the objective conditions in Germany were less favourable for revolutionaries.

[Severian]

Some of those are subjective factors, like the strength and history of the German Social-Democratic Party.

But yeah, I should acknowledge there were some objective differences aiding the Russian Revolution too. The combination of anti-feudal and anti-capitalist revolution was powerful.

[Whitten]

I think he was right. Capitalism will collapse. The capitalists have been forced to make reforms and essentially bribe the working class with better wages and rights. Capitalism will continue to deteriorate, forcing them to pay out greater and greater amounts of profits to the proletarians, or face the massive depression that will essentially force a revolution.

[rouchambeau]

But he was wrong when he suggested capitalism would inevitably collapse. Why is that?
He wasn't.

[LoneRed]

Most people misunderstand what Marx said on this issue, there is also a famous quote somewhere that said that events aren't people exclusive and that they are history, but capitalism will fall. Sorry if Im not making too much sense, but It is true he wasn't wrong.

[Son of a Strummer]

I think what he actually said or meant most of the time was that capitalism created the objective conditions for revolution, a crucial variable remained that of the subjective revolutionary conscious of the workers.

Lest we forget he planned a future volume of his Das Kapital project to be concerned with the development of a political economy of the working class.

This has been cogently explained in Michael A. Lebowitz's "Beyond Capital."

[RebelDog]

But he was wrong when he suggested capitalism would inevitably collapse. Why is that?

How can he ever be wrong about this. Capitalism must inevitablly collapse, otherwise we would have to come to the conclusion that capitalism is a system that can somehow do what no other entity can and last forever.
An objective analysis of human history will always conclude that capitalism is but a tiny part of human history. A mere blip in the grand scheme of things. How long is human history about 2, 3 million years. How long is capitalist epoch so far, 250 years. Humans have lived for over 99% of their history without capitalism.

Capitalism is the global economic system we happen to find ourselves living in. Even some working class people think capitalism has some kind of immunity from extinction, another sign that the ruling class ideology prevails in society not reasoning.

Capitalism is a baby in terms of human history and communism hasn't even been born yet. Marx will be proved correct, give it time.

[angus_mor]

Anyone who thinks that Marx was wrong about Historical Materialism because of the dissolution of the USSR is completely naive; social classes have existed for 25,000 years, when feudalism was born. Let's do the math here. We can estimate when capitalism was born, 1776 say, when the bourgeois revolutions took place. That was 230 years ago. 25,000 - 230 = 24,770. That's a FRACTIONAL PERCENTAGE of the existence of social classes in human history. I know that capitalism has achieved many impressive expansional feats that boggle the mind; it even put a man on the moon when it was only 193 years old, feudalism didn't even have indoor plumbing! But it's definitely not done developing yet, it's barely scratched the surface, globalization hasn't even come full circle, if you're still so naive as to reconsider it.

[rev]

*whoops!* double post.

[Lenin's Law]

Originally posted by A CLOCKWORK [email protected] 29 2006, 03:19 AM
I think capitalism hasn't collapsed because goverments have passed some economic reforms. Marx didn't think governments could pass economic reforms because captalism was (is) completely dominated by the greed of capitalists. But some laws and reforms did pass.
But it's important to note why these reforms and laws were passed. They were not passed because of any benvolence of the capitalists, but because they used it as a deterrent to fend off revolution. In other words, it was the proleteriat who were the ones that made the reforms happen. Once the threat of revolution goes away, as has happened over the last 20 years or so, the capitalists will begin the process of abolishing even the tiniest of reforms that were made in years prior.

This can be vividly seen throughout nearly all of the industrial societies, most noticeably in the US where trade unions are becoming less and less powerful, and the ruling class have started to create noise about dismantling "the welfare state" in favor of transferring capital to extemely narrow sectors of society, even more so than what has been done in previous years.

In essence, we've almost come full circle to the period before WWI with social inequality reaching levels not seen since the beginning of the early 20th/late 19th century.

Reforms under capitalism are a temporary stopgag to ward off the prospect of radical changes to society, once the threat goes away, the reforms will go away and predatory capitalism will make a splendid return, this time with the mask off.

[Lenin's Law]

Originally posted by The [email protected] 4 2006, 01:30 AM

But he was wrong when he suggested capitalism would inevitably collapse. Why is that?

How can he ever be wrong about this. Capitalism must inevitablly collapse, otherwise we would have to come to the conclusion that capitalism is a system that can somehow do what no other entity can and last forever.
An objective analysis of human history will always conclude that capitalism is but a tiny part of human history. A mere blip in the grand scheme of things. How long is human history about 2, 3 million years. How long is capitalist epoch so far, 250 years. Humans have lived for over 99% of their history without capitalism.

Capitalism is the global economic system we happen to find ourselves living in. Even some working class people think capitalism has some kind of immunity from extinction, another sign that the ruling class ideology prevails in society not reasoning.

Capitalism is a baby in terms of human history and communism hasn't even been born yet. Marx will be proved correct, give it time.
Well said.

The era of capitalism will be seen from a historical standpoint like a toothpick on a mountain; but a very bloody, violent epoch in world history.

The belief that we have reached the final stage of humanity vis a vis capitalism is a completely ahistorical argument, humanity has always made great changes sooner or later, and economic systems that seemed sacrosanct have a funny way of being overturned in a blink of a historical eye.

[rev]

Anyone who thinks that a) because capitalism hasn't collapsed yet or b) because the USSR has is proof that Marx was wrong about the collapse of capitalism is just not thinking in the right terms. I wouldn't be surprised if Marx, Engles, Lenin, Trotsky, and a lot of others were of the mind that capitalism would have collapsed within some time frame- maybe 100 years from the publishing of the Communist Manifesto, etc. I'm not sure if any of them made guesses as to when it would happen. I'd be happy to say that they were wrong on those guesses if they hadn't come true, whereas other folks here might turn apologist and try to explain it.

Marx said it was all about material conditions. I think, fundamentally, that he was completely right with that. However, the material conditions for a socialist society are far away. As those who have heard me rant in the IRC channel know, I firmly believe that the material conditions for socialism [1] lie in nanotechnology and molecular assembler technology. Those unfamiliar with these ideas outside of Star Trek might assume them to be science-fiction, but they are inevitable as the coming Revolution itself. And in them, we will find the material conditions that will finally wake up the worker.

Which isn't to say that capitalism won't have a crisis or two until then...

[1] when I say socialism I mean to generally encompass various forms of left-socialism- various forms of left-anarchism, Marxism, Leninism, DeLeonism, whateverism- it's just a word I mean to describe the general idea.

[Entrails Konfetti]

What about the thought that in imperialism companies have to monopolize, and when theres the grand monopoly which runs everything-- they have to find new ways of profit by replacing workers with more machines? This will lead to more workers being set out of the job, and they must overthrow the old order.

Two things:
1. In this scenario there has to be an interaction of revolutionaries.
2. Though there are laws against monopoly, what if they have to get repealed to avoid stagnation or depression?

[Severian]

Originally posted by rev+Oct 5 2006, 12:46 PM--> (rev @ Oct 5 2006, 12:46 PM) I wouldn't be surprised if Marx, Engles, Lenin, Trotsky, and a lot of others were of the mind that capitalism would have collapsed within some time frame- maybe 100 years from the publishing of the Communist Manifesto, etc. I'm not sure if any of them made guesses as to when it would happen. [/b]
I'd encourage you and others to read the thread, 'cause this basic point's been taken up.

None of those people expected capitalism to simply collapse on its own. If you search Marx's works for the word "collapse" (google collapse site:marxists.org/archive/marx/works), he uses it only for periodic economic crises, not for the demise of capitalism.

They were revolutionaries, and knew capitalism had to be overthrown. As revolutionaries, they tended to be optimists about the prospects of revolution, and tended to think the worldwide victory of the workers' revolution was closer than it has actually turned out, yes.


Marx said it was all about material conditions.

No, he didn't. He said it was mostly about the material conditions, and that's an important difference. He said history is made by people, just not under conditions of our choosing.

To say it was "all" about material conditions is a ridiculous straw-man oversimplification of Marxism. It's obviously false; if Marx thought that he would've been as dead wrong as the bourgeois "experts" on Marxism always say.

Actually this is one of their favorite straw-man ways of trying to discredit Marxism; claiming it only recognized material conditions and material self-interest.

Unfortunately it is also promoted by some overly simplistic "Marxists"; which is part of why Marx said he was not a Marxist....


EL [email protected] 5 2006, 04:45 PM
What about the thought that in imperialism companies have to monopolize, and when theres the grand monopoly which runs everything-- they have to find new ways of profit by replacing workers with more machines?

Concentration of capital isn't going to lead to a total monopoly in the sense of one company that owns everything.

And while individual companies can become more profitable by introducing new kinds of automation - that actually reduces the profitability of capital as a whole. As Marx explained, that's why the average rate of profit tends to fall over time - profit only comes from employing workers, from the difference between our wages and the productivity of our labor.

Now that's the great problem of capitalism which is insoluble in the long run. In the short run, they can try to get out of it by 1. attacking working people, rolling back our standard of living and the democratic rights we need to defend it and 2.wars among themselves.

So there is no inevitable collapse, no totally hopeless situation for them. We still have to get it together and overthrow them.

[Entrails Konfetti]

Originally posted by [email protected] 6 2006, 01:06 AM
And while individual companies can become more profitable by introducing new kinds of automation - that actually reduces the profitability of capital as a whole. As Marx explained, that's why the average rate of profit tends to fall over time - profit only comes from employing workers, from the difference between our wages and the productivity of our labor.
Is it possible that more machines will be introduced to make jobs less labour intensive, and therby cheapen the workers labour?


Now that's the great problem of capitalism which is insoluble in the long run.
But because they can't introduce machines on the basis that they would like to, couldn't this create economic stagnation for a period?


So there is no inevitable collapse, no totally hopeless situation for them. We still have to get it together and overthrow them.
Inevitable collapse or not, these periodic fluctuations prove that capitalism is unstable-- which is good enough to propagate against it.