Capitalism "working"?

[Kieranbob]

OK wasn't too sure where to put this thread but here seems good.

I was talking to my cappie friend the other day and she was trying to figure out why i have commie tendencies if models such as USSR, Vietnam, China, N. Korea and cuba had failed so badly.

Which got me thinking, she can hardly claim that capitalism is working so well where there are billionaires on one hand and billions of people starving on the other. If war and famine happen when capitalism is working, whats happening when its not?

just wanted to know if there were any other comebacks people have against this argument?

The other thing i was wondering about was that we all know that facists and racists scapegoat ethnic minorities, whereas we always blame capitalists for everything. Was just wondering if our scapegoats are the capitalists but is it just a bit short-sighted blaming everything on the cappies thinking "it will be all better once they have gone"?

[Fawkes]

http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=25500&st=0


Was just wondering if our scapegoats are the capitalists but is it just a bit short-sighted blaming everything on the cappies thinking "it will be all better once they have gone"?

Only a very naive person would blame all of society's problems on capitalism and capitalists. Sexism existed long before capitalism did, as has many other things we consider to be very bad about the current manner in which the world operates.

[redcannon]

i can't believe the person you arguing this with considers those countries you named as communist. they might be interested to know that there has never been a communist country in existence. read the forum more learn the theories behind these leftist approaches to society, and you'll find that USSR, China, Vietnam, etc. never even came close, especially china.

Note on China: child labour and worker exploitation as well as class division are some of the worst problems in china today, all because of capitalism and the rudementary free marker in place there

[bezdomni]

Capitalism is "working" in the same sense that a person who has just jumped off of a cliff is flying.

[KC]

If capitalism didn't "work" then it wouldn't exist.

[Fawkes]

they can only be abolished with the abolition of capitalist rule.
Well, yes, I know that, but I was merely stating that they would also not automatically go away along with capitalism and that other measures would be needed to combat such things.

[Whitten]

Originally posted by [email protected] 15, 2007 07:47 pm

they can only be abolished with the abolition of capitalist rule.
Well, yes, I know that, but I was merely stating that they would also not automatically go away along with capitalism and that other measures would be needed to combat such things.
Why? What causes these things? In a system of material equality there will be no material causes for widespread racism or sexism.

[Fawkes]

Originally posted by Whitten+May 15, 2007 03:48 pm--> (Whitten @ May 15, 2007 03:48 pm)
[email protected] 15, 2007 07:47 pm

they can only be abolished with the abolition of capitalist rule.
Well, yes, I know that, but I was merely stating that they would also not automatically go away along with capitalism and that other measures would be needed to combat such things.
Why? What causes these things? In a system of material equality there will be no material causes for widespread racism or sexism. [/b]
But people still may hold onto their own personal beliefs on issues from the time that they lived in a capitalist society during and after the revolution.

[Raúl Duke]

Well, sexism and racism didn't come from capitalism but came from class society.

Since communism has no class these things would have either: A)begin to decline in communism, in this case we should use measures to speed up this decline. or B) Already be in decline/gone, since possibly "class consciousness" can't be achieved with such divisive issues.

There has never been established communism in this world.....yet.

Most would say why those socialist (or "stamocap") countries ended up that way was because of material conditions. However, they would describe different kinds of conditions: like, none of those countries were in industrial capitalism yet, the civil war resulted in saving the revolution "by killing the revolution", etc.

When I read the title of this I though it was about the collapsist theory about capitalism: the idea that there would be a point in which "the rate of profits" (or something like that in Capital) would decline and cause the big recession/crash that might lead to revolution (since the material conditions would be favorable for it.)

[bezdomni]

Originally posted by Zampanò@May 15, 2007 03:28 am
If capitalism didn't "work" then it wouldn't exist.
My point that it can only "work" for so long...not that it doesn't work to begin with.

[KC]

Ah, I thought your analogy was saying that it wasn't working.

[More Fire for the People]

I was talking to my cappie friend the other day and she was trying to figure out why i have commie tendencies if models such as USSR, Vietnam, China, N. Korea and cuba had failed so badly.
These 'models' are nothing but cases of state-capitalism. However, it would be foolish to dismiss each and every one of these as mere state-capitalists and go on to create a new model from thin air. The complexity of the situation of the USSR, China, & Cuba must be deconstructed and its inner parts be revealed. By knowing the historical threads woven into history we can understand what went 'wrong' and what we got 'right'.


Which got me thinking, she can hardly claim that capitalism is working so well where there are billionaires on one hand and billions of people starving on the other. If war and famine happen when capitalism is working, whats happening when its not?
As the power of capital transcends national boundaries and hence governmental powers the ability of the capitalist class to coordinate its mode of production through ideology weakens. In place of the century of soft-handed social democracy in the West is coming impending economic crises of the breakdown of capitalist social fabric and growing ecological destruction.


The other thing i was wondering about was that we all know that facists and racists scapegoat ethnic minorities, whereas we always blame capitalists for everything. Was just wondering if our scapegoats are the capitalists but is it just a bit short-sighted blaming everything on the cappies thinking "it will be all better once they have gone"?
I think it is short-sighted to describe every action of the capitalists as a conscious and historically determined action. (Gramsci (http://www.marxists.org/archive/gramsci/prison_notebooks/reader/q07-24.htm))