tales of class mobility

[peaccenicked]

Capis try to mystify class relations by pointing to class mobility. This article from the Liberal Guardian tells a different story.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/...4159931,00.html (http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4159931,00.html)

[Guest]

wow, enlightening. Not really.

Peacenicked, if you trace back your ancestry, can you honestly tell me that, relatively speaking, your ancestors where at the same or better economic situation than you are?

This is a question that most everyone on this site should ask themselves? There is class mobility, i know its a grand philosophical dissappointement for all of you, but the truth is that never in the history of this world have things been as good as they are now. True they are not perfect, but that is where the spread of capitalism comes in. We must give everyone the same opportunity to fulfill their desires, to fulfill their material needs. The only way this is done is with the meritocracy inherent in capitalism.

[El Che]

Actualy I would say more, it not so much a matter of trying to mistify class atagonisms by pointing to class mobility, as it is a matter of avoiding class issue its self. I mean pointing to class mobility is really just a clever way of avoiding the issue of its self. Yes we do live in a class society but dont forget we have class mobility! Rubbish, when there was such a thing as a slave class there was also then class mobility, some slaves where able to become free men. And did that make slavery alright? nop.

[PunkRawker677]

why cant the cappies stay in their cage???

[peaccenicked]

guest, I agree with Marx that Capitalism has brought huge benefits to mankind, but I also agree with him that capitalism moves from being a relative fetter to being an absolute fetter on the development of the productive forces. Capitalism has no potential to fulfill everyones material needs as its functioning requires endemic class division. It is not only not perfect but endemically flawed,
with inbuilt obsolesence thrown in.
It is already a moribund system which in the developed countries are dependant on imperialist expansionism to open its markets. Imperialism has no potential to help
'third'world countries and indeed is holding their real development back.
And that is not just because I say so, the evidence if you wanted to listen to it is overwhelming.

(Edited by peaccenicked at 12:09 pm on April 7, 2002)

[Guest]

youre right imperialism has no potential to help, nobody is proposing imperialism, certainly not its economic manifestation-mercantilism. We are proposing something altogether different which is proven to work, capitalism. Its success is hard to dismiss, the evidence is before you if you open your eyes.
-augusto

[El Che]

And if you open your eyes to history books instead of propaganda you will see there has never been capitalism without imperialism. Capitalism establishes relations of dominane between nations, imperialism is not only the use of force to maintain or inforce those relations.

[Guest]

If there was more egalitarian trade with the Third World then surely the U.S. and other Western Nations would not be as wealthy as they are now. THey need the Third World to exploit and fall back upon for resources. If the Third World shared equally world trade then the U.S. market would be cut severely. In capitalism for one to succeed another ultimatley needs to fail.

[peaccenicked]

Is this an argument for or against capitalism?
Looks like you have scored an own goal.

[Dan Majerle]

peace that was my post before i had signed in :)

[Greadius]

Quote: from El Che on 2:31 am on April 9, 2002
And if you open your eyes to history books instead of propaganda you will see there has never been capitalism without imperialism. You give Imperialism far too much credit for the success of capitalist nations. Specifically for the United States, where the vast majority of the wealth was always home grown because there wasn't a large amount of trade between nations...
Right now we actually have a trade deficit, which means that we actually 'loose' wealth through trading, but we still generate wealth at such a rate that the U.S. economic pie continues to grow :biggrin:

And I, too, consider imperialism in its 'traditional' form to be contrary to capitalistic goals (I'm still a little confused by this 'economic imperialism' but that is another topic). They can't buy our products if they don't have any money :biggrin:

And I'll also repeat the request for ancestory-tracing to see how many 'working class' people actually survived to the middle class, and if they did so under capitalism or 'other'
Personally, both my parents came from the working poor in Europe (including my fathers escape from Communist East Germany), and both of them are quite well off in the middle class here. They did it by working, moving up the rung of the ladder in different stages of their lives, and now live very comfortably and secure.

[peaccenicked]

Sorry Dan.
Thought it might have been a capi post.
Greadius.
Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism.
It is funny how many capitalists say that wealth is mainly homegrown but argue against isolationism.

[Greadius]

Quote: from peaccenicked on 12:12 am on May 13, 2002
Imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism.
It is funny how many capitalists say that wealth is mainly homegrown but argue against isolationism. Wealth is mainly homegrown... how else do you explain that the United States can experience economic growth at the same time we have a trade deficit? Once again, we are loosing net wealth through trade yet continue to build up our overall wealth; where is that additional wealth coming from? The blood of homegrown peasants of course :biggrin:
Imperialism is not a form of capitalism, it isn't necessary or sufficient for capitalism. Also, the concept of imperialism has existed much longer than modern capitalism; the Romans probably pioneered the wealth-extracting form a few centuries ago. Imperialism had much more to do with an aristocratic sense of resource management; I think it more closely resembled a warped form of feudalism that used capitalism as a justification.
Imperialism runs contrary to the goals of modern free trade capitalism; like I said before, they can't buy our goods if they don't have any money. Wealth is generated and spread the fastest when it is fluid; that is when the most number of people get it and exchange it for SOMETHING. The more people get access to wealth (around the world) the faster they will generate more.
Anyway, that is the modern day line coming out of those brilliant capitalist theorists about free trade. Not to mention the fact that imperialism in its traditional sense is morally contempt, but it is bad for us :biggrin:
So, I really don't see how imperialism is the 'highest' form of capitalism; it is neither capitalism nor compatible with its goals.

[peaccenicked]

Here is the reality.
"ISSUES



By Jose Maria Sison

Chairman, International Network for Philippine Studies

UC Santa Barbara, April 15-16, 2000





Friends,



Let me express warmest greetings of solidarity to you all as participants of this conference. I am glad that you are holding this conference in support of the mass action focused on the IMF-World Bank meeting in Washington, DC We must carry out resolutely and militantly the struggle against US imperialism and its instruments, the IMF, World Bank and the WTO.

I am grateful to the Revolutionary Anti-imperialist League, the Campus Labor Action Coalition, Increase the Peace Rainforest Alliance, Asian Pacific Student Union, Black Student Union, American Indian Student Association, Amnesty International, Santa Barbara Green Party and all the other organizing groups for inviting me to give some remarks on the topic of this conference.

This is important and timely, especially for the communities of color in the United States. You need to confront the oppressiveness and exploitativeness of so-called globalization and find ways of struggling against it. In this regard, as you have announced, you take up and link the human, environmental and social issues.

Globalization is a smart alecky word that the monopoly bourgeoisie, academic pedants, the bourgeois media and imperialist-funded NGOs use in order to supplant the term imperialism and pass off monopoly capitalism as “free competition” or “free market” capitalism.

US imperialism wants to make it appear as an irresistible fact of life the explosive cocktail of two contradictory aspects: the rising social character of production, particularly in the adoption of higher technology, on the one hand and the unabashed rapacity of monopoly capitalist ownership in the name of laissez faire on the other hand.

It is inherent to capitalism that when higher technology is adopted, the bourgeois owners of the means of production has to cut down the cost of labor in order to pull off the profits and counter the tendency of the rate of profit to fall with the expansion of commodity production.

The problem confronting capitalism, especially monopoly capitalism, is that cutting down the cost of labor means shrinking the market. This leads to what is called the crisis of overproduction. The bust follows the boom at the expense of the working people. It can lead to the worst, like the Great Depression, the two world wars, high military spending and wars of aggression during and after the cold war.

The adoption of higher technology for the purpose of profit-making accelerates the overconcentration and centralization of both productive and finance capital in the hands of the monopoly bourgeoisie.

Consider further the neoliberal policy shift from Keynesianism. You get the unbridled rapacity of the monopoly bourgeoisie, using the imperialist state to accelerate the delivery of public resources to the monopoly firms and banks.

Under the neoliberal dogma of “free market”, the state openly abandons its social pretenses, cuts back on the hard-won social benefits won by the working class and the people, carries out the attack on workers’ rights and on their wage and living conditions, increases the tax burden and yet grants tax exemptions to the monopoly firms and banks, fattens them up with state contracts and subsidies under various pretexts and allows them to mess up with the lives of the people and their environment.

Before Reagan adopted neoliberalism as the official ideology of the US, Keynesian state intervention used to be regarded as the caretaker of social interest and as the antidote to economic crisis and to the rise of socialism until the phenomenon of stagflation arose in the late 1960 and early 1970’s as a result of heavy military spending in the cold war and the full reconstruction of Japan and Germany, resulting in the intensification of interimperialist economic competition.

The dominant neoliberal ideology obsessively blames supposedly rising wage levels and social spending by government as the cause of inflation and as the hindrance to economic growth. The monopoly bourgeoisie insults the working class by saying in so many words that this class is a parasite or a mere beast of burden and by denying that it is the creator of social wealth. The monopoly bourgeoisie curses social spending and loves military spending and acts of aggression.

US imperialism is self-satisfied with the myth of the “free market” for drawing superprofits from the US working class, especially the much cheaper mass of recent immigrants, as well as from the oppressed peoples abroad who are made to suffer the rigors of the neocolonial and neoliberal policy of denationalization, liberalization, privatization and deregulation.

In comparison with their counterpart in the underdeveloped countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America and the retrogressive countries of the former Soviet bloc, workers in the US get far higher wages, especially in absolute amounts. These do not take into account the higher cost of living, which reduces the advantage of the workers in the US.

But the rate of exploitation in the US is also far higher if we relate the higher productivity and the huge surplus value that the monopoly bourgeoisie extracts from the values that the workers create.

The US boasts of a high rate of economic growth and a high level of unemployment in comparison to the European Union and Japan. But consider that the US has the lead in high technology and high finance and offers high profits in these areas and thus attracts direct investments from Europe and Japan. Consider further the overvaluation of assets which bloats the gross domestic product.

The so-called new economy of high-tech propelled economic growth without inflation is actually a big bubble about to burst due to the emerging overproduction of high-tech consumer goods, like computers, telecomm and software and also due to the inflation of financial assets.

The so-called high employment level in the US involves the massacre of regular jobs and replacement of these by untenured, part-time jobs. When the bubble bursts or when they simply age into retirement, the huge number of part-timers will find themselves in great trouble, with their high level of indebtedness and to the lack or dearth of social security.

The US bubble is still growing. But it is bound burst because the crisis of overproduction within the US as well as within the world capitalist system as a whole press upon it. Intensified competition among the imperialist powers and the continuous destruction of productive forces in the third world and in the retrogressive countries betrayed by modern revisionism spell the contraction of the world market for every imperialist power.

The workers of all races in the US are increasingly insecure. But the entire communities of color are in a far worse situation than the workers of white European ancestry. They are by far the worst victims of oppression and exploitation in the US. I refer to the American Indians, African Americans, the Hispanics, Asians and others.

You suffer the highest rate of exploitation and the highest proportion of joblessness, part-time work, low pay, homelessness, indebtedness and impoverishment. You have the least opportunities in jobs, education, promotion, social security and medical insurance. You have the highest proportion of those in rundown housing, in the streets and in prisons. You are the main target of cutbacks on social benefits and on affirmative action and of the aggrandizement of the giant corporations.

The US economy is built on the superexploitation of the communities of color. The surplus product is drawn from them, from the time that the African American produced the agricultural surpluses in cotton and tobacco and the Chinese coolies laid the railways, the Hispanics and Asians in agricultural, industrial and service enterprises and lately the Asian “wetbacks” of Silicon valley.

You know better than I do the concrete conditions, policies and actions by which the US oppressors and exploiters discriminate against you and impose on you far higher rates of exploitation. Special attention must be paid to the plight of the women, youth and children.

I am deeply pleased that your conference is meant to clarify the situation of the communities of color and what you can do in order to fight for your national dignity, democratic rights and justice in every respect.

I venture to say that only by arousing, organizing and mobilizing themselves can the communities of color struggle and reap the fruits of their struggle. From where I come, the Philippines, the people are waging all forms of struggle, principally armed struggle, in the new-democratic revolution, against US imperialism and the local exploiting classes of big compradors and landlords.

The imperialist monster, masquerading as “free market” globalization, has unleashed the worst forms of oppression and exploitation. It has been able to go on a rampage because of the assistance given to it by modern revisionists and reformists, causing the restoration of capitalism in socialist countries and undermining the revolutionary movements for decades. The people are now undergoing intolerable suffering but are driven to wage revolutionary struggle.

There is the common cause of struggle among the communities of color in the US and the nations of color abroad. They must stand together in unity and struggle against US imperialism."

[Greadius]

Quote: from peaccenicked on 3:22 am on May 13, 2002
Here is the reality.
By Jose Maria Sison
Reality? In that garbled mess of Communist slogans? Jose Sison started a guerilla campaign to kill people; his education is far from Economics. People who like and understand capitalism say "Capitalism and imperialism don't work"
The individual you cite, using scare tactics, rhetoric, and fuzzy information, tell us that we don't know about capitalism, and that imperialism is good for it, AND that it what we are secretly trying to do.

I tried to find out exactly what Jose Maria Sison DOES as UC Santa Barbara, but he isn't listen anywhere on their websites, neither is the International Network for Philippine Studies. It sounds like a nice name, but its pretty clear that Sison is more concerned about Communist rhetoric than objective analysis.

[peaccenicked]

All you have managed to do is make commonplace personal slurs on the writer.
Have you no substantative arguements, like one even.

[Greadius]

Quote: from peaccenicked on 5:58 am on May 13, 2002
All you have managed to do is make commonplace personal slurs on the writer.
Have you no substantative arguements, like one even. My two posts ABOVE that are the substantive arguements.
I am not patient enough to do a point by point with a third party author. You can get that by going to a third party source. What I was attacking was the authors authority and partiality on international capitalism. And the fact that he started a guerilla movement.
I could post dozens of anti-Communist articles by people who don't know about Communism, but that would be boring to read, no?

(Edited by Greadius at 6:40 am on May 13, 2002)

[El Che]

What I was trying to say, and what I continue to say, is that Imperialism is inherent to Capitalism. The extent to which a contry is Imperialist is the extent to which a contry is economicly dominante.

[Capitalist Fighter]

Yes to an extent there is imperialism in capitalism, however many people forget the Soviet Union's imperialism as well. Though not to do with corporations, it still included the forcing of its ideology and political system against nations who did not state their interest in it. This has never been more evident then after the conclusion in World War 2 when the USSR simply annexed all the defeated nations and brought them under its empire and sphere of influence.
The Chinese seem to agree with this line of thought as they themselves see two forms of imperialism, the U.S. version and the Soviet one.
Also in relation to class mobility, there was freedom for all to improve their social standard of living as evident by the following quote in 18th century France, before the revolution of "equal rights".
The line of thought of the bourgeoisie is as follows and documented by the lawyers of Nuits in Burgundy in December 1788, just 7 months before the revolution...

"The privileges of the nobility are truly their propoerty. We will respect them all the more because we are not excluded from then and can acquire them...Why, then... thinki of destroying the source of emulation which guides our labours?"

[Capitalist Fighter]

Peacennicked i hope this shed some light on the class mobility issue and proves that there was in fact class mobility centuries ago as there is now.