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March 28, 2024, 07:55:12 PM

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If not capitalism then what?

Started by The Boston Crab, December 06, 2019, 05:41:07 PM

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Not trolling. Just thinking that capitalism is firmly pro-globalisation. Is the alternative or absence therefore insularity and isolation? Without trade, do relationships exist between countries? In a post-capitalist world, does the economic pax Romana disintegrate?


Does Britain have anything meaningful to offer beyond banking now that manufacturing has been sold off and our natural resources are stripped to the core? Won't the banks bugger off as soon as Jezza kicks ass?


Just some questions I don't know the answers to.


Gurke and Hare

Fully Automated Luxury Communism, obviously.

Endicott

Why wouldn't socialists trade with each other? Just a question I don't know the answer to.

phantom_power

Capitalism and Socialism aren't mutually exclusive. Capitalism would be fine with some checks and balances to ensure the inherent flaws in the system are understood and compensated for. Stopping selfish, greedy pricks taking everything and thinking they somehow deserve it more than others, basically

Endicott

Here's five bags of haricot beans in exchange for some glorious state propaganda, thanks very much.

Zetetic

Quote from: The Boston Crab on December 06, 2019, 05:41:07 PM
Not trolling. Just thinking that capitalism is firmly pro-globalisation. Is the alternative or absence therefore insularity and isolation?
No, certainly as the argument is presented - denying the antecedent and all that. (I don't mention this just to be a twat, but because I think it's worth recognising the faulty logic at work here. Capitalism has often promoted globalisation, but certainly doesn't mean it's only route to globalisation.)

More helpfully, perhaps - capitalism isn't firmly pro-globalisation. There's plenty of examples to turn to where those with power-in-virtue-of-capital have sort to maintain that power by arguing for all sorts of barriers - to trade, to freedom of movement and labour for humans.  Capitalism has perhaps tended towards globalisation of a particular kind in the recent here-and-now, as a way of undermining other sources of power (e.g. democratic-ish states) and for specific reasons relating to gross discrepancies in labour costs etc. (although these in turn often depend at least in part on maintaining other national barriers).

Positive alternatives to capitalism presumably rely on some concept of a community (to hold capital in common, most obviously), and for a lot of things that community probably has to be smaller and more coherent than current entire mass of humanity. Members of a community need some way of identifying themselves and others as such, managing trust and reciprocation, and collectively coming to decisions in such a way that they feel that they can abide be (even if they don't agree with them).

This doesn't mean that there's a single level for a functioning community, or that a community can only really be about 200 people - the mechanisms for these things don't have to involve every individual knowing every other every other individual, and different issues can rely on communities of different types at different scales. We already manage fairly positive alternatives to capitalism that work moderately well much of the time, at the scale of tens and hundreds of millions of fairly diverse people. That doesn't seem very insular to me.

We probably do underestimate the necessary costs of these mechanisms - a fairly practical example would be local reporting in Britain, or national media in Wales. (And in the case of that example, a lot of the problem is that we've largely surrendered a mechanism necessary for the operation of democracy in all sorts of spheres to... capitalism.)

Cheers. That's really helpful, prompted some thoughts.

So we'll all end up killing each other I think is the gist.

chveik

Quote from: phantom_power on December 06, 2019, 06:50:53 PM
Capitalism and Socialism aren't mutually exclusive. Capitalism would be fine with some checks and balances to ensure the inherent flaws in the system are understood and compensated for. Stopping selfish, greedy pricks taking everything and thinking they somehow deserve it more than others, basically

I doubt these hypothetical measures would be enough to counteract the awfulness of the capitalism model, especially in poorer countries.

Zetetic

Quote from: The Boston Crab on December 06, 2019, 07:18:50 PM
So we'll all end up killing each other I think is the gist.
I hope there's probably a midpoint between that and a successful One World Government overnight.

I guess, practically in the short-term, any attempt even to restrain or blunt capitalism to a greater extent is likely to be born in one particular place or another, and it's going to have to be able to weather the subsequent attacks from capitalism (and the things it's intertwined with) elsewhere.

That probably does involve some sort of 'insularity'.

Sony Walkman Prophecies

Quote from: Gurke and Hare on December 06, 2019, 06:42:09 PM
Fully Automated Luxury Communism, obviously.

Almost picked that up when I saw it in Daunt. Any good?

Quote from: Zetetic on December 06, 2019, 07:28:46 PM
I hope there's probably a midpoint between that and a successful One World Government overnight.

I guess, practically in the short-term, any attempt even to restrain or blunt capitalism to a greater extent is likely to be born in one particular place or another, and it's going to have to be able to weather the subsequent attacks from capitalism (and the things it's intertwined with) elsewhere.

That probably does involve some sort of 'insularity'.

My concern is that the capitalists have a lot of weapons, both economic and militaristic. Sincerely.

Zetetic

I share that concern.

There aren't that many places that have really resisted Western capitalism for very long (and often that those that have aren't great alternatives).



Famous Mortimer

There's been so much writing on this since (and before, a bit) Marx. Have you read any of it? I feel like asking one of us to sum up hundreds of years of history and thought is a bit of a tall order.

poo


Quote from: Famous Mortimer on December 06, 2019, 08:38:21 PM
There's been so much writing on this since (and before, a bit) Marx. Have you read any of it? I feel like asking one of us to sum up hundreds of years of history and thought is a bit of a tall order.

If you wouldn't mind


oy vey

Exploring the universe seeking out strange worlds and new civilisations. Shagging three titted green skinned slags and generally acting the bollox at warp speed.

Sherringford Hovis


Shoulders?-Stomach!

I envisage automation and basic income replacing the traditional 'work and earn' dynamic for some people, which replaces dynamics of the capitalist market.

Under a decent basic income most people would not have the threat of punishment hanging over the heads for not working or for going on protests. Thus would lead to greater democracy and accountability, which would lead to governments moving more closely to address ordinary people's needs and wants.

In short there would be a transition period defined by external shocks to the capitalist dynamic (environmental, another banking crash or housing crash, new technology which reduces the market value of items to zero, etc) along with slower progressing trends like more and more humans being essentially redundant in the work required to meet global needs.

When the question about 'what will all these redundant people do and how will they survive' is confronted, basic income is usually the next step proposed, and that itself opens the doorway to a world beyond hyper-work and-earn consumerism.

The far more likely alternative is corporate fascism, cheers

Really recommend reading David Harvey. His more recent books seem to be a bit more accessible, but he seems to have been banging the drum since 1982 - the limits to capital.

Essentially capital solves the problem of faltering accumulation by moving that problem around. The golden age was facilitated in part by the opportunities for growth created by the war. Cities destroyed and a massive dent in the population made for the need for all hands to be put to work, as well as refreshing/rebuilding where the required infrastructure and technology already existed. In these conditions you have growth throughout the Western world, full employment, welfare and so on, until these things come to be challenged in the 1970s.

The problem since the 70s has been one of faltering consumption which has come about through wage suppression (via neoliberalism). Capital has solved this problem by offshoring primary and secondary industries so that it can still accumulate in developed economies.

This video is enjoyable and covers much of this kind of content: https://youtu.be/qOP2V_np2c0

It's against the backdrop of the 2008 crisis, and he had a book out around this time about the crises of capital. End of Keynesianism - offshoring, the crisis of neoliberalism - consumer debt. Obviously since then there has been the crisis of austerity, and amongst the responses are things like radical (by contemporary standards) left wing political parties/candidates building support like Corbyn and Sanders. Yet to see how that plays out.

I also understand Piketty is a good book for a similar discussion, but I've not read it.

Paul Calf

Quote from: Famous Mortimer on December 06, 2019, 08:38:21 PM
There's been so much writing on this since (and before, a bit) Marx. Have you read any of it? I feel like asking one of us to sum up hundreds of years of history and thought is a bit of a tall order.

With respect love, if you're going to work in television...

Alberon

Can't we just progress to an Iain M Banks style Culture?

Zetetic

Quote from: Shoulders?-Stomach! on December 07, 2019, 08:22:07 AM
I envisage automation and basic income replacing the traditional 'work and earn' dynamic for some people, which replaces dynamics of the capitalist market.
No, that's not what it replaces. It exchanges the labour market for something around a different type of capital (and one which people aren't born with, unlike the capacity for labour), but the something isn't clear from that alone. "Who's going to do all the work? (Robots.)" isn't the same question as "How do we decide what work the robots are going to do?"."

Quote from: Alberon on December 07, 2019, 09:25:27 AM
Can't we just progress to an Iain M Banks style Culture?

I guess "The robots will." is at least an answer of sorts to the second question, just not a very practical one for now.

Zetetic

Quote from: drummersaredeaf on December 07, 2019, 08:55:51 AM
I also understand Piketty is a good book for a similar discussion, but I've not read it.
From what I can remember of Piketty, his emphasis is that the default situation is for capital's RoI to outstrip growth - meaning growth in inequality and the concentration of capital. (Which he thinks you can start to tackle with proper wealth taxation.)

IIRC his view on the impact of the war is not just the subsequent labour shortage, but that the destruction of capital in Europe reset some the prior concentration. (But I should reread that in case I dreamt it something.)

Shoulders?-Stomach!

QuoteNo, that's not what it replaces. It exchanges the labour market for something around a different type of capital (and one which people aren't born with, unlike the capacity for labour), but the something isn't clear from that alone. "Who's going to do all the work? (Robots.)" isn't the same question as "How do we decide what work the robots are going to do?"."

Hence why my post says it replaces 'dynamics of' capitalism rather than replacing 'the entirety of capitalism'.

Zetetic

The essential "dynamic" of capitalism is that private individuals or cabals accrue capital and direct to their own ends, isn't it?

Replacing human labour with robots, or even wages with universal basic, doesn't address that in any way.
Indeed, it obviously opens up the possibility of intensifying it - at least right now, humans are born with some minimal productive means. Automation and subsidy of labour costs can rob them of even that, further concentrating capital (and observably has done in the past).

Which means the interesting question is how you change who has control over means of production when you're literally taking what little workers currently have out of their hands. (Well, sort of "literally".)

Quote from: Zetetic on December 07, 2019, 09:45:05 AM
From what I can remember of Piketty, his emphasis is that the default situation is for capital's RoI to outstrip growth - meaning growth in inequality and the concentration of capital. (Which he thinks you can start to tackle with proper wealth taxation.)

IIRC his view on the impact of the war is not just the subsequent labour shortage, but that the destruction of capital in Europe reset some the prior concentration. (But I should reread that in case I dreamt it something.)

Piketty came up a conversation in relation to the problem of consumption in Britain because of wage stagnation. Which is compatible with what you say to be his central argument. I would agree with that as a proposed solution.

I'm not an economist, but my field is multidisciplinary enough that I have to dip into it. Without being an expert, my understanding is that one of the most common and most significant arguments for the war's effect was that bombing reduced depreciation to zero. The effect being that there was a growth effect as a result of rebuilding, but also that the cost of depreciation associated with the previous capital stock was reset. I'd argue that there were opportunities for population growth too, which will have had an effect, as it allowed for some more borrowing from future productivity that comes with fiat money. Also significant was the state's willingness to listen to Keynes and spend money on the post war generation.

I was reading something this week that was arguing that this golden age of capitalism was an aberration and that we have seen normality resumed post Thatcher. Surely the next crisis is one of government spending - the neoliberals won't tax sufficiently to pay for the basics of a country to be run. It's a potentially depressing thought - even with a more labour friendly government there's nothing to say that a more balanced budget isn't going to see the UK suffer against China/India/USA where there are greater resources to make them more internationally competitive.

Gurke and Hare

Quote from: Sony Walkman Prophecies on December 06, 2019, 07:50:51 PM
Almost picked that up when I saw it in Daunt. Any good?

I've not read the book, I'm just aware of the concept. Sorry.

Shoulders?-Stomach!

QuoteReplacing human labour with robots, or even wages with universal basic, doesn't address that in any way.
Indeed, it obviously opens up the possibility of intensifying it - at least right now, humans are born with some minimal productive means. Automation and subsidy of labour costs can rob them of even that, further concentrating capital (and observably has done in the past).

The principle gift of guaranteed basic income is increased freedom, time to do the things wage slavery deprives citizens of.

That can be parenting, it could be entrepreneurship, invention, music, art.. It could and probably will be protest.

Universal Basic Income means that citizens can organise and assemble more easily and assert their demands more effectively. The money can also be - in theory - pooled to provide proxies for where people find the government severely lacking. In certain situations it will be possible to objectively refute ideological propaganda. It could be used to develop alternative news media, and lots of other things to hold government to account.

Universal Basic Income will cause democracy to flourish and increase the happiness of the average citizen, and by doing so motivate people to elect governments that do a better job of redistributing wealth into things of social benefit.