Recent Posts61
My exploration of Marxian Analysis / Re: NG
« Last post by Dale Eastman on August 13, 2024, 04:57:18 AM »Quote from: 11 August 09:23
Dale Eastman I'll take a look at your essay. When I say I'm a Marxist, I mean that I use a materialist analysis as my main lens to understand political processes. I observe the power relations and interests of parties involved, the system as a whole with its superstructures, and I use those observations to make predictions and guide alternatives that prevent the same kind of systemic power concentration capitalism creates. This is opposed to an idealist analysis focused on conceptions of rights that exist only in a vacuum separate from the material conditions to which they're applied. Material analysis much-better incorporates the real political relations everyone experiences.
Quote from: 11 August 09:42
Dale Eastman for a brief response:
Like I said, Marxism has evolved a lot in the better part of two centuries. Many of your responses are related to events that occurred later than Marx's analysis. Marx's overall framework (dialectical materialism) and many of his specific observations (such as the tendency of the rate of profit to fall) are still very applicable today. But that doesn't mean we can't adapt his framework. Many Marxists have expanded on Capital and applied its principles to the time since. We can make observations today about the behavior of capitalists using Marxian analysis without limiting ourselves to the information available at the time of Marx. I agree that it's important to consider that the early industrial revolution was different, but the changes that followed since then have been largely a product of class struggle, and apply unevenly in the world. Most workers still face labor conditions more similar to those during the early industrial revolution than to those in countries where workers have won concessions through class struggle. This is all a process as workers and capitalists work against each other. New approaches have been developed by capitalists to maintain control in response to worker adaptations to resist control. We can't limit ourselves to only 19th-century data, even if that's all Marx had to go off of.
Quote from: 11 August 09:52
Dale Eastman you mentioned that the capitalist does contribute to production, but the contribution you mentioned is negative. This means that the capitalist extracts, but does not contribute. This creates inefficiency. If the capitalist is removed, the economy of the system is more efficient. This is why we say capitalists have a parasitic effect.
You used your personal experience as a truck driver, noting that you made more as an employee than as an owner-operator. I think your case can be attributed to economies of scale. You called yourself a capitalist when you mentioned you were an owner. I disagree. When you owned the truck, you began operating a socialist business- that is, a business wherein you, the worker, also owned your own capital. Unless you hired your own employees and made the majority of your income by extracting from them, you were not a capitalist. Unfortunately, you were operating a socialist business in a capitalist economy. Had you organized with fellow owner-operators and reached significant scale, it may have been possible to demand better compensation than you had when you were an employee. While you may have removed the contradiction between yourself and your employer, you effectively just became a freelance contractor for other capitalists, providing them services directly. This might even reduce your overall power, while also increasing your liabilities.
Quote from: 11 August 10:07
Dale Eastman it's hard to respond to the rest of what you wrote. There are a lot of points here that need addressing. I think it would be easier if you ask some questions or review more modern Marxian analysis.
You attribute the subsistence conditions of workers to monetary policy rather than to capitalists. While I agree monetary policy has an effect, it is not the bulk of exploitation. The bulk of exploitation is done directly by capitalists. When you say government is a power system, yes, it's part of a power system. Its purpose is to assist capitalists in consolidating power. Liberal governments live in the context of the power system that created them - one in which the primary contradiction is between labor and capital. You suggest that most workers earning subsistence wages are unskilled and require education. I'd encourage you to meet migrant workers. They are often university educated, but find that manual labor jobs in imperial core countries pay more than advanced jobs in their home countries. Further, consider why so many workers are uneducated. An educated proletariat is dangerous to capital, as Reagan's advisor warned. I'd encourage you to really observe the skill and efficiency of the so-called warm bodies you mention. Not in the US, but in the world where most production happens. The US is a sliver of global capitalism. Very little labor happens here compared to the rest of the world. You need to consider Bangladesh or the Philippines or Congo in your analysis.
Quote from: RL 11 August 18:50
NG when you say, "if they were responsible for their own capital investments and retained ownership of their capital"... they could do that right now, with a worker owned cooperative. Why doesn't it happen more often? I think it relates to JS Mill's second law- that today's wages are paid with a bet on yesterday's capital. A worker is paid a wage to provide a service and they get paid even if the service they provide is towards an enterprise that is risky and doesn't pan out. Workers typically have their tools/capital provided to perform their function- they don't have to bring their own machines and capital to the job. So your posit would only work if workers had to pay a deposit to join the cooperative. Most workers work from paycheck to paycheck so don't reinvest it, "richest man in Babylon" style. That's why allowing the separation of shareholders from workers as a function is important.
I don't mind your comments in that, Marxist thinking is generally flawed but I think you've given it more thought than most, and your arguments don't rely on semantic redefinition. For that I commend you.
Quote from: 11 August 19:02
RL worker-owned cooperatives within a capitalist system remain isolated. The simple reason we don't see more of them is that workers have very limited access to capital. Socialism requires a fundamental restructuring of institutions to optimize for worker ownership, just as capitalism required a restructuring of institutions when it emerged.
Quote from: RL 11 August 19:09
NG When you say, "that workers have very limited access to capital. " What do you say those limits are, and how are they any different from an owner/entrepreneur starting a new business?105 minutes:
BTW did you catch the debate between Gene Epstein and Jacobin's Bhaskar Sunkara re socialism vs capitalism? Gene was a former socialist and suggested that worker cooperatives are actually better placed to poach talent and conduct industrial espionage than the usual stockholder corporation. The reason I believe is that they probably don't succeed is that most workers want the security and blinders of a paycheck without having to take the risks of an owner, and that hierarchy in ownership/executive is a faster decision making process than voting in a worker led cooperative.
https://soundcloud.com/reasonmag/socialism-vs-capitalism-jacobins-bhaskar-sunkara-and-economist-gene-epstein-debate