tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post2357230653677644495..comments2024-03-28T17:08:15.784-07:00Comments on Social Democracy for the 21st Century: A Realist Alternative to the Modern Left: Marx’s Capital, Volume 1, Chapter 10: A Critical SummaryLord Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-42813319560880371102016-05-05T12:31:42.184-07:002016-05-05T12:31:42.184-07:00"Along with the constantly diminishing number... "Along with the constantly diminishing number of the magnates of capital, who usurp and monopolise all advantages of this process of transformation, grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation;"<br /><br /><br />Did Marx ever gave any explanation for why the capitalists are, according to him, ruthless opressing bastards? <br /><br />I see all the time Marxists insulting capitalists and rich people in general saying that they amassed their wealth only because they are really bad people who made bad and unethical things against the workers, implying that their low moral character was what allowed them to accumulate wealth by ruthlessly opressing the weaker members of society, as if they were evil people because they born that way, or, at least, because they chose to be evil. <br /><br />I never understood the rationale behind that line of thinking, if there is any. But I'm really curious.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-2394294431533317192016-02-04T10:28:57.630-08:002016-02-04T10:28:57.630-08:00"Hello again, chum!"
Actually, you are c..."Hello again, chum!"<br />Actually, you are confusing the shark with the chum, chum.Ken Bhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12976919713907046171noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-6984359505765898012016-02-04T07:44:26.927-08:002016-02-04T07:44:26.927-08:00Hedlund,
(1) Your lies about my views on the iron...Hedlund,<br /><br />(1) Your lies about my views on the iron law of wages are laughable are laughable.<br /><br />Marx did indeed reject the Classical “iron law of wages” because<br /><br />(1) he rejected the wage fund theory in Classical economics and <br /><br />(2) he strongly rejected Malthusian population theory. <br /><br />So, yes, he rejected the “iron law of wages” as some kind of “law of nature” arising from (2).<br /><br />(2) however, he still held that wages would tend towards the value of labour-power: that is, the value of the value of the maintenance and reproduction of labour, with only 2 additions sometimes.<br /><br />This is very clear in Chapter 6 of vol. 1. He only adds two minor additions to the value of the maintenance and reproduction of labour:<br /><br />(1) the cost of education and training of the skilled forms of labour (Brewer 1984: 37), but this only applies to *skilled labour* and is just part of reproduction of workers, and <br /><br />(2) sometimes a “historical and moral element” which as he explains in <i>Value, Price and Profit</i> (1865) was mainly a legacy of the precapitalist national differences in standards of living.<br />---------<br />However, (2) is clearly NOT greatly above the level needed for subsistence and reproduction of workers, and capitalism tends to keep wages at minimum, and Marx even implies that capitalism tends to reduce even this. See here:<br /><br />http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2015/12/marx-on-wages-in-value-price-and-profit.html<br /><br />This is clear in Chapter 10 of vol. 1 where Marx explicitly assumes his theory that <br /><br /><i>"that labour-power is bought and sold at its value. Its value, like that of all other commodities, is determined by the working time necessary to its production. If the production of the average daily <b>means of subsistence</b> of the labourer takes up 6 hours, he must work, on the average, 6 hours every day, to produce his daily labour-power, or to reproduce the value received as the result of its sale."</i> (Marx 1906: 255).<br /><br />It is the same in Chapter 11 where wages are "the value of labour-power" which is "therefore the part of the working-day necessary for the reproduction or maintenance of that labour-power" (Marx 1906: 331).<br /><br />So the only one here who doesn't understand Marx's theory of wages is YOU, you bloody idiot.<br />Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-28164352019596469712016-02-04T02:52:53.411-08:002016-02-04T02:52:53.411-08:00(1) rising inequality over the neoliberal period o...(1) rising inequality over the neoliberal period of the last 30 years doesn't prove Marx's predictions, which involve a vast set of claims. <br /><br />You ignore the long-run trends over the last 165 years and make a hasty generalisation fallacy from a cherry-picked period.<br /><br />So inequality has been rising since the 1970s? Yes, but what about the falling inequality from the 1940s to the 1970s? Also, if working people have actually experienced soaring living standard since 1850 (which they have), why is some limited degree of inequality even a problem if this is important for incentives and paying more skilled labour?<br /><br />Prediction after prediction by Marx has been falsified by history.<br /><br />Marx thought wages would tend towards the mere value of the maintenance and reproduction of labour. This was utter nonsense even in the 19th century, as can be seen form the evidence here:<br /><br />http://socialdemocracy21stcentury.blogspot.com/2015/12/engels-on-subsistence-wages.html<br /><br />It is certainly false in the 20th century.<br /><br />Marx's prediction is that <br />under capitalism there<br /><br /><i>"grows the mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation; but with this too grows the revolt of the working-class, a class always increasing in numbers, and disciplined, united, organised by the very mechanism of the process of capitalist production itself" </i><br /><br />He made this in 1867. In the long run, it is clearly NOSNENSE.<br /><br />The working class has **not** always increased in numbers, but stabilised and there has been much social mobility from working class to middle classes. In the long run, there has been a growing middle class too.<br /><br />The notion that the "mass of misery, oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation" only ever increases is also ridiculous Marxist mythology.<br /><br />Capitalism in industrialised countries has in the long run become **less characterised** by "oppression, slavery, degradation, exploitation". E.g., union power actually rose in power from the 1880s and became very strong by the 1950s/1960s.<br /><br />Even worse, there is a vulgar historical necessary in the passage of Marx above smacking of mystical historical materialism.<br /><br />(2) <i>"And, as a worker and union rep, I can say that bosses definitively have more and more power and this is reflected in the inability of workers to resist "</i><br /><br />Based on a cheery picked 30 year period of neoliberalism which was only a contingent result of bad policy choices? <br /><br />Strange you don't talk about the 1940s to 1970s, when union power all over the Western world was quite strong.<br /><br />(3) Your mistake -- like the Austrians and libertarians -- is to assume that capitalism can be divorced from political, social and moral sensibilities of human beings. <br /><br />The true "capitalism" that you and Marx are thinking of is just an abstraction and in that purely imaginary world you can imaginary a version of capitalism where Marx's false predictions come true. <br /><br />In reality, modern capitalism in the Western world has historically bound up with the state, democracy, and people's moral ideas, and we must look to the real world, not fantasy world abstractions. <br /><br />(4) <i>"After all, if history shows anything surely it is that without social democracy capitalism does tend to the vision Marx suggested? </i><br /><br />Not at all. It would vindicate Keynes' view, not Marx's.<br /><br />The more laissez faire an economy, the more<br /><br /><i>“our actual experience … [sc. is] that we oscillate, avoiding the gravest extremes of fluctuation in employment and in prices in both directions, round an intermediate position appreciably below full employment and appreciably above the minimum employment a decline below which would endanger life.” </i><br /><br />That is a far cry form Marx's apocalyptic nonsense about socialism being inevitable.<br />Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-36570304902518524272016-02-04T01:54:45.172-08:002016-02-04T01:54:45.172-08:00"But this of course is a caricature vision of..."But this of course is a caricature vision of capitalism that has been utterly refuted by history."<br /><br />Given that exploding inequality is even being recognised by the ruling class, along with stagnating wages for most people, this seems a somewhat ironic comment.<br /><br />It reminds me of "The Economist" in 2000 which proclaimed Marx was wrong as capitalism did not produce massive class divisions while, in the very same issue, had a report on the rising inequality in the West... Opps.<br /><br />So to say rising inequality, etc. is a "caricature vision of capitalism" after the impact of 30-odd years of neo-liberalism is, to say the least, strange.<br /><br />And, as a worker and union rep, I can say that bosses definitively have more and more power and this is reflected in the inability of workers to resist -- in short, a weakening of unions and a corresponding rise in the slavery, degradation, etc. of workers.<br /><br />Simply put, the class struggle is still on-going and the ruling class is winning -- and that has seen a rise in inequality, serfdom, exploitation, etc. of most workers.<br /><br />In terms of workers receiving less and less of the value they produce, well, that is right as shown by history (the last 30 odd years). Marx should be faulted for pretending that he was the first to work out how this happened (by wage-labour, as previous socialists like Proudhon had seen).<br /><br />Finally, given you are a social democrat, I would have assumed you would have seen the validity of Marx's prediction but argued that only by electing social democratic government could this tendency be combated and a better society produced. Unfortunately, your comments seem to suggest that when left alone capitalism would not produce the outcomes Marx predicted... <br /><br />After all, if history shows anything surely it is that without social democracy capitalism does tend to the vision Marx suggested? Or is it the case that social democracy has absolutely no impact on capitalism as a system?<br /><br />Iain<br />An Anarchist FAQ<br />http://www.anarchistfaq.orgAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-25892651494752835502016-02-03T08:32:19.242-08:002016-02-03T08:32:19.242-08:00Hello again, chum!
If anything, the historical te...Hello again, chum!<br /><br /><i>If anything, the historical tendency of capitalism is ... (1) to dispense with human labour as much as possible and rely on machines, a process which reduces the need for human labour</i><br /><br />On its face, this is actually a sensible thing to point out. However, think about it temporally: such means are employed to grow the business, and with expansion comes greater demand for labor. Unemployment tends to fall over the expansion phase of the business cycle, and the total mass of variable capital grows in turn — albeit not nearly so fast as constant capital, due in part to the tendency you identify.<br /><br /><i>(2) reduce the working day to shorter and shorter period.</i><br /><br />Labor hours have been shortened a number of times, but to attribute this to some tendential benevolence of the capitalist class erases pretty much the <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Our-Own-Time-American-Haymarket/dp/0860919633" rel="nofollow">entire history of the labor movement</a>. People were willing to — and in some cases did — die for the 40-hour work week.<br /><br />Anyway, if the structural tendency of the capitalist class were to reduce hours, one would think we'd be well below 40 hours by now, given the enormous increase in productivity since 1937. Instead, numerous articles have appeared in popular media in the last few years alone on "the death of the 40-hour work week," describing how working increasing hours is the "new normal." <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/175286/hour-workweek-actually-longer-seven-hours.aspx" rel="nofollow">According to Gallup</a>, for example, salaried workers in the US average 49-hour weeks.Hedlundnoreply@blogger.com