tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post2952324930241643509..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 16: A Critical SummaryLord Keyneshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-13509252065918279562016-03-31T07:31:42.113-07:002016-03-31T07:31:42.113-07:00Is that how you define "capitalist"? I&...Is that how you define "capitalist"? I'm not sure how you came by that definition but I suppose to each his own, and I'm sure it suffices for your own theorizing. But you need to recognize how Marx defines the word -- on the basis of the capitalist social relations, i.e. the sale and purchase of labor for wages. If you're going to criticize someone, you can't rely on equivocation; only immanent critiques can truly demolish a theory, and for that you have to work from within their system. This is the same tip I've been giving you for a year, btw. I'm mentioning it for posterity more than out of any misguided hope that you'll take it.<br /><br />Anyway, (1) and (2) are both conditions of commodity exchange in general, which predates capitalism. In (2), the money "profits" of independent producers are just the realized value of their product, minus costs. The source of this revenue is thus qualitatively distinct from the hiring of others to work for less than the value of their product.<br /><br />A society without wage labor may have markets, but "capitalist" society is something that emerged much later in history. Similarly, the money-lending you describe in (3) also long predated capitalism. None of these are, in and of themselves, what distinguish our system, under which the vast majority of people sell their labor to live.<br /><br />Now, which part of the above is "absurd"?<br /><br />Also, please do elaborate more on "insane." I really value and cherish your opinion, seeing as you are an unassailable expert on every topic you see fit to discuss, including (I assume) mental health.Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-31831573733449740502016-03-31T07:11:51.501-07:002016-03-31T07:11:51.501-07:00"Not true, comrade. As capitalism has develop..."Not true, comrade. As capitalism has developed, the middle class has grown and the number of poor proletarians has fallen."<br /><br />Globally? Not at all. In the first world, sure, but I'm sure you'll agree that the middle class has been coming under fire in the past few decades.<br /><br />"Cut up into two persons? Is that the best that Marxist theory can do to salvage it credibility?"<br /><br />What's wrong with it? If you have half of your income coming from property and half of your income from wages, then the policies that you would support to bolster the former will more often than not conflict with the those favoring the latter. This seems pretty intuitive to me.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-33229817604583946422016-03-24T00:52:29.130-07:002016-03-24T00:52:29.130-07:00An article from the Economist on the burgeoning bo...An article from the Economist on the <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/13063298" rel="nofollow">burgeoning bourgeoisie</a>Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-86557155071426598662016-03-24T00:40:04.684-07:002016-03-24T00:40:04.684-07:00Your link merely illustrates the absurdities of Ma...Your link merely illustrates the absurdities of Marxist theory and, more importantly, the failure of its predictions.<br /><br />Quote No.1<br /><br />"Thus, as capitalist society develops, it becomes increasingly polarised into two basic classes -- wealthy bourgeois and poor proletarians:"<br /><br />Not true, comrade. As capitalism has developed, the middle class has grown and the number of poor proletarians has fallen. The proportion of the workforce who directly (or indirectly through pension savings) own company shares has never been higher.<br /><br />Quote No. 2<br /><br />Thus, the 'independent' petty bourgeois producer "... is cut up into two persons. As owner of the means of production he is a capitalist; as a labourer he is his own wage-labourer" <br /><br />Cut up into two persons? Is that the best that Marxist theory can do to salvage it credibility? One person is actually two people who belong to different classes struggling against each other! Stop wasting our time with this rubbish. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-24809337387750990092016-03-23T11:43:49.441-07:002016-03-23T11:43:49.441-07:00A hotel is no different than any other business, c...A hotel is no different than any other business, correct, Mr. Hotelier. But no, employee-shareholders don't "make a nonsense" of anything; people with income both from ownership and labor are not at all absent from Marxian analysis. If you'd taken even a moment to google it, you'd know that. In fact, here, let's condense those 20 or so keystrokes into a single click by <a href="http://www.mltranslations.org/Britain/Marxclass.htm" rel="nofollow">linking you a summary</a>. Voila.<br /><br />This is what kills me about online debate. Everyone's in such a damn rush to declare themselves Winner that any sense of curiosity or epistemic humility goes straight out the window. Please do your homework.Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-79022584670899548482016-03-23T09:24:33.050-07:002016-03-23T09:24:33.050-07:00Modern economics, as opposed to Marxist claptrap, ...Modern economics, as opposed to Marxist claptrap, recognises that an hotel is no different, in principle, from any other economic asset that generates an income for the owner. Large hotel chains, of course, are quoted on the Stock Exchange, and the shares issued by Intercontinental Group are not a different class of investment from the shares issued by BP or Exxon. Many shareholders, indeed, are also employees, which makes a nonsense of Marx's class distinctions. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-86488462229776247512016-03-23T06:24:37.534-07:002016-03-23T06:24:37.534-07:00"Summarizing: They're neither; they'r...<i>"Summarizing: They're neither; they're not productive (they don't exchange their labor for "money as capital,""</i><br /><br />Further proof of the absurd and stupid hole in Marxist theory.<br /><br />Essentially in this bizarro world theory all small business people or self-employed tradesmen who own, run and work in their own business (not employing anyone else) are not even capitalist, even though:<br /><br />(1) they privately own capital goods and produce services/goods that they sell privately<br /><br />(2) they produce money profits<br /><br />(3) they can engage private sector investment.<br />-------<br />No doubt years of living in an insane communist cult make Hedlund and people like him blind to the absurdities of their own theory.<br />Lord Keyneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06556863604205200159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-40694703940337142382016-03-23T05:49:14.848-07:002016-03-23T05:49:14.848-07:00"The owners of small hotels," assuming t..."The owners of small hotels," assuming they hire employees, are not the sort of people under discussion above. If they do not, then the fact that they find themselves in competition with capitalists is irrelevant; we're discussing the relations and conditions of production, not exchange. And the exact legal fiction employed, as in your final example, does not alter one's real relationship to the means of production, which is how Marx delimits class.<br /><br />Incidentally, there's something rather familiar in your haughty and condescending tone. You been hanging around here long?Hedlundnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-45795103315784180412016-03-23T03:17:22.638-07:002016-03-23T03:17:22.638-07:00"They're using an entirely separate mode ..."They're using an entirely separate mode of production, and labor conducted outside the capitalist mode of production cannot be analyzed in the same terms."<br /><br />The idea that the self-employed are outside the capitalist mode of production is laughable. Many of them own significant business assets, such as the owners of small hotels. All of them compete for customers in the market. Some of them, indeed, incorporate for tax reasons, becoming employees of companies which they themselves own. The distinction between "capitalist" and 'worker' is irrelevant to them, as they are both. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6245381193993153721.post-43373869566296014472016-03-22T09:30:48.790-07:002016-03-22T09:30:48.790-07:00Marx’s example of a school run for profit as a cap...<i>Marx’s example of a school run for profit as a capitalist enterprise implies that he accepts that service industries producing non-tangible goods are capitalist businesses, but what of self-employed and managed business people producing services? </i><br /><br />This has been answered for you already. See, e.g., <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1864/economic/ch02b.htm" rel="nofollow">this</a> or <a href="http://personal.lse.ac.uk/goughi/Gough%20NLR%2076.pdf" rel="nofollow">this</a>. Again.<br /><br />Summarizing: They're neither; they're not productive (they don't exchange their labor for "money as capital," and they don't produce surplus value), but they're also not unproductive (they don't exchange their labor for "money as money").<br /><br />The theoretical distinction between "productive" and "unproductive" wage-labor in Marx refers specifically to that: wage-labor. Independent commodity producers don't sell their labor, and so they're altogether apart from these considerations. They're using an entirely separate mode of production, and labor conducted outside the capitalist mode of production cannot be analyzed in the same terms.<br /><br />In day-to-day parlance, many might call labor any labor with social utility to be "productive." In Marx's terms, such would be termed "useful" labor (i.e., productive of use-value, whether as good or service), but productivity is an altogether separate matter from the perspective of capital. So, it's important to pay close attention to these distinctions.Hedlundnoreply@blogger.com