- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Production.

Posted by: borg on November 30, 1999 at 13:44:27:

In Reply to: The unearned share of WHAT? posted by Stoller on November 29, 1999 at 12:08:08:

:
: : : Presently the only way a worker can 'own stock' is by selling his / her labor-power---which generally fetches only enough to keep labor-power maintained (according to socially determined historical needs). A pyramid scheme prevents 'everyone owning stock' in the capitalist paradigm---just as it prevents everyone from becoming a boss.

: : No. It allows everyone an opportunity to work where and in the manner they chose or own stock.

: That's like saying everyone has an opportunity to win the lottery today. We all KNOW that lotteries are set up so MOST EVERYONE loses!

Straw man. Man does not live by lottery alone.

: : : The capitalist mode of production---with its rationalization, automation, and incredible productivity---IS capable of freeing people from drudgery. Only the PROFITS of the minority prevents this from happening.

: : You got it backwards. Profits are the fuel of this capitalist engine and its incredible productivity.

: No---you are NOT catching the dialectical materialism idea at all.

Diabolical maternalism, smernalism. You should study capitalist marketing techniques if you want to grab the imagination of the proles. Y'ain't even close.

: The mode of production (industrialization, rationalization, automation) creates the productivity; the social relations attached to it, in many cases, simply holds back productivity.

"the social relations attached to it, in many cases, simply holds back productivity."?

What does that mean?

The lure of riches precedes and drives the mode
of production. It even follows it thru the distribution
channels. The feedback from the latter results in more, less or
zero production.

: (Remember how Xerox sat on their computer R & D for ten years?)

Last I heard, Xerox computers were going the way of the Edsel.
So...what's the point?

: Anyway: Profits are not productivity. The LABOR of millions of workers (paid LESS than what they produce) creates productivity. And they seem to be PLENTY productive without profits!

So they go home everyday without a profit, living hand to mouth?

"We Americans are an unprincipled nation, when you come
down to it. Not that we're bad or anything. It's just that it's
hard for us to pay attention to abstract matters when we have
so many concrete matters -- cellular phones, ski boats, salad
shooters, trail bikes, StairMasters, snow boards, pasta-
making machines, four-door sport utility vehicles,
palmcorders, rollerblade skates and CD players for our cars --
to occupy us. No wonder all the great intellectual concepts
such as monotheism and using the zero in arithmetic come
from pastoral societies where herdsmen sit around all night
with nothing to do except think things up. (Though it is a
wonder more cosmologies aren't founded on screwing
sheep. )" Parliament of Whores, P. J. O'Rourke

: : And what of the spoils of govt....

: Straw man.

: Who says I'm defending THIS government?

Good trick...not defending a straw man.

: _______________

: BTW, was your title question in this post at all?

Yea. It was in the part you snipped regarding the better than 50% of The Profits taken by the state from the producers without their
consent
, i.e. the unearned share of production.


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