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Posted by: Red Deathy ( Socialist Party, UK ) on May 21, 1999 at 19:49:52:

In Reply to: or did it? posted by Gee on May 21, 1999 at 13:17:30:

: no, the federal reserve did that (want to know how?)

Can't see how, rteh depression happened here, France, Australia...etc. Fucking powerful federal reserve that one...

: Mixing private ownership with nationalist imperialism again? No wonder other people can still say Russia was communist.

Private ownership is a function of class ownership (i.e. only private people of a certain class own), teh state is a function of class repression (i.e. it serves to suppress one class on behalf of another class), as such it is the collective tool of teh owning individuals. hence why we can stalk about 'state capitalism', effectively the owning class used a state to maintain their ownership, rather than the fiction of private ownership.

: Examples are usually imperialist. if you want to mix capitalism with nationalism and imperialism to poison the first, then may we contunue poisoning communism by relating it to Stalinism?

No, we can discern a direct link between the two in a number of ways:
1:Communism has never existed, capitalism has, russia was never communist for Stalinism to be linked to communism.
2:The State is itself a function of ownership, it say 'we of this class own this area, and this set of workers.
3:Foriegn interventions often follow teh apttern of gain for certain companies- United Fruit has often bnefitted from us military action.
4:There is a distinct correlation between the economy, and the need to maintain large and secure markets.

Free trade it ain't, but then, this is competition, and without a world-state regulating trade, this is what you get.

I refer the honourable gentlman to the example of the Mafia, which was, accordng to the Dread Lord Jacobson, a fine example of Capitalism, of a particulalry Laisez Faire flavour.

Capitalists need the state to protect each other from each other, to recognise them, as wee Franky Fukuyama would say.

: Who did the throwing? Private individuals?

Nope, their state.

: What would be the difference betweent his and slavery of producer to needy?

The fact that the producers has an equal claim to a share in their produce. the fact that teh producer does it freely and without constraint.

: As above - explain or accept it as a blind assertion.

Erm, its called COmmodity fetishism- relations between people become relations between things, or we mistake them as such. Reliious and social values become subject to market forces, everything we experieence is commodified- you too can buy your own God. Poetry exists only on teh Market, as does art, nothing is held to be able infibnite exchangeablity with otehr commodities on the market- 'poofs, powders, bible Bille-doux' (pope)

: " "What freedom does a starving man have?" The answer is that starvation is a tragic human condition- perhaps more tragic than loss of freedom. That does not prevent these from being *two different things*. " (Sowell)

It does when we know that their starvation is caused not by a lack of food, but by market forces preventing them, i.e. restricting their freedom, to get it (Irish Tatty famine as the great example).

: The above cannot include a 'freedom' to demand from other the means to your personal survival.

We do, all the time, as a society, production is social, as part of that society, I demand a right to be maintained in it, and with that right comes the corresponding need to work to protect that right, and defend it for us all.


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