- Capitalism and Alternatives -

Continuing Gee...

Posted by: Red Deathy ( Socialist Party, UK ) on June 04, 1999 at 17:03:17:

: I have already said that if a worker saves up his value, passes it on, saves in banks & investments he may unwittingly transform from lovely worker (poor=lovely ive been told) to savage evil capital owner (rich=evil, not a belief held with you perhaps but its a laughable belief in some) who then uses what is his to invest elsewhere. he exchanges his saved value with others.

But that doesn't happen, the myth of capitalism arising from the thrift and fiscal prudence of some workers is just that, most capital is the result of robbery. Even if a worker does invest in banks, it is still invested as if an imaginary capitalist were at the helm, i.e. that investment must follow the social logic of capitalism.

:The size of the saved capital is not important the principle is.

Principle is irrelvent, I've said its not a moral issue, its a class issue, and the continuing exist of real and imaginary capitalists creates capitalism.

: A small investor who buys an empty shop, then buys all the gear and supplies and then starts selling is presumably as 'evil' as any so called tycoon and would have only been 'good' if he had done no such thing - if he had not saved at all but frittered or refused his value.

No, because the shop owner is working himself, he's petit-bourgeois, not quite up on the rungs to become a real capitalist. he's not exploiting the labour of others, per se. Its not a moral issue.

: Hence people offer something in return so that the building of a boat is made worthwhile for the builders, not decided by 50.1% votes regardless of making it worthwhile to anyone except the 50.1% (or 33.4% if its 3 prods?)

But it wouldn't go through on 50.1%, they'd need to renegitiate. If its done by votes, at least them as have no money can help ecide production, instead of them as has- democracy works for more people than plutocracy. the thing the boat builders get in return, perhaps, is a boat for themselves.

: The best way for a parent to gain is to calculate the amount they would get if the pot was filled, compare it to the amount he could get via his own effort.

Which is nothing, because he can only produce as a part of the communal effort, unless he lives on an isolated farm somewhere.

:If the amount he would get was less by potting it then he would be shooting himself in the foot - no amount of 'but its for the good of all', 'but think of the benefits of being in the community' is going to persuade him to tolerate a big inequitable difference between what he puts in and what he gets out.

No, because the link between work and rewards is cut, 'From Each According to Abilities, to Each According to needs' implies that some will recieve more than others for less work, however, you are assuming and transcendentalising the rational calculating individual, which I don't think holds true.

: Such relies on very equitable input, the lowest common denominator being the most equitable (and in state run economies the tendency).

No, I assume I will do more work than others- the parent does more work than the child, and yet will accept receiving less of the share than the child, universalise that, with everyone doing the same for their children...

: The 'community' is not a blob, some may benefit and others may
: disbenefit from the existence of the factory. I looked at capital in the first point.

But production, as we have noted, is a totality, those that may not consciously and directly perseptively benefit, may well do so anyway.

: Seriously, here is an idea - if you really find the idea of private owenrship and free trade so abhorant (and thats fine) then why not join one of the existant collectives or set up your own.

I went through all this with Barry Stoller:
1:I don't have the money to do so.
2:I rather like Lancaster, and want to go on living here.
3:I would still have to live within and trade with the capitalist system (drugs spring to mind) or alternatively, live in miserable primitive penury.
4:I would be not helping my fellow class members.
5:I would be cutting myself off from them, and unable to agitate.

Communes smell of "I'm allright-jack-ism" to me...

:b) waiting forever as a tiny minority for a global change that wont happen, are much worse.

The difference being I think it will *have* to happen.

: Compare the basket now with the one 50 yrs ago. I presume you deny the figs on this released in the UK then?

In the UK things are better, but Mexico, the US, South America, some are much worse off.

: Fascist statism.

Agreed, but I think more like a symptom of an excess of 'surplus population' and increasing restricted funds. Without teh food stamps those people would have *nothing*.

: If that explains your only possible motivation to own anything other than basic needs then dont expect it be universally true.

It even explains basic needs, not just excess. Your self is only defined in relation to an implicit gaze of an other.

:Utilitarian arguments like that are very dubious. There is no way to demonstrate that only race drivers could gain utlity from a ferrari, its a presumption

No, what use value has anyone else for a racing car? Its a matter of perceptual positions within a social/class productive system.



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