Capitalism: Difference between revisions
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https://is.muni.cz/el/fss/jaro2017/SAN106/_Sidney_W._Mintz__Sweetness_and_Power.pdf | https://is.muni.cz/el/fss/jaro2017/SAN106/_Sidney_W._Mintz__Sweetness_and_Power.pdf | ||
= Climate Collapse = | = Climate Collapse = | ||
Revision as of 21:12, 10 June 2023
Malcolm X on Capitalism: "It is impossible for capitalism to survive, primarily because the system of capitalism needs some blood to suck. Capitalism used to be like an eagle, but now it’s more like a vulture. It used to be strong enough to go and suck anybody’s blood whether they were strong or not. But now it has become more cowardly, like the vulture, and it can only suck the blood of the helpless. As the nations of the world free themselves, then capitalism has less victims, less to suck, and it becomes weaker and weaker. It’s only a matter of time in my opinion before it will collapse completely."[1]
Summary
Characteristics
Continual Growth
Karl Marx wrote: "Except as personified capital, the capitalist has no historical value, and no right to that historical existence, which, to use an expression of the witty Lichnowsky, “hasn’t got no date.” And so far only is the necessity for his own transitory existence implied in the transitory necessity for the capitalist mode of production. But, so far as he is personified capital, it is not values in use and the enjoyment of them, but exchange-value and its augmentation, that spur him into action. Fanatically bent on making value expand itself, he ruthlessly forces the human race to produce for production’s sake; he thus forces the development of the productive powers of society, and creates those material conditions, which alone can form the real basis of a higher form of society, a society in which the full and free development of every individual forms the ruling principle. Only as personified capital is the capitalist respectable. As such, he shares with the miser the passion for wealth as wealth. But that which in the miser is a mere idiosyncrasy, is, in the capitalist, the effect of the social mechanism, of which he is but one of the wheels. Moreover, the development of capitalist production makes it constantly necessary to keep increasing the amount of the capital laid out in a given industrial undertaking, and competition makes the immanent laws of capitalist production to be felt by each individual capitalist, as external coercive laws. It compels him to keep constantly extending his capital, in order to preserve it, but extend it he cannot, except by means of progressive accumulation."[2]
Alienation
"How Capitalism Causes Loneliness" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BwQCnltp9lo)
"We have seen that the growing accumulation of capital implies its growing concentration. Thus grows the power of capital, the alienation of the conditions of social production personified in the capitalist from the real producers. Capital comes more and more to the fore as a social power, whose agent is the capitalist. This social power no longer stands in any possible relation to that which the labour of a single individual can create. It becomes an alienated, independent, social power, which stands opposed to society as an object, and as an object that is the capitalist's source of power."[3]
Exploitation
In reality, Marx thought, workers’ labor under capitalism is neither truly voluntary nor entirely for the benefit of the workers themselves. It is not truly voluntary because workers are forced by their lack of ownership of the means of production to sell their labor power to capitalists or else starve. And workers are not laboring entirely for their own benefit because capitalists use their privileged position to exploit workers, appropriating for themselves some of the value created by workers’ labor.
To understand Marx’s charge of exploitation, it is first necessary to understand Marx’s analysis of market prices, which he largely inherited from earlier classical economists such as Adam Smith and David Ricardo. Under capitalism, Marx argued, workers’ labor power is treated as a commodity. And because Marx subscribed to a labor theory of value, this means that just like any other commodity such as butter or corn, the price (or wage) of labor power is determined by its cost of production—specifically, by the quantity of socially necessary labor required to produce it. The cost of producing labor power is the value or labor-cost required for the conservation and reproduction of a worker’s labor power. In other words, Marx thought that workers under capitalism will therefore be paid just enough to cover the bare necessities of living. They will be paid subsistence wages.
But while labor power is just like any other commodity in terms of how its price is determined, it is unique in one very importance respect. Labor, and labor alone, according to Marx, has the capacity to produce value beyond that which is necessary for its own reproduction. In other words, the value that goes into the commodities that sustain a worker for a twelve-hour work day is less than the value of the commodities that worker can produce during those twelve hours. This difference between the value a worker produces in a given period of time and the value of the consumption goods necessary to sustain the worker for that period is what Marx called surplus value.
According to Marx, then, it is as though the worker’s day is split into two parts. During the first part, the laborer works for himself, producing commodities the value of which is equal to the value of the wages he receives. During the second part, the laborer works for the capitalist, producing surplus value for the capitalist for which he receives no equivalent wages. During this second part of the day, the laborer’s work is, in effect, unpaid, in precisely the same way (though not as visibly) as a feudal serf’s corvée is unpaid (Marx 1867).
Capitalist exploitation thus consists in the forced appropriation by capitalists of the surplus value produced by workers. Workers under capitalism are compelled by their lack of ownership of the means of production to sell their labor power to capitalists for less than the full value of the goods they produce. Capitalists, in turn, need not produce anything themselves but are able to live instead off the productive energies of workers. And the surplus value that capitalists are thereby able to appropriate from workers becomes the source of capitalist profit, thereby “strengthening that very power whose slave it is” (Marx 1847: 40)[4]
Centralization of Wealth
Competition
"Competition is the completest expression of the battle of all against all which rules in modern civil society. This battle, a battle for life, for existence, for everything, in case of need a battle of life and death, is fought not between the different classes of society only, but also between the individual members of these classes. Each is in the way of the other, and each seeks to crowd out all who are in his way, and to put himself in their place. The workers are in constant competition among themselves as are the members of the bourgeoisie among themselves. The power-loom weaver is in competition with the hand-loom weaver, the unemployed or ill-paid hand-loom weaver with him who has work or is better paid, each trying to supplant the other. But this competition of the workers among themselves is the worst side of the present state of things in its effect upon the worker, the sharpest weapon against the proletariat in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Hence the effort of the workers to nullify this competition by associations, hence the hatred of the bourgeoisie towards these associations, and its triumph in every defeat which befalls them."[5]
Usury
"Usury abridges the general formula for capital (M-C-M' or buying a commodity-C with money-M in order to sell it for more money-M). The usurer reduces this formula into its purest form: M-M': 'money which is worth more money, value which is greater than itself' (Marx, Capital 257)."[6]
Karl Marx referred to Usury as "the original starting-point of capital," "the perversion and objectification of production relations in their highest degree," and "mystification of capital in its most flagrant form."[7]
Origins of Capitalism
https://sci-hub.ru/https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03066150008438748
https://www.cooperative-individualism.org/wood-ellen_agrarian-origins-of-capitalism-1998-jul-aug.pdf
Slavery and Capitalism
https://sci-hub.ru/https://muse.jhu.edu/article/580865/summary
https://www.jstor.org/stable/650442?casa_token=cpO5UM1ZcTkAAAAA%3AUxnyT-gW4_IbZoMbeDjBFh0k6qSjvYBeRd2kbvjaoHRqZAQNOR2NN8tSH3lX2kFbFtiX7NzIxg1lVP_JRFMdZc1ZS4f371TVlzkTs06rqGSUmyFu5EvN
Sugar
Sugar cane was first carried to the New World by Columbus on his second voyage, in 1493; he brought it there from the Spanish Canary Islands. Cane was first grown in the New World in Spanish Santo Domingo; it was from that point that sugar was first shipped back to Europe, beginning around 1516. Santo Domingo's pristine sugar industry was worked by enslaved Africans, the first slaves having been imported there soon after the sugar cane. Hence it was Spain that pioneered sugar cane, sugar making, African slave labor, and the plantation form in the Americas. Some scholars agree with Fernando Ortiz that these plantations were "the favored child of capitalism," and other historians quarrel with this assessment. But even if Spain's achievements in sugar production did not rival those of the Portuguese until centuries later, their pioneering nature has never been in doubt...[8]
Coffee
https://is.muni.cz/el/fss/jaro2017/SAN106/_Sidney_W._Mintz__Sweetness_and_Power.pdf
Climate Collapse
Many authors, publications, scientists etc. have made the connection between capitalism/ unfettered economic growth and Climate Collapse. [9][10] Capitalism is predicated around endless growth and consumption[11] and these processes are causing a disruption in the Earth's natural Equilibrium[12] through the extraction of resources[13], land-use change[14] and burning of fossil fuels.[15]
"Why Capitalism is Killing Us (And The Planet)": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qxP2TzYcNw
"Arundhati Roy: Capitalism Is “A Form of Religion” Stopping Solutions to Climate Change & Inequality": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UyCkFoSIwWg
"Capitalism Is Destroying Us - The New Climate Report": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvRtNGW9Ajk
"How Capitalism Exploits Natural Disasters": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qSl6OSx3Y-8
Terracide
https://climateandcapitalism.com/2013/05/23/terracide-destroying-the-planet-for-profit/
Industrial Agriculture
Mono-cultures
Biodiversity Loss
Continual growth drives industrial expansion and accelerates communications and trade dynamics, resulting in overconsumption of materials and energy, conversion of large portions of land for human use, and an unsustainable increase in waste and emissions. Consumption and production patterns that fuel growth are responsible for the environmental degradation in the Anthropocene and have led to large increases in greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and climate change, a profound transformation of the planet, and huge negative impacts on biodiversity. Biodiversity loss and climate change are closely interconnected; they share common drivers (human activities) and have predominantly negative impacts on human well-being and quality of life.[16]
Although science and governmental policies have long strived for biological diversity protection, biodiversity has continuously declined. Ecosystems are deteriorating at unprecedented rates and approximately 1 million species are in danger of extinction. The last UN report, Global Biodiversity Outlook 5, concludes that, as in the case of the 2010 biodiversity targets, the 2020 Aichi Targets have not been met. The spiraling biodiversity loss will have multiple and multidimensional cascading effects that will lead to drastic changes in ecosystems dynamics and functioning. The growth-driven biodiversity collapse over the past century is causing the loss of ecological interactions, functions, redundancy, codependencies, structural complexity, and mechanisms of resilience that characterize natural systems. The COVID-19 crisis not only demonstrates the fragility of a socioeconomic system unaligned with nature, but also has resulted in the shutdown of conservation programs reliant on ecotourism for funding, which will affect biodiversity protection. This is strong evidence of the dependence of conservation funding on economic growth.[17]
Greenwashing
Regenerative Capitalism
In 2015, Former JP Morgan Chase Managing Director & President of the Capital Institute John Fullerton published the book "Regenerative Capitalism." At the ReGenFriends™ Summit in 2019, Fullerton was one of three speakers most prominently featured.[18] There, he proclaimed that "the Capital Institute has been at the forefront of regenerative economics," which he defines as "an economic system that works to 'regenerate' capital assets." To "place a true value on the environment," he argues that we need to recognize the Earth as "the original capital asset."[19]
In a 2020 joint report, "The Regenerative Revolution: A new paradigm for event management," Marriott International and IMEX Group cites the Capital Institute's "8 Principles for a Regenerative Economy" from "Regenerative Capitalism" as among the foundations of their work.[20]
Colonization
"I wasn’t against communism, but i can’t say i was for it either. At first, i viewed it suspiciously, as some kind of white man’s concoction, until i read works by African revolutionaries and studied the African liberation movements. Revolutionaries in Africa understood that the question of African liberation was not just a question of race, that even if they managed to get rid of the white colonialists, if they didn’t rid themselves of the capitalistic economic structure, the white colonialists would simply be replaced by Black neocolonialists. There was not a single liberation movement in Africa that was not fighting for socialism …
The whole thing boiled down to a simple equation: anything that has any kind of value is made, mined, grown, produced, and processed by working people. So why shouldn’t working people collectively own that wealth? Why shouldn’t working people own and control their own resources? Capitalism meant that rich businessmen owned the wealth, while socialism meant that the people who made the wealth owned it." - Assata Shakur[21]
Diffusionism
"Diffusionism is still, today, the foundation-theory for conservative beliefs about the rise of Europe and the "modernization" (read "civilization") of the Third World. Today it is accepted because colonialism, in various modern forms, remains a central and basic interest of the European elite, and it is still necessary to explain and rationalize a system by which European capital exploits non-European labor, mainly (but not only) for the purpose of persuading European populations that this exploitation is right, rational, and historically natural, and so persuade them to support the policies, pay the bills, and willingly endure the blood sacrifices. And today, still, an important component of this interest-bound theory is its tunnel-historical conception of the European past. It is still critically important to demonstrate that European social evolution has always been self-generated, owing nothing important to the non-European world, that Europe (or rather Western Europe, "the West") has always been, and remains today, ahead of the rest of the world in level and rate of development, that its economic character, and that progress for the non-European world can only come via the diffusion of European-based multinational capitalism."[22]
The Witch Trials
https://www.ppesydney.net/witch-hunts-and-the-birth-of-capitalism-reflections-on-caliban-and-the-witch/ -- Use Excerpts from Caliban and the Witch for this sub section
https://inthesetimes.com/article/capitalism-witches-women-witch-hunting-sylvia-federici-caliban
Alternatives
Human-Nature Arguments
Just Transition
Sources
- ↑ https://blackagendareport.com/interview-malcolm-x-and-young-socialist-1965
- ↑ https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1867-c1/ch24.htm
- ↑ https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch15.htm
- ↑ https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/exploitation/#MarxTheoExpl
- ↑ https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1845/condition-working-class/ch05.htm
- ↑ https://cla.purdue.edu/academic/english/theory/marxism/terms/usury.html
- ↑ https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1894-c3/ch24.htm
- ↑ Mintz, S. W. (1986). Sweetness and power. Penguin Books. Page, 32-33
- ↑ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8478770.stm
- ↑ https://neweconomics.org/uploads/files/f19c45312a905d73c3_rbm6iecku.pdf
- ↑ Strauss, William S., "The fallacy of endless growth: Exposing capitalism's insustainability" (2008). Doctoral Dissertations. 463. https://scholars.unh.edu/dissertation/463
- ↑ https://www.zoology.ubc.ca/~bittick/conservation/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Clark-York2005_Article_CarbonMetabolismGlobalCapitali.pdf
- ↑ https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/mar/12/resource-extraction-carbon-emissions-biodiversity-loss
- ↑ https://nca2018.globalchange.gov/chapter/5/
- ↑ https://www.clientearth.org/latest/latest-updates/stories/fossil-fuels-and-climate-change-the-facts/
- ↑ https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cobi.13821
- ↑ https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cobi.13821
- ↑ https://www.regenfriends.com/events-1
- ↑ https://gritdaily.com/regenerative-economy/
- ↑ p. 46, 67, & 71; https://www.imexexhibitions.com/sites/default/files/2020-10/The_Regenerative_Revolution_.pdf
- ↑ https://www.liberationnews.org/assata-shakur-capitalism-socialism-anti-communism/
- ↑ Blaut, J. M. (1989). Colonialism and the Rise of Capitalism. Science & Society, 53(3), 260–296. http://www.jstor.org/stable/40404472