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Marx called it in 1867. This is how capitalism works.
by rue 16y ago
Marx called it in 1867. This is how capitalism works.
- kiba 16y agoAn elaboration would be nice.
- chrismealy 16y agoYou got it: http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2009/01/31/therovingcavaliersofcredit/ http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs/2009/01/31/therovingcaval...
- kiba 16y agoIt's not a critique of capitalism per se, as far as I can tell, but the monetary policy of a government.
- cynicalkane 16y agoMarx considered capitalism to be a political system--or, more accurately, that politics and policy are all fundamentally economic. So if you're a Marxist, it's all the same stuff.
- cynicalkane 16y agoMarx implicated just about every major feature of capitalism as part of its impending demise, so whenever capitalism superficially looks not as good as it used to be, there's probably some Marx quote about it. He called so many things, it's the broken clock principle in effect.
- rue 16y agoActually Marx never asserted that capitalism would collapse, just that it was naturally a boom-bust cycle with a general trend toward ever-bigger busts.
- jerf 16y agoMarx's problem wasn't that his every criticism was wrong. His problem is that his proposed solution was orders of magnitude worse than what he was criticizing.
- rue 16y agoIt makes a funny quip, sure, but there is really no way to tell at this point. Certainly most modern communists acknowledge that the totalitarian and undemocratic efforts in the USSR, China and elsewhere were misguided, to put it kindly.
- anamax 16y agoAh yes, no true Scotsman.... But, how do they acknowledge that "misguided"? The ones that I've run into will only go so far as "the excesses were caused by the US" and even then they weren't happy admitting to "excesses".
- rue 16y agoSounds like you hang out with the wrong kind of communists? I think anarcho-syndicalism is gaining ground.
- anamax 16y ago> I think anarcho-syndicalism is gaining ground. One flavor of anarcho-syndicalism can exist without any acknowledgement of govt, let alone changes. (No law stops you from sharing.) What favors are you talking about?
- cynicalkane 16y agoWhat you describe is the core of Marx's assertion that capitalism would collapse, as described in Capital, hinted at in the Manifesto, and other things. In fact, as I recall, Marx's "proof" of capitalism's inevitable demise and the nature of the socialist aftermath was, as he wrote in a letter to Engels, his proudest and surest achievement. I wish I could find it, but apparently my Google-fu is lacking today.