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"a Commonwealth based on the accumulated and monopolized power of all its individual members necessarily leaves each person powerless," ? It was like that way

by jariel 6y ago

"a Commonwealth based on the accumulated and monopolized power of all its individual members necessarily leaves each person powerless," ? It was like that way before the 'bourgeois' ever even existed. Roman Empire? Charlemagne? Louis XIV? Habsburgs? The problem with these Enlightenment era definitions is they fail to take into consideration that the quest for power has been there since the start, it was just never generally available to the merchant class. i.e. the notion that the Roman Empire wouldn't fit any of these social distinctions doesn't quite add up - it's just that those wanting power had to take on perfunctory civic roles and be involved in politics in order for their mercantile quests to thrive. The other thing missing from these quotes is ahem Adam Smith: trade, economies of scale, division of labour, comparative value etc. create enormous value and most of that value ends up in the hands of consumers. The Nobility were beaten by the Merchants because the Nobility were only interested in control, the Merchants created a lot of value.

vidarh 6y ago
> ? It was like that way before the 'bourgeois' ever even existed. None of the examples you gave had the means to wield "the accumulated and monopolized power of all its individual members", not least because technological limits alone introduced massive logistical challenges to central control that made any empire of the time very much decentralised and dependent on the extent to which local representatives had their own agendas. > The problem with these Enlightenment era definitions Arendts book was published in 1951. > it was just never generally available to the merchant class. It's much bigger a distinction than that. The big change brought by the growth of capitalism was disconnecting responsibility for the population from the accumulation of capital. A feudal lord could squeeze his population hard, sure, but cause them to die of starvation and his output would drop - his power and ability to accumulate it was tied to land and tied to keeping the population living on them able to produce. With capitalism accumulation was disconnected from that feedback loop - the capitalist can optimise away the workers in a way those dependent on at least the survival of the workers can't, and that is real reason why the nobility was beaten: The only way to beat the Merchants was to become one, and ditch the liability that having a notional responsibility for your workers provided. But that also changed the nature of accumulation for those at the top from one naturally limited by being tied to a scarce resource (land) to being a near unlimited thread-mill. It's natural to then look at the side effects of that. They're all bad, but they're also not all good.
- jariel 6y ago
  That the Roman Empire was to some extent decentralized doesn't matter though - they had all of the power and were able to extract all of the surpluses from their vassal states. They definitely "the accumulated and monopolized power of all its individual members" -> 66% of Rome were slaves i.e. literally property! They collected all of the surplus wealth of their vassal states through tributes and had absolute direct power. Imagine they 'owned' those entire national economies and accumulated wealth through those 'dividend payments' of tributes. "the growth of capitalism was disconnecting responsibility for the population from the accumulation of capital. " 2 issues: 1) Since when did the Roman Emperors or the Feudal Nobility have any responsibility? The only thing they did was ensure that their territories were not invaded. That's it. Everyone was a serf. By your own example of 'Feudal Lord' - his responsibility was to 'keep his slaves just barely alive'. 2) Again the Adam Smith: you're not counting surpluses. Economies create vast amounts of consumer surpluses. Whatever the capitalists are able to hoard away in their bank accounts is small in comparison to the value created by consumer surpluses. eg: the guy and/or corporation who invented the dishwasher pocketed 0.001% of the value he unleashed by freeing up entire societies from having to wash by hand. The Merchants beat the Nobility because they did useful stuff. Like make railroads. Dig mines. Transported food and materials. Make stuff like steam engines. Made grocery stores. Created financial services, banking, accounting. Made textiles. Built buildings. From the entire history of Greek Antiquity up until probably about 1500 - GDP 'per capita' of most places economy barely grew an inch. When merchants and capitalists took over, the economy skyrocketed and hasn't looked back. It's not a paradox that people are immensely more wealthy in capitalism despite however 'unequal' the distribution of accumulated wealth is.
  - vidarh 6y ago
    > That the Roman Empire was to some extent decentralized doesn't matter though - they had all of the power and were able to extract all of the surpluses from their vassal states. Yes it matter, because it means you can't treat it as a singular entity. It never acted as one. The success of an emperor depended to a great deal on squeezing just hard enough to not give anyone designs on thinking they could do entirely as they pleased, yet not so hard it'd trigger rebellions. There was no capability to prevent all kinds of slack in the system in every layer. They had "absolute direct power" as long as it was only ever exercised with restraint, or in limited areas. > 1) Since when did the Roman Emperors or the Feudal Nobility have any responsibility? Read the rest of what I wrote. The point is not that there was an explicit, stated responsibility, but that it is inherent in that those who mismanaged their workforce faced a declining workforce. You point out yourself that a large proportion of Rome's inhabitants were actual property. Let them die, and the value of your property and the profits you can extract from it goes down. You had no ready source of replacement. A feudal lord facing increasing demands for tributes could not meet it if he let his labour force die, because it's not like he could take out an ad and have a flood of new workers arrive. That is the relationship that capitalism removed. That does not mean the feudal system was good. It was awful, and capitalism was a distinct improvement. But it means a fundamental change in the extent to which the parties could afford to attempt to extract maximal value from their workers at all cost, and that was a key driver in making capitalism viable until further automation and expansion into new markets made it less worthwhile to fight to retain that pressure. But the dissolution of those bonds remain, and it means the dynamics of how capitalism deal with growth are very different - for both good and bad. > 2) Again the Adam Smith: you're not counting surpluses. Economies create vast amounts of consumer surpluses. Whatever the capitalists are able to hoard away in their bank accounts is small in comparison to the value created by consumer surpluses. Surpluses are only relevant as long as you have money to access them. As such, talking of surpluses is irrelevant without addressing what happens to pressure on employment and wages once growth hits a wall. This is the main point of Marx criticism of capitalism: That capitalism does create vast amount of additional value - he was a massive fan, expressing absolute awe at the possibilities capitalism created - but the inherent competitive pressure in capitalism means that capitalism will eventually start to eat away at the need for labour. That's a good thing for society in the long run. But in the short run, it means addressing how to ensure access. > It's not a paradox that people are immensely more wealthy in capitalism despite however 'unequal' the distribution of accumulated wealth is. You're right, it's not, because capitalism still has room for growth, during which it has no incentive to squeeze everything it can out of efficiency improvements. It has no relevance, however, to the question of what happens once further growth is impossible and competitive pressures have to turn inwards and focus on eliminating labor to squeeze out ever thinner margins (remember, Adam Smith also argued that profits were "always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin"; high margins are a sign of inefficient competition)

by jariel 6y ago

vidarh 6y ago

> ? It was like that way before the 'bourgeois' ever even existed. None of the examples you gave had the means to wield "the accumulated and monopolized power of all its individual members", not least because technological limits alone introduced massive logistical challenges to central control that made any empire of the time very much decentralised and dependent on the extent to which local representatives had their own agendas. > The problem with these Enlightenment era definitions Arendts book was published in 1951. > it was just never generally available to the merchant class. It's much bigger a distinction than that. The big change brought by the growth of capitalism was disconnecting responsibility for the population from the accumulation of capital. A feudal lord could squeeze his population hard, sure, but cause them to die of starvation and his output would drop - his power and ability to accumulate it was tied to land and tied to keeping the population living on them able to produce. With capitalism accumulation was disconnected from that feedback loop - the capitalist can optimise away the workers in a way those dependent on at least the survival of the workers can't, and that is real reason why the nobility was beaten: The only way to beat the Merchants was to become one, and ditch the liability that having a notional responsibility for your workers provided. But that also changed the nature of accumulation for those at the top from one naturally limited by being tied to a scarce resource (land) to being a near unlimited thread-mill. It's natural to then look at the side effects of that. They're all bad, but they're also not all good.

jariel 6y ago
That the Roman Empire was to some extent decentralized doesn't matter though - they had all of the power and were able to extract all of the surpluses from their vassal states. They definitely "the accumulated and monopolized power of all its individual members" -> 66% of Rome were slaves i.e. literally property! They collected all of the surplus wealth of their vassal states through tributes and had absolute direct power. Imagine they 'owned' those entire national economies and accumulated wealth through those 'dividend payments' of tributes. "the growth of capitalism was disconnecting responsibility for the population from the accumulation of capital. " 2 issues: 1) Since when did the Roman Emperors or the Feudal Nobility have any responsibility? The only thing they did was ensure that their territories were not invaded. That's it. Everyone was a serf. By your own example of 'Feudal Lord' - his responsibility was to 'keep his slaves just barely alive'. 2) Again the Adam Smith: you're not counting surpluses. Economies create vast amounts of consumer surpluses. Whatever the capitalists are able to hoard away in their bank accounts is small in comparison to the value created by consumer surpluses. eg: the guy and/or corporation who invented the dishwasher pocketed 0.001% of the value he unleashed by freeing up entire societies from having to wash by hand. The Merchants beat the Nobility because they did useful stuff. Like make railroads. Dig mines. Transported food and materials. Make stuff like steam engines. Made grocery stores. Created financial services, banking, accounting. Made textiles. Built buildings. From the entire history of Greek Antiquity up until probably about 1500 - GDP 'per capita' of most places economy barely grew an inch. When merchants and capitalists took over, the economy skyrocketed and hasn't looked back. It's not a paradox that people are immensely more wealthy in capitalism despite however 'unequal' the distribution of accumulated wealth is.
- vidarh 6y ago
  > That the Roman Empire was to some extent decentralized doesn't matter though - they had all of the power and were able to extract all of the surpluses from their vassal states. Yes it matter, because it means you can't treat it as a singular entity. It never acted as one. The success of an emperor depended to a great deal on squeezing just hard enough to not give anyone designs on thinking they could do entirely as they pleased, yet not so hard it'd trigger rebellions. There was no capability to prevent all kinds of slack in the system in every layer. They had "absolute direct power" as long as it was only ever exercised with restraint, or in limited areas. > 1) Since when did the Roman Emperors or the Feudal Nobility have any responsibility? Read the rest of what I wrote. The point is not that there was an explicit, stated responsibility, but that it is inherent in that those who mismanaged their workforce faced a declining workforce. You point out yourself that a large proportion of Rome's inhabitants were actual property. Let them die, and the value of your property and the profits you can extract from it goes down. You had no ready source of replacement. A feudal lord facing increasing demands for tributes could not meet it if he let his labour force die, because it's not like he could take out an ad and have a flood of new workers arrive. That is the relationship that capitalism removed. That does not mean the feudal system was good. It was awful, and capitalism was a distinct improvement. But it means a fundamental change in the extent to which the parties could afford to attempt to extract maximal value from their workers at all cost, and that was a key driver in making capitalism viable until further automation and expansion into new markets made it less worthwhile to fight to retain that pressure. But the dissolution of those bonds remain, and it means the dynamics of how capitalism deal with growth are very different - for both good and bad. > 2) Again the Adam Smith: you're not counting surpluses. Economies create vast amounts of consumer surpluses. Whatever the capitalists are able to hoard away in their bank accounts is small in comparison to the value created by consumer surpluses. Surpluses are only relevant as long as you have money to access them. As such, talking of surpluses is irrelevant without addressing what happens to pressure on employment and wages once growth hits a wall. This is the main point of Marx criticism of capitalism: That capitalism does create vast amount of additional value - he was a massive fan, expressing absolute awe at the possibilities capitalism created - but the inherent competitive pressure in capitalism means that capitalism will eventually start to eat away at the need for labour. That's a good thing for society in the long run. But in the short run, it means addressing how to ensure access. > It's not a paradox that people are immensely more wealthy in capitalism despite however 'unequal' the distribution of accumulated wealth is. You're right, it's not, because capitalism still has room for growth, during which it has no incentive to squeeze everything it can out of efficiency improvements. It has no relevance, however, to the question of what happens once further growth is impossible and competitive pressures have to turn inwards and focus on eliminating labor to squeeze out ever thinner margins (remember, Adam Smith also argued that profits were "always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin"; high margins are a sign of inefficient competition)