3 ms·

"Definitive of what capitalism is, this separation severely limits the scope of the political. Devolving vast aspects of social life to the rule of “the market”

by ZunarJ5 6mo ago

"Definitive of what capitalism is, this separation severely limits the scope of the political. Devolving vast aspects of social life to the rule of “the market” (in reality, to large corporations), it declares them off-limits to democratic decision-making, collective action, and public control. Its very structure, therefore, deprives us of the ability to decide collectively exactly what and how much we want to produce, on what energic basis and through what kinds of social relations. It deprives us, too, of the capacity to determine how we want to use the social surplus we collectively produce; how we want to relate to nature and to future generations; how we want to organize the work of social reproduction and its relation to that of production. Capitalism, in sum, is fundamentally anti-democratic. Even in the best-case scenario, democracy in a capitalist society must perforce be limited and weak." https://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/publications/centerpiece/fall2018/transcript_jodidi11-5-2018 https://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/publications/centerpiece/fall2...

dlev_pika 6mo ago
[flagged]
- ch4s3 6mo ago
  The fascism of Europe in in the 1930s was EXPLICITLY anti-capitalist. You can read tons of statements by various prominent fascists about how capitalism was the tool of the British empire and "globalists"(they often used a different word). They viewed it as separating the people from the land. Capitalists were not in any way fundamental to the rise of Nazism. If you're on about Pinochet, he only embraced market reforms 3 years after coming to power and came to power directly by a military coup. Business leaders had basically nothing to do with it.
  - throwawaysleep 6mo ago
    Trump is also often anti capitalist, between tariffs and government shares in business. There is what fascists say and what they do, and industrialists were often very good Nazis.
    - ch4s3 6mo ago
      Lot's of political movements are/were anti-capitalist. > industrialists were often very good Nazis This is sort of banal. Lots of X "were good nazis". Where you could substitute scientists, elementary school teachers, trade unions, priests, bus divers, authors, political scientists, or farmers for X. It was a totalitarian society, everyone who wasn't on board was coerced by threat of violence to at least put on the outward appearance of being in support.
  - dlev_pika 6mo ago
    From a Historical perspective, my learning makes me disagree with your statement - that fascism is in essence anti-capitalist. > At the moment that the "normal" police and military resources of the bourgeois dictatorship, together with their parliamentary screens, no longer suffice to hold society in a state of equilibrium – the turn of the fascist regime arrives. Through the fascist agency, capitalism sets in motion the masses of the crazed petty bourgeoisie and the bands of declassed and demoralized lumpenproletariat – all the countless human beings whom finance capital itself has brought to desperation and frenzy. > The social democracy hoped that the docile conduct of the workers would restore the "public opinion" of the bourgeoisie against the fascists. “Fascism: what is it and how to fight it”, Leon Trotsky https://www.marxists.org/ebooks/trotsky/fascism-how-to-fight-it/fascism-what-it-is-trotsky.pdf https://www.marxists.org/ebooks/trotsky/fascism-how-to-fight... Mussolini, after political defeat as a socialist and editor of “Avanti!”, pivoted, started calling himself a “libertarian”, and courted capitalists (industrialists, oligarchs) to fund his newspaper “Il popolo d’Italia” (1914). Ultimately, in Fascism, the only thing that truly matters is the regime itself, as demonstrated by fascist regimes that don’t fit so cleanly in our definition of Capitalism (like Argentina’s 1950s union based, military Peronist movement). From this perspective, I concede that Fascism is anti-capitalist in the sense that it is anti-everything that is not the regime. However looking at the historical European, and contemporary American evidence, capitalistic mechanics and actors (ie. the oligarchy), seem to be the preferred route to it.
skybrian 6mo ago
Do you really want to see votes on "exactly what and how much we want to produce" at each factory? Or what farmers plant?
- jrflowers 6mo ago
  Yeah imagine an economic system where farmers can’t even plant the seeds produced by the crops that they grow every year
  - defrost 6mo ago
    I'm in a massive grain belt ATM, as a sign of the times I can't place whether that's a reference to GM crops or the immediate issue of fuel and fertilizer.
adrianN 6mo ago
There are very few purely capitalistic countries. All countries that I can think of use taxes and regulations to influence market equilibrium. „letting the market figure it out“ is usually the political expression for „I like the current state better than what the opposition proposed“.
bit-anarchist 6mo ago
Capitalism (in the libertarian sense of the word) makes these "vast aspects of social life" off-limits to democratic deliberation in the same way it does for unrelated private corporations: without authorization from the rightful owners, it is supposed to be illegal (not to say that has stopped either). She uses terms like "us", "we", "collective", but who are these? All the constituents, the people, in their totality, they are not, for people are not a homogeneous mass. In practice, it, along with democracy, just becomes a nice rhetoric device for stripping people of their rights. Democracy was never really a good solution to an inclusive society-wide governance system. Most successful implementation even need to add limits to it to prevent the mob rule that's a feature to it. Some try to pretend it is anti-authoritarian, because the members get a vote. But that vote only matters when the voter is part of a majority. If they aren't, they might as well not even have it. That alone already creates a hierarchy. And it only gets worse: most people belong to minority of sorts, and they, by design, get alienated. This means that the doesn't really represent anyone... other than itself, very much like a corporation. Which leads to the final point: capitalism (in the Marxist sense of the word) isn't antidemocratic. Democracy isn't in opposition to corporatocrocy, it requires a corporation large enough to own everything. Thus, dare I say, the democracy she seems to envision might as well be one of the forms of ultra peak capitalism.
creationcomplex 6mo ago
Fascism is the logical fallback to protect wealth from redistribution.

by ZunarJ5 6mo ago

dlev_pika 6mo ago

[flagged]

ch4s3 6mo ago
The fascism of Europe in in the 1930s was EXPLICITLY anti-capitalist. You can read tons of statements by various prominent fascists about how capitalism was the tool of the British empire and "globalists"(they often used a different word). They viewed it as separating the people from the land. Capitalists were not in any way fundamental to the rise of Nazism. If you're on about Pinochet, he only embraced market reforms 3 years after coming to power and came to power directly by a military coup. Business leaders had basically nothing to do with it.
- throwawaysleep 6mo ago
  Trump is also often anti capitalist, between tariffs and government shares in business. There is what fascists say and what they do, and industrialists were often very good Nazis.
  - ch4s3 6mo ago
    Lot's of political movements are/were anti-capitalist. > industrialists were often very good Nazis This is sort of banal. Lots of X "were good nazis". Where you could substitute scientists, elementary school teachers, trade unions, priests, bus divers, authors, political scientists, or farmers for X. It was a totalitarian society, everyone who wasn't on board was coerced by threat of violence to at least put on the outward appearance of being in support.
- dlev_pika 6mo ago
  From a Historical perspective, my learning makes me disagree with your statement - that fascism is in essence anti-capitalist. > At the moment that the "normal" police and military resources of the bourgeois dictatorship, together with their parliamentary screens, no longer suffice to hold society in a state of equilibrium – the turn of the fascist regime arrives. Through the fascist agency, capitalism sets in motion the masses of the crazed petty bourgeoisie and the bands of declassed and demoralized lumpenproletariat – all the countless human beings whom finance capital itself has brought to desperation and frenzy. > The social democracy hoped that the docile conduct of the workers would restore the "public opinion" of the bourgeoisie against the fascists. “Fascism: what is it and how to fight it”, Leon Trotsky https://www.marxists.org/ebooks/trotsky/fascism-how-to-fight-it/fascism-what-it-is-trotsky.pdf https://www.marxists.org/ebooks/trotsky/fascism-how-to-fight... Mussolini, after political defeat as a socialist and editor of “Avanti!”, pivoted, started calling himself a “libertarian”, and courted capitalists (industrialists, oligarchs) to fund his newspaper “Il popolo d’Italia” (1914). Ultimately, in Fascism, the only thing that truly matters is the regime itself, as demonstrated by fascist regimes that don’t fit so cleanly in our definition of Capitalism (like Argentina’s 1950s union based, military Peronist movement). From this perspective, I concede that Fascism is anti-capitalist in the sense that it is anti-everything that is not the regime. However looking at the historical European, and contemporary American evidence, capitalistic mechanics and actors (ie. the oligarchy), seem to be the preferred route to it.

skybrian 6mo ago

Do you really want to see votes on "exactly what and how much we want to produce" at each factory? Or what farmers plant?

jrflowers 6mo ago
Yeah imagine an economic system where farmers can’t even plant the seeds produced by the crops that they grow every year
- defrost 6mo ago
  I'm in a massive grain belt ATM, as a sign of the times I can't place whether that's a reference to GM crops or the immediate issue of fuel and fertilizer.

adrianN 6mo ago

There are very few purely capitalistic countries. All countries that I can think of use taxes and regulations to influence market equilibrium. „letting the market figure it out“ is usually the political expression for „I like the current state better than what the opposition proposed“.

bit-anarchist 6mo ago

Capitalism (in the libertarian sense of the word) makes these "vast aspects of social life" off-limits to democratic deliberation in the same way it does for unrelated private corporations: without authorization from the rightful owners, it is supposed to be illegal (not to say that has stopped either). She uses terms like "us", "we", "collective", but who are these? All the constituents, the people, in their totality, they are not, for people are not a homogeneous mass. In practice, it, along with democracy, just becomes a nice rhetoric device for stripping people of their rights. Democracy was never really a good solution to an inclusive society-wide governance system. Most successful implementation even need to add limits to it to prevent the mob rule that's a feature to it. Some try to pretend it is anti-authoritarian, because the members get a vote. But that vote only matters when the voter is part of a majority. If they aren't, they might as well not even have it. That alone already creates a hierarchy. And it only gets worse: most people belong to minority of sorts, and they, by design, get alienated. This means that the doesn't really represent anyone... other than itself, very much like a corporation. Which leads to the final point: capitalism (in the Marxist sense of the word) isn't antidemocratic. Democracy isn't in opposition to corporatocrocy, it requires a corporation large enough to own everything. Thus, dare I say, the democracy she seems to envision might as well be one of the forms of ultra peak capitalism.

creationcomplex 6mo ago

Fascism is the logical fallback to protect wealth from redistribution.