Where Have All the Profits Gone?
trudogg
The term "subprime" that most of us hadn't heard before, has become a
household word.
Household mortgages have been avalanching and foreclosures piling up.
Banks are locked in a credit crunch.
Bear Stearns, one of Wall Street's biggies, had to be bailed out by
the Fed.
Banks, like bookies of yore, are laying off bad bets. The government
is dancing as fast as it can, printing $600 checks to send out to
everybody, hopefully creating some purchasing power for people to go
out and buy stuff.
Yet, despite the stimulus package, and other fables being told by
George W. Bush, reputable economists and dour newsmen are predicting a
deep and long recession ahead.
According to Wikipedia, the internet encyclopedia, a recession is a
decline in a country's gross domestic product for two or more
successive quarters. Recessions may be associated with falling prices,
called deflation, or rising prices, called inflation, in a process
known as stagflation.
A severe or long recession is referred to as an economic depression. A
devastating breakdown of an economy is called economic collapse.
Is that where we're headed?
It's got to be somebody's fault. Who are the villains of the piece?
Capitalists? No. Entrepreneurs? No. The working class? Well, maybe.
It's the profit motive, Stupid! In the end, you know, every crook gets
caught.
Where does profit come from? That is the question.
It took Karl Heinrich Marx (1818-1883) Prussian philosopher, political
economist and revolutionary, to find out where profit came from. It
was a discovery that ranked with Sir Isaac Newton's discovery of
universal gravitation and the three laws of motion, Charles Darwin's
theory of evolution and Sigmund Freud's ego, super-ego and the id.
Profit, Marx found out, is the gain capitalists receive by paying
workers less than the full value of their labor. It's called
"exploitation" of one class by another--an inherent feature and key
element of capitalism and free markets.
What! This whole capitalist system that has taken over the world is
based on out-and-out thievery! The capitalist steals the surplus value
of the labor the worker puts into the commodity being produced! What a
discovery!
Well, it's better than slavery where the slave owner stole 100% of the
slave's labor power, except for what it cost to keep the slave alive.
It's also better than feudalism where the serf was allowed to keep
only about 50% of his produce, while the feudal lord took the rest for
allowing the serf to work on his land. It was called share-cropping in
this country and continued for quite a while after slavery was
abolished in 1865. So some progress has been made.
Another landmark discovery of Marx and his collaborator, Frederick
Engels, was the concept of the "class struggle". As expressed in the
"Communist Manifesto", "the history of all hitherto existing society
is the history of 'class struggles'"
Marx believed that capitalism, like previous economic systems will
lead to its own destruction. Capitalism cuts from under its own feet
the very foundation on which it produces and appropriates products.
What it creates, in the process, is its own grave-diggers.
Just as capitalism replaced feudalism, capitalism, itself, will be
replaced by another form, be it communism or some form of socialism
allowing for a public and private sector in the economy.
There were few parts of the world which were not significantly touched
by Marxist ideas in the course of the twentieth century.
Of course, the most prominent of these was Russia and the Bolshevik
Revolution which led to the formation of the Union of Soviet Socialist
Republics (the USSR). We don't mind talking about that. You've got to
look at these things in the long sweep of history. It took capitalism
a couple of hundred years to shake itself out. Since the Industrial
Revolution in England, in the late 1700s, there have been many panics,
booms and busts and experimentation. Capitalism leads to monopoly and
war and today we're in the stage of empire building and globalization.
Now, new forms of socialism are taking the world stage. The Soviet
Union was a failed experiment. China seemed to be using revisionist
Marxism to transform itself from communism to a new form of aggressive
capitalism, Cuba is continuing in the old tradition with Castro and
his brother Raul barely keeping the old form of classical Marxism
alive. But there is a new wind blowing over Latin America, with Hugo
Chavez in Venezuela and socialist ferment in the rest of the South
American continent.
The United States today is reaching a stage of critical mass. With an
un-winnable war in Iraq costing an estimated 3 trillion dollars of
borrowed money, an infrastructure showing signs of wear, a wobbly
stock market, a bloated defense budget and a military force falling
apart and Congress authorizing tax cuts for the rich, isn't it time we
considered making some changes in our economic system before changes
are thrust upon us?
George W. Bush and the US capitalist oligarchy backing him up must be
a part of the grave-digging team.
Stephen Fleischman,
--
http://trudogg.com/bbg/index.html
c gordon liddy
"trudogg" <indep...@long.last> wrote in message
news:h3pqt3hrcqifg6d17...@4ax.com...
slaughter tens of millions.
--
C. Gordon Liddy
"Virile, vigorous, potent."
Dave K
<snippage>
> While the current brand of capitalism in the US is predatory, it has yet
> to slaughter tens of millions.
Matters of degree.
I am not sure that killing tens of millions is much different than
removing the wealth, and livelihood, of 100s of millions.
It really depends upon your point of view.
--
Cheers! :)
c gordon liddy
"Dave K" <dav...@att.net> wrote in message
news:w5hDj.16046$D_3....@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
century. With the dissolution of the CCCP and an emerging, post-perestroika
Russia we're dealt a different hand. That Russia seems to be doing alright
with its new kulaks shows how the same country operates under differing
economic rationales.
Instead, one might look to China for Marxism. Collectivism in China is
hardly the brainchild of a Europaen Jew. That they're outcapitalizing the
capitalists speaks also against China being marxist.
But both China and the CCCP had *unbelievable* purges as they claimed
adherence to Marx. I don't know of a man more bloodthirsty than Lenin.
Stalin and Mao simply had more opportunities.
Dave K
> "Dave K" <dav...@att.net> wrote in message
> news:w5hDj.16046$D_3....@bgtnsc05-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
>> On Sun, 16 Mar 2008 16:04:40 -0700, c gordon liddy wrote: <snippage>
>>
>>> While the current brand of capitalism in the US is predatory, it has
>>> yet to slaughter tens of millions.
>>
>> Matters of degree.
>>
>> I am not sure that killing tens of millions is much different than
>> removing the wealth, and livelihood, of 100s of millions.
>>
>> It really depends upon your point of view.
> Dave, I think the debate we'd get into here is the lead story for the
> 20th century. With the dissolution of the CCCP and an emerging,
> post-perestroika Russia we're dealt a different hand. That Russia seems
> to be doing alright with its new kulaks shows how the same country
> operates under differing economic rationales.
Russia had nowhere to go but up. We have nowhere to go but down, if
things don't change. I think you've got the wrong slant on things in
that respect.
>
> Instead, one might look to China for Marxism. Collectivism in China is
> hardly the brainchild of a Europaen Jew. That they're outcapitalizing
> the capitalists speaks also against China being marxist.
I do not understand your incessant margianalization of groups of people
based upon race or religion. I guess I just don't see the point.
>
> But both China and the CCCP had *unbelievable* purges as they claimed
> adherence to Marx. I don't know of a man more bloodthirsty than Lenin.
> Stalin and Mao simply had more opportunities.
We have only just begun our decline. As more people find themselves in
untenable positions, the 'opportunities,' may change.
--
Cheers! :)
trudogg
>> George W. Bush and the US capitalist oligarchy backing him up must be
>> a part of the grave-digging team.
>While the current brand of capitalism in the US is predatory, it has yet to
>slaughter tens of millions.
...no? Maybe not tens of millions, but when you add up all the deaths
that are in relation to the oil business...of which the invasion and
occupation of Iraq is only the most recent part...it has to be in the
millions at least.