Marxism debunked, in three short steps
Peter Bjørn Perlsø
disprove, his communist hypotheses: He claimed that it was a historic
inevitability that
1) The capitalist system would make the vast majority of the world
poorer, and a select few ("the capitalists") much richer
2) The capitalist system would eradicate the middle class and make the
proletariat baloon
3) Socialism and ultimately Communism would follow Capitalism.
Yet, as we have seen
1) The vast majority of the world have gotten richer, even those we call
"poor" and those that Marx and his followers would classify as the
"proletariat".
2) The middle class has balooned, instead of the proletariat, which has
actually shrunken.
3) Socialism and communism have collapsed gobally, with only a few
brutal holdouts left, such as Cuba and North Korea.
Thus; Marx is DEBUNKED!
Class dismissed.
--
regards, Peter Bjørn Perlsø
http://haxor.dk - http://liberterran.org - http://haxor.dk/fanaticism/ -
http://planetarybillofrights.org/ - http://www.scholarsfor911truth.org/
lev_la...@yahoo.com.au
> Marx luckily was honest enough to leave us a way to falsify, and thus
> disprove, his communist hypotheses: He claimed that it was a historic
> inevitability that
>
> 1) The capitalist system would make the vast majority of the world
> poorer, and a select few ("the capitalists") much richer
> 2) The capitalist system would eradicate the middle class and make the
> proletariat baloon
> 3) Socialism and ultimately Communism would follow Capitalism.
>
> Yet, as we have seen
>
> 1) The vast majority of the world have gotten richer, even those we call
> "poor" and those that Marx and his followers would classify as the
> "proletariat".
> 2) The middle class has balooned, instead of the proletariat, which has
> actually shrunken.
> 3) Socialism and communism have collapsed gobally, with only a few
> brutal holdouts left, such as Cuba and North Korea.
>
>
> Thus; Marx is DEBUNKED!
>
> Class dismissed.
1) In contrast to your claims, Marx vigorously opposed the "iron law of
wages" promoted by pro-capitalist economists of his time. In "Wages,
Price and Profit" he strongly distinguishes between absolute and
relative poverty and the ratio of production that goes to the
capitalist class compared to the labouring class. As per Marx's
prediction, it would seem that is increasing accumulation and
centralisation of capital.
2) In contrast to your claim that the "middle class" has expanded, I
suggest you actually study what an economic class is. It is not a
relative wage to a social median. It is not a lifestyle. It is not
whether one has a manual, technical or service job. It is relative
ownership of specific factors of production.
3) Socialism, public ownership of the means of production and public
control of the state ("Freedom consists in converting the state from
an organ superimposed on society into one completely subordinate to
it."), is extremely widespread as has been so since the great
depression and the second world war. Most advanced economies use a
mixed economy of regulated private competition and publically managed
infrastructure.
Communism, btw, is a stateless society which neither Cuba nor North
Korea even remotely approach. In the latter case they explicitly reject
Marxism these days; their state ideology is "Juche", a radical
isolationist system.
Class dimissed. You mark is zero out of three. Next time, read the
source material and study it dispassionately. Report what it actually
says, not what you want it to say.
Goodness knows why you x-posted so far and wide as well. I've deleted
some of your sillier choices.
anarc...@gmail.com
However, Marx did predict the immiseration of the proletariat.
His reasoning is fairly logical: as capital accumulates, it will
become more common and therefore "cheaper"; as it becomes
cheaper, the capitalist will find it harder and harder to make a
profit; the capitalists' need to make a profit will force them to
drive down wages to subsistence level. Eventually the
working class will be forced to revolt just to survive.
Several reasons can be given as to why this didn't happen
between the time Marx thought it up and the present. My
favorite is that the working class was put to work consuming
their products, which kept up the demand for fresh capital
and thus preserved the role and power of capitalists. You
may prefer others.
In any case, history isn't over. Capitalism revolutionized
Europe, North America, and parts of Asia, but it has much
left to do before all traditional and feudal societies have
been utterly destroyed and only capitalist republics remain.
At that time Marx's predictions may begin to come true.
Or not. History isn't physics. And in any case, the
probability of a major ecological collapse, which would
render this question academic, seems rather good.
brique
<anarc...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1149209789.9...@f6g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
There is an old coal-miners joke that is apposite : The pit-owner is
studying his books, costs are too high, profits are too low, something must
be done. He sees the entry for feed for the pit ponies and is shocked, why,
it is almost as high as the mens wages! He calls the stable hand and
instructs him to half the ponies feed. Next month he recalls the stablehand
and asks how the ponies are getting on. Fine, replies the stablehand, still
doing the work. Good, says the pit-owner, cut their feed in half again! This
occurs every month and the pit-owner, seeing the cost of feed decimated and
his profits rising wonders why he never thoguht of it before. Then one
month, the stablehand comes in and says, bad news, sir, the pit-ponies have
all died! Dead? cries the pit-owner. Yes, sir, all dead, and just as they
were getting used to living on nothing at all!
Several reasons can be given as to why this didn't happen
between the time Marx thought it up and the present. My
favorite is that the working class was put to work consuming
their products, which kept up the demand for fresh capital
and thus preserved the role and power of capitalists. You
may prefer others.
In any case, history isn't over. Capitalism revolutionized
Europe, North America, and parts of Asia, but it has much
left to do before all traditional and feudal societies have
been utterly destroyed and only capitalist republics remain.
At that time Marx's predictions may begin to come true.
Or not. History isn't physics. And in any case, the
probability of a major ecological collapse, which would
render this question academic, seems rather good.
Not unlike the chinese politician asked about the importance of the French
Revolution who replied it was much to early to tell yet.
Peter Bjørn Perlsø
> Class dimissed. You mark is zero out of three. Next time, read the
> source material and study it dispassionately. Report what it actually
> says, not what you want it to say.
Sorry, you don't seem to grasp that Marx has been throughly debunked,
and your strawmen of my posts arguments does not change that.
Your score: 0.
Come again next year.
jmh
It's actually more than the prediction didn't come
true but that the exact opposite has occurred. Wages
have a high positive correlation with the level of
capitalization. The more developed societies have
higher incomes the the less developed societies.
Within "western" societies the more highly capitalized
companies pay higher wages than to small, less capitalized
companies in the same industries.
jmh
anarc...@gmail.com
Well, if you don't have the immiseration of the proletariat,
then of course you have something else -- increased wages,
perhaps.
This emphasizes the error of Marx's prediction, but it
doesn't explain it. Why doesn't capital follow the law
of supply and demand? Why doesn't a steady increase
in the amount of capital lead to a decrease in demand
for it, making it more difficult for capitalists to obtain
a profit from it, thus driving them to reduce wages or
go out of business? Indeed we do observe this
locally -- but not globally.
Maybe there is something wrong with the law of supply
and demand.
James A. Donald
"lev_la...@yahoo.com.au"
> 1) In contrast to your claims, Marx vigorously opposed
> the "iron law of wages" promoted by pro-capitalist
> economists of his time. In "Wages, Price and Profit"
> he strongly distinguishes between absolute and
> relative poverty and the ratio of production that goes
> to the capitalist class compared to the labouring
> class. As per Marx's prediction, it would seem that is
> increasing accumulation and centralisation of capital.
Marx then, and Marxists today, lied about statistics in
order to claim that the poor are growing poorer.
Since 1840, commies have invariably claimed that
everyone has been getting poorer for the last twenty
years or so. So in 1975 they said that everyone has been
getting poorer since about 1965 or so, and in 1860 they
said that everyone has been getting poorer since about
1840. Marx famously forged some statistics showing that
everyone was getting poorer, and fabricated a quote from
Gladstone on the topic, and commies have been
continually doing it (presenting fraudulent statistics)
ever since.
Marx quotes Gladstone as saying, of the industrial
revolution:
"This intoxicating augmentation of wealth and
power is entirely confined to the classes of
property"
When in fact what Gladstone said was
"I should look almost with pain on this
intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power if
it was my belief that it was confined to the class
that are in easy circumstances, but the average
condition of the British laborer, we have the
happiness to know, has improved during the last
twenty years to a degree which we know to be
extraordinary, and which we may almost pronounce
to be unexampled in the history of any country and
any age"
Marx lied that the workers had been getting worse off
for the last twenty years, and cited highly respectable
authorities as evidence, and his followers have
continually done the same ever since, with the dates
continually being updated to the present.
--
----------------------
We have the right to defend ourselves and our property, because
of the kind of animals that we are. True law derives from this
right, not from the arbitrary power of the omnipotent state.
http://www.jim.com/ James A. Donald
James A. Donald
wrote:
> However, Marx did predict the immiseration of the proletariat.
> His reasoning is fairly logical: as capital accumulates, it will
> become more common and therefore "cheaper"; as it becomes
> cheaper, the capitalist will find it harder and harder to make a
> profit; the capitalists' need to make a profit will force them to
> drive down wages to subsistence level. Eventually the
> working class will be forced to revolt just to survive.
But capital being "cheaper" means wages being higher, with the result
that as capital accumulates, capitalism becomes more and more popular.
The flaw in his reasoning was treating capitalism as a form of
government rather than an economic system.
James A. Donald
On 2 Jun 2006 15:38:04 -0700, anarc...@gmail.com
wrote:
> This emphasizes the error of Marx's prediction, but it
> doesn't explain it. Why doesn't capital follow the
> law of supply and demand?
Capital does follow the law of supply and demand. More
capital means cheaper capital, and higher wages. Marx's
fallacy was that he rejected economic analysis, not that
he employed economic analysis.
Marx is reasoning from a definition to facts about the
world, a non empirical method of reasoning that cannot
produce valid results.
S. Doo
wrote:
>... Marx did predict the immiseration of the proletariat.
>His reasoning is fairly logical:
There's nothing logical about it, it is entirely counter-logical:
>as capital accumulates, it will
>become more common and therefore "cheaper"; as it becomes
>cheaper, the capitalist will find it harder and harder to make a
>profit; the capitalists' need to make a profit will force them to
>drive down wages to subsistence level...
They really should start teaching the law of supply and demand in high
school.
The high price goes to the scarce commodity.
Yes, "as capital accumulates, it will become more common and therefore
'cheaper'", yes, indeed.
And as capital becomes ever more plentiful and cheap, labor becomes
ever more scarce and thus expensive relative to it, and thus the price
of labor goes *up*, wages rise.
This is why a barber who makes his living with scissors in Manhattan
has a vastly higher wage and standard of living than a barber who
makes his living with scissors in some backwater in Africa. There's
vastly more capital in Manhattan.
So much for capital immiserating workers. ;-)
> Eventually the
>working class will be forced to revolt just to survive.
Tell it to the barbers.
S. Doo
>jmh wrote:
>> It's actually more than the prediction didn't come
>> true but that the exact opposite has occurred. Wages
>> have a high positive correlation with the level of
>> capitalization. The more developed societies have
>> higher incomes the the less developed societies.
>> Within "western" societies the more highly capitalized
>> companies pay higher wages than to small, less capitalized
>> companies in the same industries.
>
>Well, if you don't have the immiseration of the proletariat,
>then of course you have something else -- increased wages,
>perhaps.
>
>This emphasizes the error of Marx's prediction, but it
>doesn't explain it. Why doesn't capital follow the law
>of supply and demand?
It does follow the law of supply and demand, of course.
>Why doesn't a steady increase
>in the amount of capital lead to a decrease in demand
>for it
???
Really, they *should* start teaching the law of supply and demand in
high school.
A steady increase in supply doesn't reduce the demand for anything --
it reduces *the price* of that thing.
If you vastly increase capital relative to wages over, say, 100 years,
then capital priced in terms of wages plunges to extraordinary
cheapness.
So the average worker's average labor today can easily afford to buy,
say, the product of all the capital (physical and intellectual)
embedded in all the goodies of modern life, when such product of
capital would have been beyond the wildest dream of affordability re
the same amount of labor -- or *any* amount of labor -- 100 years ago.
That is *exactly* how the law of supply and demand works.
The scarce commodity commands the plentiful.
>, making it more difficult for capitalists to obtain
>a profit from it,
??? Wtf?
You make it sound as if business owners -- i.e. "capitalists" -- make
profits by selling capital to each other, so by flooding the market
with it their margin on it should collapse. Geeze. ;-)
Business owners make profits by selling ways to meet the wants and
needs of consumers. When *your* wants and needs end, so that there is
nothing in the world you want or think is worth improving, let us know
and I'll start shorting capitalism.
Business owners use capital as a *tool* for this task. Literally,
capital takes the form of tools they use, ever increasingly in the
form of knowledge.
And of course, as capital becomes ever more plentiful, it becomes
cheaper *for them*.
Now why would ever cheaper, ever higher-quality tools and knowledge
becoming available for a business's task cause that business to go
broke from low margins???
It's silly.
To the contrary, it creates the opportunities to innovate a growing
plethora of new businesses, as one can see right before one's eyes in
the most capital-intensive economies.
> thus driving them to reduce wages or
>go out of business? Indeed we do observe this
>locally -- but not globally.
You don't observe it anywhere. As capital accumulates wages rise,
everywhere, all nations, no exceptions.
You can go to the BLS web site data on historical international wages
and see for yourself.
>Maybe there is something wrong with the law of supply
>and demand.
Or maybe there's something wrong with people who don't know the
simplest things about economics, and then conclude the laws of
economics must be wrong instead of them.
Here's a tip -- there's a bogus common thread running through ALL
forms of econo-doomism: Malthusian population doomism, Ricardo's
"steady state" economy, the Iron Law of Wages, Marx's immiseration of
the workers, the running-out-of-energy crisis of the late 1800s (no
more coal!) and of today (no more oil!), etc., et al., *all* of them.
It's the reason why they have all been wrong, WAY wrong, every single
time.
They all rely on a sophomoric belief in diminishing returns. We must
be running out of food, productive land, wages, profits, energy, etc.,
etc, whatever, because, well, *we must*, because of diminishing
returns! Returns diminish!! Everyone knows that! It's even a Law!
So things can't last! QED!
Except, as any look at a textbook, or even a decent dictionary,
covering the subject will tell, there's no such thing as a law of
diminishing returns except under very tight constraints. Them being
that one is producing an output solely by applying ever more units of
one single input, with no substitutes, no change in technology or
knowledge, no innovation, no other 'nuthing. Extremely unrealistic in
the real world.
And even then the "law" is not diminishing returns but *variable*
returns, with diminishing returns lying only on the last portion of an
S-curve, and increasing returns on the former half.
Add new technology, process substitutes, knowledge innovation and the
rest, and there *ain't no such thing* as diminishing returns at all on
the big scheme.
So what's the logical reason why profits should diminish over time,
again?
The reality clearly before our eyes is that *increasing* returns play
a very major part of the economy, if not the major part -- or how did
all did all this stuff appear in the west in the last 200 years from
nothing, and how did life expectancy go from 25 to 75-and-rising?
How are increasing returns supposed to drive down wages?
The tools and knowledge (capital) that businesses use to pursue
profits continually become more plentiful, cheaper and higher quality.
How is that supposed to hurt profits, again?
anarc...@gmail.com
I don't see why you think capital cannot be thought
of as a commodity and why the supposed law of
supply and demand would not apply to it.
There may be several reasons why Marx's predictions
did not come to pass. Those I can think of offhand do
not seem like failures of logic but failures of perception.
They are also pretty obvious: war, imperialism, waste,
consumerism, technological progress and disruption
all increase the demand for capital.
I think your notion that capital stands outside of
market relations and processes is a lot more
interesting, but you need to explain it.
jmh
> jmh wrote:
> > anarc...@gmail.com writes:
> >
>
. . .>
> > It's actually more than the prediction didn't come
> > true but that the exact opposite has occurred. Wages
> > have a high positive correlation with the level of
> > capitalization. The more developed societies have
> > higher incomes the the less developed societies.
> > Within "western" societies the more highly capitalized
> > companies pay higher wages than to small, less capitalized
> > companies in the same industries.
>
> Well, if you don't have the immiseration of the proletariat,
> then of course you have something else -- increased wages,
> perhaps.
>
> This emphasizes the error of Marx's prediction, but it
> doesn't explain it. Why doesn't capital follow the law
> of supply and demand? Why doesn't a steady increase
> in the amount of capital lead to a decrease in demand
> for it, making it more difficult for capitalists to obtain
> a profit from it, thus driving them to reduce wages or
> go out of business? Indeed we do observe this
> locally -- but not globally.
>
> Maybe there is something wrong with the law of supply
> and demand.
The concepts of supply and demand still hold. The idea
that capital and labor are pure susbstitutes is flawed.
While the explanation of why higher wages are paid by
the more capitalistic firms is not (I should say was
not since I've note looked at this or any economic theory
for about 8 years now so I suspect there might be a
better understanding) well understood it's clearly
driven by a condition of both complementarity in
production and increased productivity allowing a larger
pie to be divided.
jmh
anarc...@gmail.com
> anarc...@gmail.com:
> > jmh wrote:
> > > anarc...@gmail.com:
I think that's getting away from the question I asked.
Assuming the famous law of supply and demand, then
If demand is held constant, then the increasing supply
of a commodity ought to lead to lower prices for it.
If the commodity is money, for instance, then if there
is more money available for investment, the return on
investment ought to fall (interest or dividends) because
that is the price of the money. Or suppose we look at
machine tools: the more there are of them, again given
constant demand, the more their price or rental ought
to fall.
We are talking here about a whole system, a whole
economy, not just one firm having more or less
capital than another.
Where's that fellow who was going to teach us
high school economics?
Michael Price
That's the price of money _in terms of future money_.
> If the commodity is money, for instance, then if there
> is more money available for investment, the return on
> investment ought to fall (interest or dividends) because
> that is the price of the money.
Well no, prices merely ought to rise, which means that
more money is needed for investment.
Michał Gancarski
You are assuming that the structure and productivity of capital and labor
stands constant and that there is a zero-sum competition between them.
Which is not true. Capital goods and human capital are complementary. If
you want to use more advanced capital goods you need better trained
employees.
--
Michał Gancarski
"If there's not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be
really wack and boring or something." Eminem
James A. Donald
> I think that's getting away from the question I
> asked. Assuming the famous law of supply and demand,
> then If demand is held constant, then the increasing
> supply of a commodity ought to lead to lower prices
> for it. If the commodity is money, for instance, then
> if there is more money available for investment, the
> return on investment ought to fall (interest or
> dividends) because that is the price of the money.
And indeed it does. For example in recent years asian
money has poured into the US, perhaps because asians are
feeling nervous about their governments. This has
lowered American interest and dividend rates - by
bidding up the price of shares, and by making mortgages
more readily available - to the benefit of both American
employers, and American employees.
> Or suppose we look at machine tools: the more there
> are of them, again given constant demand, the more
> their price or rental ought to fall.
And they have.
anarc...@gmail.com
> anarc...@gmail.com
> > I think that's getting away from the question I
> > asked. Assuming the famous law of supply and demand,
> > then If demand is held constant, then the increasing
> > supply of a commodity ought to lead to lower prices
> > for it. If the commodity is money, for instance, then
> > if there is more money available for investment, the
> > return on investment ought to fall (interest or
> > dividends) because that is the price of the money.
>
> And indeed it does. For example in recent years asian
> money has poured into the US, perhaps because asians are
> feeling nervous about their governments. This has
> lowered American interest and dividend rates - by
> bidding up the price of shares, and by making mortgages
> more readily available - to the benefit of both American
> employers, and American employees.
Exactly. The rising supply of money (and any other forms
of wealth which can be made into capital) ought to make it
more difficult to get return on investment -- lower interest
rates or lower dividends. That is part of what Marx
predicted -- it is evidently not the point where his logic
went wrong.
anarc...@gmail.com
The mutual dependence of capital and labor is well understood,
I think. However, I am not at all assuming a zero-sum competetion.
There is a competition about produced wealth as to whether to save
it or consume it, and who shall do the saving or consuming, but in
the scenario we are contemplating it has already been determined
that the bourgeoisie will do most of the saving and consuming and
will want to save as much as they can to keep their businesses
going and expanding. This is the mid-19th century context of
Marx's prediction. Given that arrangement, and _given_infinite_
_demand_, capital investment, wages and employment would have
a positive correlation -- would be a positive-sum game, if you will.
But Marx evidently didn't see infinite demand. Where was it to
come from? Without infinite demand, capital accumulates and
return on investment declines, the bourgeoisie are forced to try
to lower wages in order to make a profit, and finally the system
collapses and the working class takes over. That seems to be
Marx's view. Evidently that didn't happen, so I am asking why
not. Given the validity of the law of supply and demand, it seems
that demand must have been infinite. But how was infinite
demand produced?
James A. Donald
> But Marx evidently didn't see infinite demand. Where
> was it to come from? Without infinite demand, capital
> accumulates and return on investment declines, the
> bourgeoisie are forced to try to lower wages in order
> to make a profit, and finally the system collapses and
> the working class takes over. That seems to be Marx's
> view. Evidently that didn't happen, so I am asking
> why not.
And we have explained why not.
I will explain again:
The reason is that if you are a rich capitalist with
abundant capital available, this increases the
productivity of your workers, who make more money for
you, so you hire more workers. Unfortunately for you,
we suppose that all the other capitalists also have more
capital available, so they all bid up the price of
workers as they all try, unsuccessfully, to hire more
workers
This is true even if demand is finite. Finite demand
merely means you eventually approach the utopian point
where everyone is rich enough to not care much about
economics
S. Doo
>
>I think that's getting away from the question I asked.
>Assuming the famous law of supply and demand, then
>If demand is held constant, then the increasing supply
>of a commodity ought to lead to lower prices for it.
>If the commodity is money, for instance, then
The result is inflation. The value of a given amount of money declines
in terms of labor and goods.
>if there
>is more money available for investment, the return on
>investment ought to fall (interest or dividends) because
>that is the price of the money.
Interest is the price of renting money, which is a different thing.
The price of money is the amount of labor or goods needed to purchase
it.
They can move in different directions.
>Or suppose we look at
>machine tools: the more there are of them, again given
>constant demand, the more their price or rental ought
>to fall.
So you are saying a fall in the in price of products drives a fall in
the return on the capital involved in making them?
Why?
Let's look at tools. If you make them by hand they will be few in
number and their price high.
If you then decide to make them by assembly line they will mulitply
many-fold in number and their price and rental value will plunge.
But their unit cost of production will plunge too -- so why would the
return on the capital used in making them fall??
Self-evidently, it will actually rise, or you wouldn't shift from
making tools profitably by hand to a less-profitably by assembly line.
When Henry Ford shifted to making Model T's on his first assembly line
the price of them fell a good 65%, from $850 go $290.
But his unit price of making them fell by 85%.
Did his return on capital fall because the price of his product
plunged by two-thirds?
If not, was that a violation of the law of supply and demand?
>We are talking here about a whole system, a whole
>economy, not just one firm having more or less
>capital than another.
>
>Where's that fellow who was going to teach us
>high school economics?
He's asking you why Henry Ford's increased return on capital as the
result of his driving down the price of his own product wasn't a
violation of the law of supply and demand.
Now, expand the answer to this example to the "whole system" (as the
move to mass production does seem a systematic component of the
modern economy).
And forego your implicit, but illogical and empirically falsified,
belief in the inevitability of diminishing returns.
James A. Donald
> On 4 Jun 2006 21:25:31 -0700, anarc...@gmail.com
> wrote:
> >I think that's getting away from the question I
> >asked. Assuming the famous law of supply and demand,
> >then If demand is held constant, then the increasing
> >supply of a commodity ought to lead to lower prices
> >for it. If the commodity is money, for instance, then
S. Doo
> The result is inflation. The value of a given amount
> of money declines in terms of labor and goods.
I assumed that he meant "capital" by "money". Obviously
printing too much money makes people worse off . Marx,
however, was talking about an increased supply of
capital, which is commonly represented by money.
S. Doo
<jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
> --
>> On 4 Jun 2006 21:25:31 -0700, anarc...@gmail.com
>> wrote:
>> >I think that's getting away from the question I
>> >asked. Assuming the famous law of supply and demand,
>> >then If demand is held constant, then the increasing
>> >supply of a commodity ought to lead to lower prices
>> >for it. If the commodity is money, for instance, then
>
>S. Doo
>> The result is inflation. The value of a given amount
>> of money declines in terms of labor and goods.
>
>I assumed that he meant "capital" by "money".
Sure, but they are two very different things, and confusing them leads
only to confused analysis, which can lead to odd conclusions like
somehow the law of supply and demand isn't applying somewhere.
> Obviously
>printing too much money makes people worse off. Marx,
>however, was talking about an increased supply of
>capital, which is commonly represented by money.
Yes, but, well, Marx was wrong ... and straightening out the
definitions of things is helpful in making it clear how.
brique
James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote in message
news:sa7982pj0nstmeqn8...@4ax.com...
> anarc...@gmail.com:
> > But Marx evidently didn't see infinite demand. Where
> > was it to come from? Without infinite demand, capital
> > accumulates and return on investment declines, the
> > bourgeoisie are forced to try to lower wages in order
> > to make a profit, and finally the system collapses and
> > the working class takes over. That seems to be Marx's
> > view. Evidently that didn't happen, so I am asking
> > why not.
>
> And we have explained why not.
>
> I will explain again:
>
> The reason is that if you are a rich capitalist with
> abundant capital available, this increases the
> productivity of your workers, who make more money for
> you, so you hire more workers. Unfortunately for you,
> we suppose that all the other capitalists also have more
> capital available, so they all bid up the price of
> workers as they all try, unsuccessfully, to hire more
> workers
Whereupon they move the factories to another country with cheaper workers,
dismiss their current workforce who then form a pool of unemployed which act
as a brake upon wage demands from still employed workers. Another tactic is
to encourage immigration thereby increasing the pool of available labour and
thus depressing wage levels. So, even though classic laissez faire
capitalism is *supposed* to produce the nirvana that James speaks of,
reality is that labour is a cost of business that capitalists find onerous
and seek to minimise by any means necessary. There is no 'capitalist'
interest in making their workforce rich, just 'productive as possible at
least cost possible'.
>
> This is true even if demand is finite. Finite demand
> merely means you eventually approach the utopian point
> where everyone is rich enough to not care much about
> economics
As long as there is still some pool of low-cost labour doing the necessary
task of keeping the new rich fed, housed, cleaned and served. Oh, of course,
robots will do that.
James A. Donald
> > if you are a rich capitalist with abundant capital
> > available, this increases the productivity of your
> > workers, who make more money for you, so you hire
> > more workers. Unfortunately for you, we suppose
> > that all the other capitalists also have more
> > capital available, so they all bid up the price of
> > workers as they all try, unsuccessfully, to hire
> > more workers
"brique"
> Whereupon they move the factories to another country
> with cheaper workers, dismiss their current workforce
> who then form a pool of unemployed which act as a
> brake upon wage demands from still employed workers.
If they can do that without getting robbed and murdered
in the destination country, pretty soon its wages rise
to high levels also. Any time we hear you lot whining
about "sweatshops", we know another country is heading
for first world status.
Constantinople
James A. Donald wrote:
> James A. Donald:
> > > if you are a rich capitalist with abundant capital
> > > available, this increases the productivity of your
> > > workers, who make more money for you, so you hire
> > > more workers. Unfortunately for you, we suppose
> > > that all the other capitalists also have more
> > > capital available, so they all bid up the price of
> > > workers as they all try, unsuccessfully, to hire
> > > more workers
>
> "brique"
> > Whereupon they move the factories to another country
> > with cheaper workers, dismiss their current workforce
> > who then form a pool of unemployed which act as a
> > brake upon wage demands from still employed workers.
>
> If they can do that without getting robbed and murdered
> in the destination country, pretty soon its wages rise
> to high levels also. Any time we hear you lot whining
> about "sweatshops", we know another country is heading
> for first world status.
You can see the dominance of unreason in anticapitalist discourse by
considering that capitalism is criticized for both X and not-X.
Capitalism is being criticized for the introduction of factories into
countries - i.e., the complaints about "sweatshops" - and is criticized
for the removal of factories from countries (above).
Even someone with basic logic skills should understand that it is
inconsistent to recommend the removal of factories and yet recommend
that factories not be removed.
anarc...@gmail.com
> anarc...@gmail.com:
> > But Marx evidently didn't see infinite demand. Where
> > was it to come from? Without infinite demand, capital
> > accumulates and return on investment declines, the
> > bourgeoisie are forced to try to lower wages in order
> > to make a profit, and finally the system collapses and
> > the working class takes over. That seems to be Marx's
> > view. Evidently that didn't happen, so I am asking
> > why not.
>
> And we have explained why not.
>
> I will explain again:
>
> The reason is that if you are a rich capitalist with
> abundant capital available, this increases the
> productivity of your workers, who make more money for
> you, so you hire more workers. Unfortunately for you,
> we suppose that all the other capitalists also have more
> capital available, so they all bid up the price of
> workers as they all try, unsuccessfully, to hire more
> workers
>
> This is true even if demand is finite. Finite demand
> merely means you eventually approach the utopian point
> where everyone is rich enough to not care much about
> economics
No, if demand is finite then eventually the capitalists
will have all the capital they need to satisfy the demand.
The accumulation and use of more capital will only result
in a lower return on investment for a given amount of
capital. (We are taking the law of supply and demand
seriously here.) There will be no need for more workers.
Nothing utopian is going to happen to the working class
because, in this model of capitalism, there is no reason
to distribute more of the wealth to them than is required
for subsistence.
Evidently this model was disrupted and demand, if not
infinite, at least became indefinitely large.
anarc...@gmail.com
In the case of Henry Ford, I believe we are now talking about
one of the disruptions of the Marxist model. The Marxist model
takes the law of supply and demand seriously, but it does not
account for various kinds of disruptions. One of these are rapid
advances in technology, which enable one capitalist to, so to
speak, "destroy" the capital of his competitors. (If Henry Ford
learns how to make two or three times as many cars with the
same capital as his competitors do, and they can't steal his
methods, he has decreased the value of their capital by two
or three times.)
Still, Ford had to sell the cars. So the market must not have
been saturated at that point. There is more here than just
the technological disrpution.
Michał Gancarski
[...]
>> The reason is that if you are a rich capitalist with
>> abundant capital available, this increases the
>> productivity of your workers, who make more money for
>> you, so you hire more workers. Unfortunately for you,
>> we suppose that all the other capitalists also have more
>> capital available, so they all bid up the price of
>> workers as they all try, unsuccessfully, to hire more
>> workers
>>
>> This is true even if demand is finite. Finite demand
>> merely means you eventually approach the utopian point
>> where everyone is rich enough to not care much about
>> economics
>
> No, if demand is finite then eventually the capitalists
> will have all the capital they need to satisfy the demand.
> The accumulation and use of more capital will only result
> in a lower return on investment for a given amount of
> capital. (We are taking the law of supply and demand
> seriously here.) There will be no need for more workers.
> Nothing utopian is going to happen to the working class
> because, in this model of capitalism, there is no reason
> to distribute more of the wealth to them than is required
> for subsistence.
It must be really hard to "forget" about complementary nature of human
capital and capital goods twice in one thread. How do you do this?
brique
> James A. Donald:
> > > if you are a rich capitalist with abundant capital
> > > available, this increases the productivity of your
> > > workers, who make more money for you, so you hire
> > > more workers. Unfortunately for you, we suppose
> > > that all the other capitalists also have more
> > > capital available, so they all bid up the price of
> > > workers as they all try, unsuccessfully, to hire
> > > more workers
>
> "brique"
> > Whereupon they move the factories to another country
> > with cheaper workers, dismiss their current workforce
> > who then form a pool of unemployed which act as a
> > brake upon wage demands from still employed workers.
>
> If they can do that without getting robbed and murdered
> in the destination country, pretty soon its wages rise
> to high levels also. Any time we hear you lot whining
> about "sweatshops", we know another country is heading
> for first world status.
Umm...... and which sweatshops did I mention above then James? You still
getting those voices only you can hear as well?
brique
Constantinople <constan...@gmail.com> wrote in message
news:1149593420.4...@i40g2000cwc.googlegroups.com...
You criticising James for mentioning 'sweatshops', Constance? Have you
cleared this with him or is this some uncharacteristic piece of independent
thought?
I haven't 'criticised' the fact that capitalism will move its production
facilities to the cheapest location, seems a bit bloody obvious that the
urge to make profits will be met by a combination of seeking the highest
sales price and the lowest cost price possible.
Which rather acts against James theory of the capitalist virtuous circle of
ever increasing wages rewarding the good little worker and allowing them to
share the benefits of capitalist economics. What seems to be the actual
practice is that increasing wage levels caused by labour scarcity will be
dealt with by either importing more labour (immigration) to reduce scarcity
or exporting the production to a low-labour-cost region, thereby reducing
the demand for scarce labour and, perhaps accidentally, helping depress
wage-levels for those industries that remain.
It doesn't matter that eventually wage levels in the new production region
may increase, one simply moves the facility to the next desirably cheap
location, and so on. An increasing wage level merely becomes the impetus to
re-locate and often seems to stimulate government action to keep wage levels
'competitive' (i.e. low), thus retaining the otherwise ambulatory production
facility, and oddly, one rarely hears capitalists complaining about sort of
intervention in the market-place.
>
> Even someone with basic logic skills should understand that it is
> inconsistent to recommend the removal of factories and yet recommend
> that factories not be removed.
>
Someone with the most basic comprehension skills would have understood that
I made no 'recommendation' about moving, removing, keeping or not keeping
any factory anywhere, I merely observed what is current practice, a practice
which seems to contradict James theory of ever-increasing wage levels under
capitalism.
Of course,that contradiction may explain why you feel the need to change the
terms of the discussion.
anarc...@gmail.com
It has not been forgotten, it has been assumed: "[I]f
demand is finite then eventually the capitalists will have
all the capital they need to satisfy the demand. The
accumulation and use of more capital will only result
in a lower return on investment for a given amount of
capital. ... There will be no need for more workers."
I can't imagine why you think it has been forgotten in
what I wrote.
Constantinople
Nope.
Zerge
> Marx luckily was honest enough to leave us a way to falsify, and thus
> disprove, his communist hypotheses: He claimed that it was a historic
> inevitability that
>
> 1) The capitalist system would make the vast majority of the world
> poorer, and a select few ("the capitalists") much richer
> 2) The capitalist system would eradicate the middle class and make the
> proletariat baloon
> 3) Socialism and ultimately Communism would follow Capitalism.
>
> Yet, as we have seen
>
> 1) The vast majority of the world have gotten richer, even those we call
> "poor" and those that Marx and his followers would classify as the
> "proletariat".
> 2) The middle class has balooned, instead of the proletariat, which has
> actually shrunken.
> 3) Socialism and communism have collapsed gobally, with only a few
> brutal holdouts left, such as Cuba and North Korea.
>
>
> Thus; Marx is DEBUNKED!
>
> Class dismissed.
Pointing out that a phenomenon has not ocurred is not a rigorous proof
that it will never happen.
Anyhow who cares about marxism. It's soooo pasé.
James A. Donald
> > if you are a rich capitalist with abundant capital
> > available, this increases the productivity of your
> > workers, who make more money for you, so you hire
> > more workers. Unfortunately for you, we suppose
> > that all the other capitalists also have more
> > capital available, so they all bid up the price of
> > workers as they all try, unsuccessfully, to hire
> > more workers
> >
> > This is true even if demand is finite. Finite
> > demand merely means you eventually approach the
> > utopian point where everyone is rich enough to not
> > care much about economics
> No, if demand is finite then eventually the
> capitalists will have all the capital they need to
> satisfy the demand. The accumulation and use of more
> capital will only result in a lower return on
> investment for a given amount of capital. (We are
> taking the law of supply and demand seriously here.)
> There will be no need for more workers. Nothing
> utopian is going to happen to the working class
> because, in this model of capitalism, there is no
> reason to distribute more of the wealth to them than
> is required for subsistence.
But you are assuming your conclusion - that capitalism
must make the workers poor.
If one poor person in the world remains, there is
unsatisfied demand.
If demand is finite, and satisfied, then everyone has
everything they want. Utopia!
anarc...@gmail.com
I was talking about Marx's logic, which seems to be based
on a notion of a more or less closed system with finite
demand. It seems clear that as long as there is demand,
capitalist enterprises can expand, capital can be accumulated
without without driving down return on investment, employment
and wages can rise indefinitely, and so on.
It seems odd to me that Marx did not observe that war and
imperialism could provide infinite demand. However, I am
not surprised that he failed to foresee consumerism, another
great source of demand, because I don't believe there was
much of that until the 20th century.
> If one poor person in the world remains, there is
> unsatisfied demand.
>
> If demand is finite, and satisfied, then everyone has
> everything they want. Utopia!
We are talking here about economic demand, that is,
desire to obtain things on the part of people who have
something to trade and are willing to trade it for what
the capitalists can produce. In fact, economic demand
could be finite even though large numbers of people
were living in destitution and even dying of exposure
and starvation. One can observe examples of that in
some poor countries today and in history.
I would not say that everyone having everything they
want would be a utopia, since it is obvious that many
people desire death, destruction, repression, terror
and torture to be visited on others and sometimes on
themselves. This will be unutopian for those who
have to live in the same world with them. But that
is another subject.
James A. Donald
> Umm...... and which sweatshops did I mention above
> then James?
You used the thought, not the word. Supposedly, by
building a factory in a foreign land, the evil
capitalist manages to oppress workers in both lands
In this thread anarcissie%40gmail.com is trying to argue
that building factories will make workers poorer. You
just argued that closing factories in America to open
them in some other country will make workers American
workers poorer, which is true, and the obvious truth of
this remark refutes anarcissie%40gmail.com - but you
failed to draw the obvious corollary, that opening
factories in foreign lands will make foreign workers
richer - and since you are supposedly in favor of
equality, should not you be all in favor of factories in
foreign lands, in favor of "sweatshops"?
I am in favor of sweatshops, for what is a sweatshop but
capital, hard work, and entrepreneurship, and that is
where wealth comes from. "Sweatshops" is how poor
people become rich.
jmh
If does, the phenomena is known as inflation.
> We are talking here about a whole system, a whole
> economy, not just one firm having more or less
> capital than another.
Yes, we are talking about the system as a whole
but also about the relative behaviors of various
agents within that system all reacting to the same
basic systematic incentives.
jmh
James A. Donald
> I was talking about Marx's logic, which seems to be
> based on a notion of a more or less closed system with
> finite demand.
But if demand is finite, and we fill up all that demand,
then everyone has everything they want. Utopia!
> It seems odd to me that Marx did not observe that war
> and imperialism could provide infinite demand.
You are not making sense. War and imperialism forcibly
suppresses demand - for example the infamous thornbush
curtain in colonial India was there to violently prevent
people from getting what they wanted. War and
imperialism has pretty much the same effect as communism
had, forcibly shutting markets down.
James A. Donald:
> > If one poor person in the world remains, there is
> > unsatisfied demand.
> >
> > If demand is finite, and satisfied, then everyone
> > has everything they want. Utopia!
> We are talking here about economic demand, that is,
> desire to obtain things on the part of people who have
> something to trade and are willing to trade it for
> what the capitalists can produce.
They have brains and hands. Therefore something to
trade, therefore their demand is economic demand. So
long as someone sound in body and mind wants something,
there is unsatisfied economic demand.
> In fact, economic demand could be finite even though
> large numbers of people were living in destitution and
> even dying of exposure and starvation.
You are not making any sense.
> One can observe examples of that in some poor
> countries today and in history.
Those are poor countries where massive violence prevents
capitalism, prevents capitalists from employing those
people and satisfying those demands - thus these
countries have enormous, unsatisfied economic demand.
(Recall all those capitalists lusting after the chinese
market, which is now slowly opening) The most extreme
current example being North Korea, the one place in the
world where we still have very serious famines, and the
most extreme recent example being Mengistu's Ethiopia -
in both cases terror and mass murder on a gigantic scale
was required to prevent demand from being satisfied.
jmh
I doubt that it is well understood. Perhaps well known.
> There is a competition about produced wealth as to whether to save
> it or consume it, and who shall do the saving or consuming, but in
> the scenario we are contemplating it has already been determined
Since when? That competition is an ongoing process and it's not
just determined and fixed like some chalk board representation.
> that the bourgeoisie will do most of the saving and consuming and
> will want to save as much as they can to keep their businesses
> going and expanding. This is the mid-19th century context of
> Marx's prediction. Given that arrangement, and _given_infinite_
> _demand_, capital investment, wages and employment would have
> a positive correlation -- would be a positive-sum game, if you will.
I don't understand the above, positive correlations have
nothing to do with positive-sum games. There's probably a
positive correlation between the frequency with which prior
prisoners defected and the probability of the current prisoner
pair having a defection (one confessing) but that produces
a negative-sum game outcome from the game-theory stand point.
> But Marx evidently didn't see infinite demand. Where was it to
What is "infinite demand"?
> come from? Without infinite demand, capital accumulates and
Why? Doesn't the demand for capital exhaust itself at some point
just like the other demands? Even if your premise is true, who
cares? If the marginal rate of return goes to 0 the acumulation
of capital simply stops. That doesn't mean that the enterprise
is makeing 0 total return.
This is where the classical analysis of Marx has such a problem.
> return on investment declines, the bourgeoisie are forced to try
> to lower wages in order to make a profit, and finally the system
> collapses and the working class takes over. That seems to be
> Marx's view. Evidently that didn't happen, so I am asking why
> not. Given the validity of the law of supply and demand, it seems
> that demand must have been infinite. But how was infinite
> demand produced?
It doesn't need to be, does not exist and never was required
for a capitalistic system or markets to function.
jmh
jmh
Because by definition an increase in the consumption of
X implies the increase in the consumption of a complementary
good. You'll need to explain why were at some corner solution
for labor but not capital. Only one I can think of is
full employment--no new workes will enter the labor market
for the wage offered.
I think a good part of the confusion is that you keep
treating capital as a purely monetary concept or something.
jmh
James A. Donald
> if demand is finite then eventually the capitalists
> will have all the capital they need to satisfy the
> demand.
But if they satisfy all the demand, then everyone has
everything they want, or close to it, and no one cares
very much if some people want and have substantially
more than others.
Constantinople
James A. Donald wrote:
> "brique":
> > Umm...... and which sweatshops did I mention above
> > then James?
>
> You used the thought, not the word. Supposedly, by
> building a factory in a foreign land, the evil
> capitalist manages to oppress workers in both lands
>
> In this thread anarcissie%40gmail.com is trying to argue
> that building factories will make workers poorer. You
> just argued that closing factories in America to open
> them in some other country will make workers American
> workers poorer, which is true, and the obvious truth of
> this remark refutes anarcissie%40gmail.com - but you
> failed to draw the obvious corollary, that opening
> factories in foreign lands will make foreign workers
> richer - and since you are supposedly in favor of
> equality, should not you be all in favor of factories in
> foreign lands, in favor of "sweatshops"?
>
> I am in favor of sweatshops, for what is a sweatshop but
> capital, hard work, and entrepreneurship, and that is
> where wealth comes from. "Sweatshops" is how poor
> people become rich.
It's how the poor people make themselves rich. Which is how the vast
majority of poor who become rich, become rich. The leftist thinks that
the poor are incapable of making themselves rich. He thinks that they
are in desperate need of his help. Sweatshops offend him to his
innermost core because on some level he recognizes that their very
existence negates his entire worldview, particularly his sense of his
own importance.
James A. Donald
> I think a good part of the confusion is that you
I don't think that is his confusion.
I think that he supposes that value just rains from the
sky, (or is a fixed quantity equal to the supply of
labor, which comes to much the same thing) and somehow
the evil capitalists have collared the supply of rain.
Capital is an evil tool for capturing this wealth, so if
more capital, more of the wealth is captured, less
available for the workers.
He then, like Marx, decorates this reasoning with
randomly chosen economic concepts and phrases, plucked
from context without much regard for what they actually
mean to real economists.
Obviously more capital results in more production per
worker, and declining returns on capital means that if
capital is relatively abundant, the relatively less
abundant factor of production (labor) gets a larger
share of what is produced. So the more capital, the
more wealth produced, the larger the share of that
wealth going to labor, and the more popular capitalism
becomes - as in fact we observe.
But no matter how often we explain this, he translates
what we say into the Marxist universe, where there are
no real factors of production. In his universe wealth
just rains from the sky, and who gets what is a matter
of power rather than creativity. So our statements
make no sense to him, and his statements make no sense
to us, because he is only pretending to speak the
language of economics.
achipin...@yahoo.com
James A. Donald wrote:
> I am in favor of sweatshops, for what is a sweatshop but
> capital, hard work, and entrepreneurship, and that is
> where wealth comes from. "Sweatshops" is how poor
> people become rich.
that is the worst joke i have ever heard.
anarc...@gmail.com
> jmh
> > I think a good part of the confusion is that you
> > [anarc...@gmail.com] keep treating capital as a
> > purely monetary concept or something.
As a matter of fact I have not. I have mentioned
both money and machine tools as forms of capital.
The same principle applies to both -- if you keep
accumulating capital in the context of constant
demand, it will be worth less and less and return
on investment will be harder and harder to obtain.
Or at least this is what the law of supply and
demand tells us. It may be that some of you
don't believe in it, in which case I am curious as
to what other rule of behavior you propose.
> I don't think that is his confusion.
>
> I think that he supposes that value just rains from the
> sky, (or is a fixed quantity equal to the supply of
> labor, which comes to much the same thing) and somehow
> the evil capitalists have collared the supply of rain.
> Capital is an evil tool for capturing this wealth, so if
> more capital, more of the wealth is captured, less
> available for the workers.
I specifically stated that if demand were unlimited,
more capital would lead to more employment and higher
wages. But if demand is finite, then the falling return
on investment will lead to less employment and lower
wages.
> He then, like Marx, decorates this reasoning with
> randomly chosen economic concepts and phrases, plucked
> from context without much regard for what they actually
> mean to real economists.
>
> Obviously more capital results in more production per
> worker, and declining returns on capital means that if
> capital is relatively abundant, the relatively less
> abundant factor of production (labor) gets a larger
> share of what is produced. So the more capital, the
> more wealth produced, the larger the share of that
> wealth going to labor, and the more popular capitalism
> becomes - as in fact we observe.
But only if there is demand. If there is finite demand
and it is used up, so to speak, then there is no reason
to accumulate more capital. In fact, it will probably be
opportune to use that capital which can be converted
to other uses in those ways, specifically, consumption
by the owner, so that the amount of capital will fall.
As the amount of capital falls, employment and wages
will fall. There would be no reason for capitalists to
give jobs and wages if they could not make a profit.
> But no matter how often we explain this, he translates
> what we say into the Marxist universe, where there are
> no real factors of production. In his universe wealth
> just rains from the sky, and who gets what is a matter
> of power rather than creativity. So our statements
> make no sense to him, and his statements make no sense
> to us, because he is only pretending to speak the
> language of economics.
I have been both explaining Marx's theory and
commenting on it. Many of your statements make
sense to me, they just don't apply either to what Marx
said or -- a different thing -- what I said. Perhaps it
is confusing to deal with two different sets of ideas
at once. I was interested in discussing where Marx
went wrong, but apparently it cannot be said that
he was right on _any_ point whatever, as a matter
of principle, so it does not appear that this discussion
is going to happen.
Constantinople
The only people that are going to make the poor rich are the poor
themselves, and they're not going to do it all at once - they're going
to do it little by little and they're going to sweat. Soft-headed
liberals born to wealth will look at this and think, "outrageous, they
should have it as easy as I had it." But that isn't going to happen,
because there's just too many of them. They're going to have to get
rich the hard way, not by being born into it as the critics of
sweatshops were. They want the sweatshops because it's their ticket out
of poverty. It's not the poor working in them that want the sweatshops
to disappear. It's the rich liberals who live thousands of miles away
who want the sweatshops to disappear, because the sweatshops make them
feel bad, the sweatshops remind them that normally it takes a lot of
work to get to where the rich liberals were born. And that by the way
applies to anyone born in the US. If you were born in the US, you
fucking lucky bastard, you goddamn winner of the global lottery.
brique
Odd, as James was the one with the complaints about them, not loved enough,
apparently.
brique
> "brique":
> > Umm...... and which sweatshops did I mention above
> > then James?
>
> You used the thought, not the word. Supposedly, by
> building a factory in a foreign land, the evil
> capitalist manages to oppress workers in both lands
Aaaaah, that jamesian reading between the lines whilst wearing a tin-foil
hat designed to collect thought-rays thing again. Thought so, but then, you
knew that too, didn't you?
>
> In this thread anarcissie%40gmail.com is trying to argue
> that building factories will make workers poorer.
No. They have suggested that building too many factories will make
capitalists poorer.
You
> just argued that closing factories in America to open
> them in some other country will make workers American
> workers poorer, which is true,
Strewth! Must be a typo.........
>and the obvious truth of
> this remark
Nope, it does look like James agrees with me... is this a first?
>refutes anarcissie%40gmail.com
No, as anarcissie didn't claim that....
> - but you
> failed to draw the obvious corollary, that opening
> factories in foreign lands will make foreign workers
> richer
never said it wouldn't....
- and since you are supposedly in favor of
> equality, should not you be all in favor of factories in
> foreign lands, in favor of "sweatshops"?
At they will be treated as equally as the american worker, until a cheaper
location can be found and then, as equally as the american worker, they will
be left unemployed and, guess what....poorer.
>
> I am in favor of sweatshops, for what is a sweatshop but
> capital, hard work, and entrepreneurship, and that is
> where wealth comes from. "Sweatshops" is how poor
> people become rich.
I agree, sweatshops are how poor people become rich. Unfortunately, it's
only the owners who get to translate from poor to rich. The workforce just
get the minimum wage until the newly rich owner moves production to
somewhere cheaper still. No surprise there, capitalism is not about making
the workers rich anyway, they are just a cost which has to be kept as low as
possible to make sure the owner gets and stays rich.
brique
Plain fucking nuts......... and ,as ever, if the good old USA is so fucking
wonderful, just why is it you an anarchist, Constance? I mean, what's to
change? It's all so perfect already. Oh, of course, american foreign policy,
that's it.... not killing enough 'enemies'... and their children and
by-standers and, what the heck... who cares, we need more corpses!
S. Doo
<jam...@echeque.com> wrote:
>anarc...@gmail.com:
>> I was talking about Marx's logic, which seems to be
>> based on a notion of a more or less closed system with
>> finite demand.
>
>But if demand is finite, and we fill up all that demand,
>then everyone has everything they want. Utopia!
It is an odd thing that the satisfaction of all wants and needs is the
necessary precondition for immiseration of the workers. ;-)
Amusing, these Marxists.
Dan Clore
> James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote in message
> news:o30c82ha612ogrnkd...@4ax.com...
>>I am in favor of sweatshops, for what is a sweatshop but
>>capital, hard work, and entrepreneurship, and that is
>>where wealth comes from. "Sweatshops" is how poor
>>people become rich.
>
> I agree, sweatshops are how poor people become rich. Unfortunately, it's
> only the owners who get to translate from poor to rich. The workforce just
> get the minimum wage until the newly rich owner moves production to
> somewhere cheaper still. No surprise there, capitalism is not about making
> the workers rich anyway, they are just a cost which has to be kept as low as
> possible to make sure the owner gets and stays rich.
I suggest interested readers go to:
http://mutualist.blogspot.com/
and see the series on Vulgar Libertarianism.
--
Dan Clore
My collected fiction, _The Unspeakable and Others_:
http://amazon.com/o/ASIN/1587154838/ref=nosim/thedanclorenecro
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
Strange pleasures are known to him who flaunts the
immarcescible purple of poetry before the color-blind.
-- Clark Ashton Smith, "Epigrams and Apothegms"
Robert Vienneau
On 06/07/2006 01:57:10 Dan Clore <cl...@columbia-center.org> wrote:
> brique wrote:
>> James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote in message
>> news:o30c82ha612ogrnkd...@4ax.com...
>>> I am in favor of sweatshops, for what is a sweatshop but capital, hard
>>> work, and entrepreneurship, and that is where wealth comes from.
>>> "Sweatshops" is how poor people become rich.
>> I agree, sweatshops are how poor people become rich. Unfortunately, it's
>> only the owners who get to translate from poor to rich. The workforce
>> just get the minimum wage until the newly rich owner moves production to
>> somewhere cheaper still. No surprise there, capitalism is not about
>> making the workers rich anyway, they are just a cost which has to be kept
>> as low as possible to make sure the owner gets and stays rich.
> I suggest interested readers go to: http://mutualist.blogspot.com/ and see
> the series on Vulgar Libertarianism.
I found this part in the series:
<http://tinyurl.com/hybmb>
I think my blog may be more theoretical than some like. I have something
to confront "libertarians" who are just not very bright here:
--
Whether strength of body or of mind, or wisdom, or virtue,
are found in proportion to the power or wealth of a man is
a question fit perhaps to be discussed by slaves in the
hearing of their masters, but highly unbecoming to
reasonable and free men in search of the truth.
-- Jean Jacques Rousseau
James A. Donald
> I specifically stated that if demand were unlimited,
> more capital would lead to more employment and higher
> wages. But if demand is finite, then the falling
> return on investment will lead to less employment and
> lower wages.
Yes, but this specific statement no sense to me, which
leads me to conclude you are not using these words in
their customary senses - that you mean by finite demand
something strange and Marxist.
If demand is finite, then as capital accumulates we
approach utopia, where everyone has all they want, or
near to it and economics ceases to matter much. Whether
we approach utopia or not, does not alter the conclusion
and the observed fact that if capital increases relative
to labor, more wealth will be produced per laborer, and
the proportion of that wealth going to the laborer will
also increase - as brique implicitly admitted when he
declared that factories being moved over the sea is a
bad thing for those that they move away from
James A. Donald:
> > Obviously more capital results in more production
> > per worker, and declining returns on capital means
> > that if capital is relatively abundant, the
> > relatively less abundant factor of production
> > (labor) gets a larger share of what is produced. So
> > the more capital, the more wealth produced, the
> > larger the share of that wealth going to labor, and
> > the more popular capitalism becomes - as in fact we
> > observe.
> But only if there is demand. If there is finite
> demand and it is used up, so to speak, then there is
> no reason to accumulate more capital.
Yes, but why is demand finite? Either everyone has all
that they want, or, as in the great depression, the
government artificially restricts demand by artificially
raising prices by decree, and by artificially
restricting the money reply and forbidding capitalists
to lower prices proportionately, or, as in World War II,
the government just forbids everyone from getting stuff,
or as in an many third world countries, any effort to
meet demand results in looting and pillage, so people
cannot reliably get paid for meeting demand.
If everyone has all they want, or near to it, then no
problem. I suppose there are lots of scenarios where
demand is finite for some reason other than everyone
being content, and in these scenarios the workers are
indeed apt to suffer, but in these scenarios their
suffering has little to do with capitalism or the
accumulation of capital.
James A. Donald
> I agree, sweatshops are how poor people become rich.
> Unfortunately, it's only the owners who get to
> translate from poor to rich.
What were the countries that you lot were screaming
about "sweatshops" thirty years ago? I seem to recall a
Nike style drama about how the oppressed masses of
Taiwan were being brutally oppressed by being forced to
make barbie dolls by their harsh taskmasters. Today,
the average Taiwanese has pretty much the same income as
the average European - and on if current trends continue
then in a decade or so their income will be a fair bit
higher.
Constantinople
It's not nuts to say that the poor are going to need to pull themselves
up out of poverty, and that the effort won't look like a walk in the
part from the vantage point of someone who's already rich. And that if
you get rid of the "sweatshops" because they make you feel bad then
you'll be depriving the poor of the very means by which they can become
as rich as you.
> and ,as ever, if the good old USA is so fucking
> wonderful, just why is it you an anarchist, Constance?
I said the US is better to make a living in than countries impoverished
by kleptocracy and socialism and war. That doesn't mean the US can't be
better than it is.
> I mean, what's to
> change? It's all so perfect already.
It's not perfect, it's just been a lot better to make a living in than
a lot of the world. Ask immigrants why they come here. The reason is
that one way to get a big boost in the process of dragging yourself up
out of poverty is to come to the US.
> Oh, of course, american foreign policy,
> that's it.... not killing enough 'enemies'... and their children and
> by-standers and, what the heck... who cares, we need more corpses!
American foreign policy has very little to do with its wealth, except
insofar as the foreign policy may have kept America free of war and
free of foreign domination. What makes America relatively wealthy is
that its government (relatively to other governments) has allowed
capitalism to flourish.
Constantinople
Nope.
> not loved enough,
> apparently.
Constantinople
Dan Clore wrote:
> brique wrote:
> > James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote in message
> > news:o30c82ha612ogrnkd...@4ax.com...
>
> >>I am in favor of sweatshops, for what is a sweatshop but
> >>capital, hard work, and entrepreneurship, and that is
> >>where wealth comes from. "Sweatshops" is how poor
> >>people become rich.
> >
> > I agree, sweatshops are how poor people become rich. Unfortunately, it's
> > only the owners who get to translate from poor to rich.
Your (brique's) claim is merely a repetition of the long since
falsified Marxist prediction that in capitalism, the capitalist class
will get rich while the working class will get poorer, a prediction
which is easily seen to be false by comparing the average wealth of the
American wage-earner today with the average wealth of the American
wage-earner 200 years ago.
> > The workforce just
> > get the minimum wage until the newly rich owner moves production to
> > somewhere cheaper still. No surprise there, capitalism is not about making
> > the workers rich anyway, they are just a cost which has to be kept as low as
> > possible to make sure the owner gets and stays rich.
>
> I suggest interested readers go to:
> http://mutualist.blogspot.com/
> and see the series on Vulgar Libertarianism.
Brique's claim might be called Vulgar Marxism, since the more
sophisticated Marxists have smartly abandoned the exploded predictions
of Marx.
anarc...@gmail.com
James A. Donald wrote:
> anarc...@gmail.com
> > I specifically stated that if demand were unlimited,
> > more capital would lead to more employment and higher
> > wages. But if demand is finite, then the falling
> > return on investment will lead to less employment and
> > lower wages.
>
> Yes, but this specific statement no sense to me, which
> leads me to conclude you are not using these words in
> their customary senses - that you mean by finite demand
> something strange and Marxist.
>
> If demand is finite, then as capital accumulates we
> approach utopia, where everyone has all they want, or
> near to it and economics ceases to matter much. Whether
> we approach utopia or not, does not alter the conclusion
> and the observed fact that if capital increases relative
> to labor, more wealth will be produced per laborer, and
> the proportion of that wealth going to the laborer will
> also increase - as brique implicitly admitted when he
> declared that factories being moved over the sea is a
> bad thing for those that they move away from
Apparently you did not read my explanation that I
was using "demand" in a economic sense -- not any
old desire for things, but the willingness _and_ability_
to trade something for the things desired. It is quite
possible to have a situation in which people are
destitute and yet there is very little demand. The
cessation of demand, therefore, is not necessarily
utopian.
It is true that an increase of capital ought to benefit
workers by increasing jobs and wages. But capital
will be accumulated only if capitalists believe they
will be able to sell the things they produce, and
will continue only if they actually sell them. Hence,
demand, like labor, is crucial to capitalism.
James A. Donald:
> > > Obviously more capital results in more production
> > > per worker, and declining returns on capital means
> > > that if capital is relatively abundant, the
> > > relatively less abundant factor of production
> > > (labor) gets a larger share of what is produced. So
> > > the more capital, the more wealth produced, the
> > > larger the share of that wealth going to labor, and
> > > the more popular capitalism becomes - as in fact we
> > > observe.
>
> anarc...@gmail.com
> > But only if there is demand. If there is finite
> > demand and it is used up, so to speak, then there is
> > no reason to accumulate more capital.
>
> Yes, but why is demand finite?
Marx seems to have postulated that it was more or
less finite, hence his predictions. The predictions did
not come to pass, so evidently there was something
wrong with them. I say it is that demand is not finite,
or at least it has not been finite in between 1848 and
the present moment. Various ways of creating and
maintaining demand appeared or were invented, for
instance war and imperialism, and consumerism.
Imperialism is somewhat limited because there are
only a finite number of countries to colonize, but war
and consumerism ought to be able to use up any
amount of production and thus keep the system
going.
brique
Oh, well, who else mentioned sweatshops then? Apart from yourself in your
untiring efforts to salvage James reputation... another lost cause.....
>
> > not loved enough,
> > apparently.
>
Constantinople
I didn't say anyone mentioned sweatshops on this particular occasion, I
was speaking about the standard leftist position. Later on you
expressed the very position that I was referring to, making your
position self-contradictory rather than merely contradictory of the
standard leftist position. You wrote:
"I agree, sweatshops are how poor people become rich. Unfortunately,
it's
only the owners who get to translate from poor to rich. The workforce
just
get the minimum wage until the newly rich owner moves production to
somewhere cheaper still. No surprise there, capitalism is not about
making
the workers rich anyway, they are just a cost which has to be kept as
low as
possible to make sure the owner gets and stays rich."
> Apart from yourself in your
brique
> "brique"
> > I agree, sweatshops are how poor people become rich.
> > Unfortunately, it's only the owners who get to
> > translate from poor to rich.
>
> What were the countries that you lot were screaming
> about "sweatshops" thirty years ago? I seem to recall a
> Nike style drama about how the oppressed masses of
> Taiwan were being brutally oppressed by being forced to
> make barbie dolls by their harsh taskmasters. Today,
> the average Taiwanese has pretty much the same income as
> the average European - and on if current trends continue
> then in a decade or so their income will be a fair bit
> higher.
Ah, that all-purpose 'you lot' again... how about a few quotes from me on
the subject then James?
brique
>
> Dan Clore wrote:
> > brique wrote:
> > > James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote in message
> > > news:o30c82ha612ogrnkd...@4ax.com...
> >
> > >>I am in favor of sweatshops, for what is a sweatshop but
> > >>capital, hard work, and entrepreneurship, and that is
> > >>where wealth comes from. "Sweatshops" is how poor
> > >>people become rich.
> > >
> > > I agree, sweatshops are how poor people become rich. Unfortunately,
it's
> > > only the owners who get to translate from poor to rich.
>
> Your (brique's) claim is merely a repetition of the long since
> falsified Marxist prediction that in capitalism, the capitalist class
> will get rich while the working class will get poorer, a prediction
> which is easily seen to be false by comparing the average wealth of the
> American wage-earner today with the average wealth of the American
> wage-earner 200 years ago.
Not what I said, read it again.....
>
> > > The workforce just
> > > get the minimum wage until the newly rich owner moves production to
> > > somewhere cheaper still. No surprise there, capitalism is not about
making
> > > the workers rich anyway, they are just a cost which has to be kept as
low as
> > > possible to make sure the owner gets and stays rich.
> >
> > I suggest interested readers go to:
> > http://mutualist.blogspot.com/
> > and see the series on Vulgar Libertarianism.
>
> Brique's claim might be called Vulgar Marxism, since the more
> sophisticated Marxists have smartly abandoned the exploded predictions
> of Marx.
>
First, your claim would require me to be a marxist......... only then would
it be relevant to question what kind of marxist I would be.....
Constantinople
brique wrote:
> Constantinople <constan...@gmail.com> wrote in message
> news:1149692074....@j55g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
> >
> > Dan Clore wrote:
> > > brique wrote:
> > > > James A. Donald <jam...@echeque.com> wrote in message
> > > > news:o30c82ha612ogrnkd...@4ax.com...
> > >
> > > >>I am in favor of sweatshops, for what is a sweatshop but
> > > >>capital, hard work, and entrepreneurship, and that is
> > > >>where wealth comes from. "Sweatshops" is how poor
> > > >>people become rich.
> > > >
> > > > I agree, sweatshops are how poor people become rich. Unfortunately,
> it's
> > > > only the owners who get to translate from poor to rich.
> >
> > Your (brique's) claim is merely a repetition of the long since
> > falsified Marxist prediction that in capitalism, the capitalist class
> > will get rich while the working class will get poorer, a prediction
> > which is easily seen to be false by comparing the average wealth of the
> > American wage-earner today with the average wealth of the American
> > wage-earner 200 years ago.
>
> Not what I said, read it again.....
Yes it is.
> > > > The workforce just
> > > > get the minimum wage until the newly rich owner moves production to
> > > > somewhere cheaper still. No surprise there, capitalism is not about
> making
> > > > the workers rich anyway, they are just a cost which has to be kept as
> low as
> > > > possible to make sure the owner gets and stays rich.
> > >
> > > I suggest interested readers go to:
> > > http://mutualist.blogspot.com/
> > > and see the series on Vulgar Libertarianism.
> >
> > Brique's claim might be called Vulgar Marxism, since the more
> > sophisticated Marxists have smartly abandoned the exploded predictions
> > of Marx.
> >
>
> First, your claim would require me to be a marxist......... only then would
> it be relevant to question what kind of marxist I would be.....
No, I said your claim might be called Vulgar Marxism. Not you, but your
claim.
anarc...@gmail.com
> ...
> American foreign policy has very little to do with its wealth, except
> insofar as the foreign policy may have kept America free of war and
> free of foreign domination. What makes America relatively wealthy is
> that its government (relatively to other governments) has allowed
> capitalism to flourish.
Capitalists have generally dominated the U.S. government, directly
or indirectly, so it is curious if American foreign (and military and
imperial) policy did not attempt serve their interests. But often
those interests are best served with a light hand. It was much
more intelligent to simply warn European nations off Latin America,
rather than attempt to take and rule the latter directly, in the
style of older empires.
However, there are times when the ruling class seems to have a
breakdown or schizophrenic episode. Certainly the Civil War was
one of these cases. Much that happened during and after the
Civil Rights movement and the war in Vietnam was also rather
incoherent (from a ruling-class point of view).
At present, the ruling class, or at least that part of it which
controls the government, seems bent on destroying the state
through debt, imperial war, and repression. Again, we may be
witnessing some kind of breakdown which has given small
groups, like those who manipulate religious zealots, unusual
powers.
achipin...@yahoo.com
Constantinople wrote:
> The only people that are going to make the poor rich are the poor
> themselves, and they're not going to do it all at once - they're going
> to do it little by little and they're going to sweat.
an ethnocentrist assumption that all 'them' working in sweatshops 'over
there' are clamoring to be ingratiated into the transnational debt
economy. please, pave my former farmland, then import food under lock
and key, and give me a shit job so maybe i can feed one of my kids.
utterly facetious. like saying a dollar whore would make the forbes
500 if she worked longer on 50% off days.
It's not the poor working in them that want the sweatshops
> to disappear. It's the rich liberals who live thousands of miles away
> who want the sweatshops to disappear,
really? what's your basis for this dementia? i guess the abundant
documentation made available by human rights organizations of the
cruelty, exploitation, sadism, dehumanization, expendability, fatal
uncleanliness, and total degradation of the conditions of every day
life is just so much idle chatter. i wouldn't expect a capitalist to
give a shiny shit about this as long as the numbers add up. and up and
up and up.
because the sweatshops make them
> feel bad, the sweatshops remind them that normally it takes a lot of
> work to get to where the rich liberals were born.
so does this explain 'white guilt' too? it's an uncomfortable reminder
that the edifice of american magnificence taken as easily achievable
reality is built on imperial genocide and the unsustainable paradigm of
endless expansion (of property, capital, profit, prestige, influence,
power, ad nauseum). castles in the sky...
And that by the way
> applies to anyone born in the US. If you were born in the US, you
> fucking lucky bastard, you goddamn winner of the global lottery.
easier said than proven. blight, dessication, desperation manifest in
violence both criminal and legal, media induced social anxiety,
over-medication, pollution, sprawl, corruption, craven perversities as
coping mechanisms, routinization, abusive health care systems driven
purely by the profit motive, atomization, politics as autonomous
spectacle, deplorable negligence or direct oppression of the burgeoning
and struggling (new class of untouchable) poor, nurtured superobesity,
socio-economic conscription into the military, and the crass
consumerism that shines the surface and exports all the above in the
disguise of inevitable opulence... cha-ching!!
horatio alger is the opiate of the elite. money flows upwards and
gravitates around other bodies of money. the only ones that profit are
the ones who need/deserve it the least.
libertarians, capitalist mouthpieces of all stripes, make my local
toothless decaying 4th grade dropout long term meth addict with a
stutter and facial skin slippage seem like marcel fucking proust.
Constantinople
anarc...@gmail.com wrote:
> Constantinople wrote:
> > ...
> > American foreign policy has very little to do with its wealth, except
> > insofar as the foreign policy may have kept America free of war and
> > free of foreign domination. What makes America relatively wealthy is
> > that its government (relatively to other governments) has allowed
> > capitalism to flourish.
>
> Capitalists have generally dominated the U.S. government, directly
> or indirectly, so it is curious if American foreign (and military and
> imperial) policy did not attempt serve their interests.
To the extent that some (not all) capitalists influence the government,
the American economy is harmed. The old enemies of capitalism are
capitalists who use government.
Government cannot help the economy except by getting off its back - by
laissez-faire - and possibly by defending the economy against threats
such as aggressive foreign governments. Therefore American foreign
policy has very little to do with why it is wealthy, except insofar as
the foreign policy may have kept America free.
Constantinople
achipin...@yahoo.com wrote:
> Constantinople wrote:
> > The only people that are going to make the poor rich are the poor
> > themselves, and they're not going to do it all at once - they're going
> > to do it little by little and they're going to sweat.
>
> an ethnocentrist assumption that all 'them' working in sweatshops 'over
> there' are clamoring to be ingratiated into the transnational debt
> economy.
Your nonsensical, buzzword-dropping criticism ("ethnocentrist") doesn't
even merit a reply.
anarc...@gmail.com
That is somewhat debatable. In the 19th century, the U.S. government
spent a considerable amount of money on armies to seize territory and
clear the inhabitants off it, or at least neutralize them, and spent
further considerable amounts of money on what used to be called
"internal improvements" -- we would say "infrastructure" today. In a
sense this was foreign policy because these territories started out as
someone else's territory.
I think one must also count the efforts of the Federal government to
open up markets and keep them open, sometimes to the point of
going to war, as foreign policy. The effort runs from the Monroe
Doctrine at least to the Marshall Plan and NATO.
Plus, we have the more active Wilsonian policies our current
great leader is so fond of; but these may not have been so
beneficial and the ruling class seems to have been accordingly
divided about them.
Nathan Folkert
In Vietnam, conditions in the rice paddies were pretty grim -- being
shin deep in water filled with buffalo shit all day apparently causes
some pretty chronic and unpleasant fungal infections. From what I
heard and saw, many farmers were eager to get jobs in the new
joint-venture factories, which kept them out of the sun and out of the
paddies (some of the factories were apparently even air-conditioned),
and were far cleaner than the old Russian-installed industries I saw.
In any case, the Vietnamese are getting richer now (both by their
accounts and by the amount of economic activity geared toward regular
people, such as home construction, personal transportation
improvements, etc.), and were not before, when the state took all the
farmers' produce and there were very few factories.
So from what I have seen, not only are these "sweatshop" jobs making
regular Vietnamese people richer, but the jobs themselves are typically
desired over traditional farming jobs because they are not really "shit
jobs" relative to mouldering in sewage. It's possible what I saw and
heard was not representative, though. Perhaps achipinthearmor can
share with us his personal experiences that provide him with his
non-ethnocentric perspective on what is best for these distant farmers.
- Nate
Constantinople
anarc...@gmail.com wrote:
> Constantinople wrote:
> > anarc...@gmail.com wrote:
> > > Constantinople wrote:
> > > > ...
> > > > American foreign policy has very little to do with its wealth, except
> > > > insofar as the foreign policy may have kept America free of war and
> > > > free of foreign domination. What makes America relatively wealthy is
> > > > that its government (relatively to other governments) has allowed
> > > > capitalism to flourish.
> > >
> > > Capitalists have generally dominated the U.S. government, directly
> > > or indirectly, so it is curious if American foreign (and military and
> > > imperial) policy did not attempt serve their interests.
> >
> > To the extent that some (not all) capitalists influence the government,
> > the American economy is harmed. The old enemies of capitalism are
> > capitalists who use government.
> >
> > Government cannot help the economy except by getting off its back - by
> > laissez-faire - and possibly by defending the economy against threats
> > such as aggressive foreign governments. Therefore American foreign
> > policy has very little to do with why it is wealthy, except insofar as
> > the foreign policy may have kept America free.
>
> That is somewhat debatable. In the 19th century, the U.S. government
> spent a considerable amount of money on armies to seize territory
That doesn't help the economy in any obvious way. But then why did the
government do it? It did it because it is in the nature of governments
to seize what they can. Government seizes a chunk of my income every
year. Therefore I wouldn't put it past them to seize territory. That is
what government does: it seizes.
> and
> clear the inhabitants off it, or at least neutralize them,
Murdering people doesn't help the economy. So then why did the
government murder people? Because that's what governments do. Not for
its own sake; as a way to seize territory. Why did it seize territory?
See above.
> and spent
> further considerable amounts of money on what used to be called
> "internal improvements" -- we would say "infrastructure" today.
Adam Smith believed that government helped an economy by building
infrastructure, but many people, including myself, think the market is
able to provide infrastructure. So, whether the government's building
of infrastructure helped the economy is debated.
> In a
> sense this was foreign policy because these territories started out as
> someone else's territory.
It may well have been better for the economy had the government kept
its hands off the territory.
> I think one must also count the efforts of the Federal government to
> open up markets and keep them open, sometimes to the point of
> going to war, as foreign policy. The effort runs from the Monroe
> Doctrine at least to the Marshall Plan and NATO.
Maybe if you want to detail the argument that the government improved
the economy via the Munroe Doctrine or the Marshall Plan or NATO we can
discuss. However, keep in mind that I've already made the point that
government may help an economy by preventing invasion and war.
> Plus, we have the more active Wilsonian policies our current
> great leader is so fond of; but these may not have been so
> beneficial and the ruling class seems to have been accordingly
> divided about them.
Bush was trying to prevent Americans from getting blown up, so at least
in terms of what it attempts, it falls under protection from foreign
attack.
Brei
out, perhaps from a day sweating away at the corporate schlong..to
offer even a concisely stated consideration of some fairly well thought
out provocations.
no matter. a "stick your tonque out and run" approach is an apt
device....
Constantinople
Brei wrote:
> my, my... it seems that another of capital's choir boys is too tuckered
> out, perhaps from a day sweating away at the corporate schlong..to
> offer even a concisely stated consideration of some fairly well thought
> out provocations.
>
> no matter. a "stick your tonque out and run" approach is an apt
> device....
Who the fuck are you, top poster? Where are all your contributions?
Google finds precisely one contribution under this name. My
contributions to usenet discussion number in the thousands. Which of
the two of us has less energy - by a factor of several thousand?
achipin...@yahoo.com
> Who the fuck are you, top poster? Where are all your contributions?
> Google finds precisely one contribution under this name. My
> contributions to usenet discussion number in the thousands. Which of
> the two of us has less energy - by a factor of several thousand?
which is, to reiterate, nanabooboo, you can't catch me.
and ethnocentrist is hardly a buzzword. it is a precise sociological
colloquialism for the more insidious variants of racism, classism, and
sexism as funneled through and naturalized by the dominant ideological
discourse.
any other wordificationalistics your turgid econospeak is unable
process?
anarc...@gmail.com
It could be, but I certainly don't think American capitalists
and leaders saw it that way in the 19th century. Trade
and investment followed the flag.
> > I think one must also count the efforts of the Federal government to
> > open up markets and keep them open, sometimes to the point of
> > going to war, as foreign policy. The effort runs from the Monroe
> > Doctrine at least to the Marshall Plan and NATO.
>
> Maybe if you want to detail the argument that the government improved
> the economy via the Munroe Doctrine or the Marshall Plan or NATO we can
> discuss. However, keep in mind that I've already made the point that
> government may help an economy by preventing invasion and war.
If one wants to do business overseas, one also wants it to
do whatever is necessary to open markets for that business.
And the U.S. government did much of that sort of thing, as
I noted above.
> > Plus, we have the more active Wilsonian policies our current
> > great leader is so fond of; but these may not have been so
> > beneficial and the ruling class seems to have been accordingly
> > divided about them.
>
> Bush was trying to prevent Americans from getting blown up, so at least
> in terms of what it attempts, it falls under protection from foreign
> attack.
Bush has claimed many things about his wars, but generally
the purpose seems to be to reorder things in the Middle East
more to the liking of George Bush, his supporters and his
followers, which may include the House of Saud. In this he
greatly resembles Woodrow Wilson, whose pass at reforming
Europe resulted in World War II. There is some possibility
that, beyond mere electioneering, Bush may have been
pursuing some business interest or other. I cannot take
seriously the contention that Americans were in any way
materially threatened by Saddam Hussein, or that there way
ever any reason to believe so. Surely you are not suggesting
that we should start believing things written in _The_New_
_York_Times_.
ruet...@outgun.com
Robert Vienneau wrote:
> I think my blog may be more theoretical than some like. I have something
> to confront "libertarians" who are just not very bright here:
>
> <http://tinyurl.com/g3bkc>
Good stuff.
Constantinople
The history of the settlement of the West teaches us that settlement,
and its concomitants trade and investment, preceded the flag.
> > > I think one must also count the efforts of the Federal government to
> > > open up markets and keep them open, sometimes to the point of
> > > going to war, as foreign policy. The effort runs from the Monroe
> > > Doctrine at least to the Marshall Plan and NATO.
> >
> > Maybe if you want to detail the argument that the government improved
> > the economy via the Munroe Doctrine or the Marshall Plan or NATO we can
> > discuss. However, keep in mind that I've already made the point that
> > government may help an economy by preventing invasion and war.
>
> If one wants to do business overseas, one also wants it to
> do whatever is necessary to open markets for that business.
> And the U.S. government did much of that sort of thing, as
> I noted above.
As I pointed out:
> > > > Government cannot help the economy except by getting off its back - by
> > > > laissez-faire - and possibly by defending the economy against threats
> > > > such as aggressive foreign governments.
That applies also within the territories of the foreign governments.
Thus a policy of aggression towards foreign governments that do not
practice laissez faire can in principle increase laissez faire and
therefore help the economy. I wouldn't count on it, though.
> > > Plus, we have the more active Wilsonian policies our current
> > > great leader is so fond of; but these may not have been so
> > > beneficial and the ruling class seems to have been accordingly
> > > divided about them.
> >
> > Bush was trying to prevent Americans from getting blown up, so at least
> > in terms of what it attempts, it falls under protection from foreign
> > attack.
>
> Bush has claimed many things about his wars, but generally
> the purpose seems to be to reorder things in the Middle East
> more to the liking of George Bush, his supporters and his
> followers, which may include the House of Saud.
Which says very little. Bush's supporters voted him back into a second
term because they thought he was their best bet against a repeat of
9/11. Compared to Kerry, that is. "To reorder things in the Middle
East" to what end? - to the end of preventing a repeat of 9/11.
> In this he
> greatly resembles Woodrow Wilson, whose pass at reforming
> Europe resulted in World War II.
Wilson's goal was also to prevent war. He failed, but he tried. His
main bad idea was to try to create a United Nations-like entity.
> There is some possibility
> that, beyond mere electioneering, Bush may have been
> pursuing some business interest or other. I cannot take
> seriously the contention that Americans were in any way
> materially threatened by Saddam Hussein, or that there way
> ever any reason to believe so. Surely you are not suggesting
> that we should start believing things written in _The_New_
> _York_Times_.
We were not threatened by a conventional attack by Saddam, by an
invasion. However, we were and are threatened by terrorists who would
kill their mothers to obtain a weapon of mass destruction. One way to
try to make sure terrorists never get their hands on a WMD is to
destroy those governments most likely to give them one.
brique
Oh, it was just another strawman then?
>Later on you
> expressed the very position that I was referring to, making your
> position self-contradictory rather than merely contradictory of the
> standard leftist position.
It woudl be a contradictory position if I had mentioned sweatshops, but I
hadn't as you agree above. so, another strawman?
You wrote:
>
> "I agree, sweatshops are how poor people become rich. Unfortunately,
> it's
> only the owners who get to translate from poor to rich. The workforce
> just
> get the minimum wage until the newly rich owner moves production to
> somewhere cheaper still. No surprise there, capitalism is not about
> making
> the workers rich anyway, they are just a cost which has to be kept as
> low as
> possible to make sure the owner gets and stays rich."
Which was a response to James and yourself raising the strawman of
sweatshops, not me raising the strawman.
brique
labour, is 'vulgar marxism'?
James A. Donald
> > If demand is finite, then as capital accumulates we
> > approach utopia, where everyone has all they want,
> > or near to it and economics ceases to matter much.
> > Whether we approach utopia or not, does not alter
> > the conclusion and the observed fact that if capital
> > increases relative to labor, more wealth will be
> > produced per laborer, and the proportion of that
> > wealth going to the laborer will also increase - as
> > brique implicitly admitted when he declared that
> > factories being moved over the sea is a bad thing
> > for those that they move away from
> Apparently you did not read my explanation that I was
> using "demand" in a economic sense -- not any old
> desire for things, but the willingness _and_ability_
> to trade something for the things desired.
If they have brains and hands, they have something to
trade. All desire that a capitalist can fulfill is
economic demand.
So we cannot run out of economic demand unless people
have all that they desire, or unless, as in the great
depression and existent third world countries
governmental or private violence forcibly stops willing
buyers and willing sellers from getting together.
> It is quite possible to have a situation in which
> people are destitute and yet there is very little
> demand.
But we only observe this when there is enormous
violence, usually enormous state violence, which
forcefully suppresses exchange, as for example, in
Mengistu's Ethiopia or today's North Korea.
Constantinople
No, it was exactly what I said it was. The leftist position is
contradictory. You gave one part, and I reminded the reader of the
other part, which is standard leftist cant which virtually no
anticapitalist is going to deny. I indicated that you personally only
gave one part (at that point in time):
> > > > > > > > Capitalism is being criticized for the introduction of
> factories
> > > into
> > > > > > > > countries - i.e., the complaints about "sweatshops" - and is
> > > > > criticized
> > > > > > > > for the removal of factories from countries (above).
Notice I indicate "above" only for the part that you mentioned, not the
part about sweatshops.
> >Later on you
> > expressed the very position that I was referring to, making your
> > position self-contradictory rather than merely contradictory of the
> > standard leftist position.
>
> It woudl be a contradictory position if I had mentioned sweatshops, but I
> hadn't as you agree above. so, another strawman?
To repeat, you later mentioned sweatshops, at which point you had
stated both parts of the leftist self-contradiction, and at that point
your stated position was self-contradictory.
> You wrote:
> >
> > "I agree, sweatshops are how poor people become rich. Unfortunately,
> > it's
> > only the owners who get to translate from poor to rich. The workforce
> > just
> > get the minimum wage until the newly rich owner moves production to
> > somewhere cheaper still. No surprise there, capitalism is not about
> > making
> > the workers rich anyway, they are just a cost which has to be kept as
> > low as
> > possible to make sure the owner gets and stays rich."
>
> Which was a response to James and yourself raising the strawman of
> sweatshops, not me raising the strawman.
Regardless of what it was a response to, it was a statement of the
leftist position on sweatshops that I had mentioned, which contradicted
your other position.
Constantinople
No. Now you're making a statement about the preferences of employers.
Previously you were making a statement about the outcome of the market
process. They are not the same.
brique
Oh, I see, you say I said 'sweatshop', I reply, no, I did not say
'sweatshop', you then say 'see! you said sweatshop!'....next, Constance
proves I said 'see!'.........
>
> > You wrote:
> > >
> > > "I agree, sweatshops are how poor people become rich. Unfortunately,
> > > it's
> > > only the owners who get to translate from poor to rich. The workforce
> > > just
> > > get the minimum wage until the newly rich owner moves production to
> > > somewhere cheaper still. No surprise there, capitalism is not about
> > > making
> > > the workers rich anyway, they are just a cost which has to be kept as
> > > low as
> > > possible to make sure the owner gets and stays rich."
> >
> > Which was a response to James and yourself raising the strawman of
> > sweatshops, not me raising the strawman.
>
> Regardless of what it was a response to, it was a statement of the
> leftist position on sweatshops that I had mentioned, which contradicted
> your other position.
>
What other position on sweatshops? I had not mentioned sweatshops, never
mind indicated a 'position' on them. So, Constance, just what was I
contradicting again? Oh, right, I mentioned sweatshops when I said I had not
mentioned sweatshops, so, let's see, under the usual logic, that must mean I
was deliberately not mentioning sweatshops because. (.... insert copy/paste
ritual denuciation of the evils of socialism....).....
anarc...@gmail.com
Constantinople wrote:
> anarc...@gmail.com wrote:
>
> > > > > Government cannot help the economy except by getting off its back - by
> > > > > laissez-faire - and possibly by defending the economy against threats
> > > > > such as aggressive foreign governments.
>
> That applies also within the territories of the foreign governments.
> Thus a policy of aggression towards foreign governments that do not
> practice laissez faire can in principle increase laissez faire and
> therefore help the economy. I wouldn't count on it, though.
Warning mercantilist empires off Latin America and attempting
to keep them out of China would be an example of, so to speak,
aggression in favor of laissez-faire or at least laissez-commercer
although of course the empires themselves were aggressively
trying to deprive their targets of freedom (to trade and otherwise)
so that the American "aggression" was in fact a kind of defense.
That seems to me to operate strongly in favor of the capitalists
which is what I would expect.
> > > > Plus, we have the more active Wilsonian policies our current
> > > > great leader is so fond of; but these may not have been so
> > > > beneficial and the ruling class seems to have been accordingly
> > > > divided about them.
> > >
> > > Bush was trying to prevent Americans from getting blown up, so at least
> > > in terms of what it attempts, it falls under protection from foreign
> > > attack.
> >
> > Bush has claimed many things about his wars, but generally
> > the purpose seems to be to reorder things in the Middle East
> > more to the liking of George Bush, his supporters and his
> > followers, which may include the House of Saud.
>
> Which says very little. Bush's supporters voted him back into a second
> term because they thought he was their best bet against a repeat of
> 9/11. Compared to Kerry, that is. "To reorder things in the Middle
> East" to what end? - to the end of preventing a repeat of 9/11.
Yes, but the people are voluntarily ignorant and stupid. Their
choices are, by and large, evidence of nothing but manipulation.
I am discussing those elites who make it their business to know
and to understand, however pathological their motives may be.
I am certain they knew very well that attacking Iraq was not
going to have any good effect on preventing further terrorism.
> > In this he
> > greatly resembles Woodrow Wilson, whose pass at reforming
> > Europe resulted in World War II.
>
> Wilson's goal was also to prevent war. He failed, but he tried. His
> main bad idea was to try to create a United Nations-like entity.
That idea preceded Wilson. Wilson's goal was to organize the
sort of hegemonic quasi-empire which the U.S. briefly ruled
under the regime of Clinton (by outlasting its competitors;
the last empire standing). Bush and company may have
broken that up, although the large powers of Europe and Asia
are still walking on eggs. The main thing, though, was that
Wilson was a believer in military intervention.
> > There is some possibility
> > that, beyond mere electioneering, Bush may have been
> > pursuing some business interest or other. I cannot take
> > seriously the contention that Americans were in any way
> > materially threatened by Saddam Hussein, or that there way
> > ever any reason to believe so. Surely you are not suggesting
> > that we should start believing things written in _The_New_
> > _York_Times_.
>
> We were not threatened by a conventional attack by Saddam, by an
> invasion. However, we were and are threatened by terrorists who would
> kill their mothers to obtain a weapon of mass destruction. One way to
> try to make sure terrorists never get their hands on a WMD is to
> destroy those governments most likely to give them one.
That would be every government in the world. A bit
ambitious, wouldn't you say? And then there's the problem
that, if you destroy one government, several new and worse
ones may arise in its place. This is what we have observed
in Afghanistan and Iraq.
brique
No, now you are making a statement about your imagined content of a
statement I didn't make.
If you bother to read what I posted, it doesn't say businessmen export jobs
to 'sweatshops' and it doesn't say that would be a good, bad or indifferent
policy. I observed that when labour costs go too high business will seek to
reduce those costs.
Now, you may consider that 'vulgar marxism' but I doubt any businessman
would disagree that disregarding costs is a short-cut to insolvency.
One method to keep labour costs down in a era of labour scarcity is to
import more labour to increase the supply (immigration, guest-workers or, at
times, plain old 'illegals') . Another is to move production to a lower cost
region. (Which could be a 'sweatshop', it could also be a greenfield site in
Europe or Asia with lots of tax-breaks and subsidies, it doesn't matter
which, the aim is to reduce costs and remain competitive in the market, the
end solution is pretty much down to the ethical principles of the business
making the decision).
There are a couple of other methods I did not mention, but they would
include pressuring government to regulate wage levels, (tried in the UK and
other countries), demanding reductions in statutory benefits, sick pay,
holiday pay, etc, less onerous contract terms (currently a big deal in
France), less strict lay-off conditions, restrictions on unions and worker
organisation, etc...
A common theme is that wage levels must be kept down to maintain
'competition' with other countries, the unspoken threat that the jobs will
be moved there if not.
What does *not* happen is James theory that wages keep increasing until the
workers are as rich as the employers. Which is the one statement I have made
which, as ever, you choose not to address but prefer your usual tilting at
strawmen, vulgar or not.....
brique
> James A. Donald wrote:
> > > If demand is finite, then as capital accumulates we
> > > approach utopia, where everyone has all they want,
> > > or near to it and economics ceases to matter much.
> > > Whether we approach utopia or not, does not alter
> > > the conclusion and the observed fact that if capital
> > > increases relative to labor, more wealth will be
> > > produced per laborer, and the proportion of that
> > > wealth going to the laborer will also increase - as
> > > brique implicitly admitted when he declared that
> > > factories being moved over the sea is a bad thing
> > > for those that they move away from
Implicitly? Nice choice of word, James, you re-subscribed to Readers Digest
again?
Actually, I don't agree with your theory of blissful workers accumulating
more and more wealth. They may, in a period of labour shortage, be able to
parlay their scarcity into higher wages, but, as I mentioned elswhere, the
response to labour shortages increasing wage levels is to either import
labour or export the jobs to a place with cheaper labour.
Naturally, if your job is exported, you end up without a wage packet. But
only a fool would consider their chance at being a millionaire has been
exported with that job.
Constantinople
Your original statement:
> > > > > > > > I agree, sweatshops are how poor people become rich.
> > > Unfortunately,
> > > > > it's
> > > > > > > > only the owners who get to translate from poor to rich.
That refers to an *outcome* ("it's only the owners who get to translate
from poor to rich"). Your new statement:
> > > So, you suggest that the business imperative to control costs, including
> > > labour, is 'vulgar marxism'?
That refers to a *preference* ("the business imperative"). Preferences
are not outcomes.
> If you bother to read what I posted, it doesn't say businessmen export jobs
> to 'sweatshops' and it doesn't say that would be a good, bad or indifferent
I didn't say it did. I said it referred to an *outcome*.
> policy. I observed that when labour costs go too high business will seek to
> reduce those costs.
What you originally "observed" was that "it's only the owners who get
to translate from poor to rich." That is an *outcome*.
Constantinople
brique wrote:
> Oh, I see, you say I said 'sweatshop', I reply, no, I did not say
> 'sweatshop', you then say 'see! you said sweatshop!'....next, Constance
> proves I said 'see!'.........
What you wrote was:
> > "I agree, sweatshops are how poor people become rich. Unfortunately,
> > it's
> > only the owners who get to translate from poor to rich. The workforce
> > just
> > get the minimum wage until the newly rich owner moves production to
> > somewhere cheaper still. No surprise there, capitalism is not about
> > making
> > the workers rich anyway, they are just a cost which has to be kept as
> > low as
> > possible to make sure the owner gets and stays rich."
That does not say "I did not say 'sweatshop'". It says something
substantial about sweatshops. Substantial, and wrong.
James A. Donald
wrote:
> That would be every government in the world. A bit
> ambitious, wouldn't you say? And then there's the
> problem that, if you destroy one government, several
> new and worse ones may arise in its place. This is
> what we have observed in Afghanistan and Iraq.
We have not observed that in Afghanistan and Iraq. The
new governments in Afghanistan and Iraq did not 'arise"
but were imposed from without, and where they were
imposed by America, they have been a major improvement
on their predecessors, both for America, and for those
subject to that government.
James A. Donald
<briqu...@freeuk.c0m> wrote:
> Actually, I don't agree with your theory of blissful
> workers accumulating more and more wealth. They may,
> in a period of labour shortage, be able to parlay
> their scarcity into higher wages, but, as I mentioned
> elswhere, the response to labour shortages increasing
> wage levels is to either import labour or export the
> jobs to a place with cheaper labour.
But if capital is accumulating, then wages will also
rise where they import labor from or export jobs to -
eventually reaching or surpassing typical first world
levels, as has happened in almost all the places you lot
were raising the hue and cry about "sweatshops" thirty
years ago.
The places where they could export jobs to were then
rather limited because of enormous state violence, and
those places swiftly reached first world levels. Now
India and China have to some extent opened up, and to
the extent that they have opened up, wages are rapidly
rising here also.
James A. Donald
> No, if demand is finite then eventually the
> capitalists will have all the capital they need to
> satisfy the demand. The accumulation and use of more
> capital will only result in a lower return on
> investment for a given amount of capital. (We are
> taking the law of supply and demand seriously here.)
> There will be no need for more workers.
And no need for more capital. So capital is sitting
around demanding a profitable use, and workers are
sitting around demanding a profitable use, demanding a
salary that, though high is considerably less than the
value they can produce if equipped with lots of capital
So what is an entrepeneur to do? :-)
As I said, if workers have wants, brains, and hands,
then there is demand that can profitably be filled.
brique
The above response was written after you claimed I had mentioned sweatshops
and in response to that erroneous claim. I had pointed out I hadn't
mentioned sweatshops, James had. Of course, if you choose to ignore time and
apply retrospective justification, well, have fun in La-La-Land........
>
brique
So, you agree with James then that working in a 'sweatshop', will make you
rich, eventually, so rich you will be as rich as the owner? Is that your
preferrred outcome?
brique
> On Thu, 8 Jun 2006 17:11:44 +0100, "brique"
> <briqu...@freeuk.c0m> wrote:
> > Actually, I don't agree with your theory of blissful
> > workers accumulating more and more wealth. They may,
> > in a period of labour shortage, be able to parlay
> > their scarcity into higher wages, but, as I mentioned
> > elswhere, the response to labour shortages increasing
> > wage levels is to either import labour or export the
> > jobs to a place with cheaper labour.
>
> But if capital is accumulating, then wages will also
> rise where they import labor from or export jobs to -
> eventually reaching or surpassing typical first world
> levels, as has happened in almost all the places you lot
> were raising the hue and cry about "sweatshops" thirty
> years ago.
>
> The places where they could export jobs to were then
> rather limited because of enormous state violence, and
> those places swiftly reached first world levels. Now
> India and China have to some extent opened up, and to
> the extent that they have opened up, wages are rapidly
> rising here also.
Your theory assumes that the locations that lose production facilities to
the new cheaper locations will remain as wealthy as they were prior to the
loss. As far as I can see, the only ones with any prospect of staying
wealthy are the ones who own the production facility exported to the cheaper
location.
The most likely result is that by the time you have run out of new cheaper
locations, the old locations will have achieved economic third world status
and will be cheap enough to move back too..... start cycle again ad
infinitum.
brique
> anarc...@gmail.com wrote:
> > No, if demand is finite then eventually the
> > capitalists will have all the capital they need to
> > satisfy the demand. The accumulation and use of more
> > capital will only result in a lower return on
> > investment for a given amount of capital. (We are
> > taking the law of supply and demand seriously here.)
> > There will be no need for more workers.
>
> And no need for more capital. So capital is sitting
> around demanding a profitable use, and workers are
> sitting around demanding a profitable use, demanding a
> salary that, though high is considerably less than the
> value they can produce if equipped with lots of capital
>
> So what is an entrepeneur to do? :-)
Buy another boat, a bit longer maybe? Football teams are fun. Ferrari or
Maserati? Why not both? Nice weather in the Caribbean, let's buy a house, or
two. Ski-ing, so, we need a house in Aspen too, and Gstaad. Long way to
Gstaad. Need a jet as well.
Can't have the wife seen wearing the same dress twice, people might think I
am poor! Mmmm, can't really be seen with an old wife either, people will
think I am impotent!
>
> As I said, if workers have wants, brains, and hands,
> then there is demand that can profitably be filled.
Gonna need some maids and gardeners for the new house...........
Michał Gancarski
[...]
>> > No, if demand is finite then eventually the
>> > capitalists will have all the capital they need to
>> > satisfy the demand. The accumulation and use of more
>> > capital will only result in a lower return on
>> > investment for a given amount of capital. (We are
>> > taking the law of supply and demand seriously here.)
>> > There will be no need for more workers.
>>
>> And no need for more capital. So capital is sitting
>> around demanding a profitable use, and workers are
>> sitting around demanding a profitable use, demanding a
>> salary that, though high is considerably less than the
>> value they can produce if equipped with lots of capital
>>
>> So what is an entrepeneur to do? :-)
>
> Buy another boat, a bit longer maybe? Football teams are fun. Ferrari or
> Maserati? Why not both? Nice weather in the Caribbean, let's buy a
> house, or
> two. Ski-ing, so, we need a house in Aspen too, and Gstaad. Long way to
> Gstaad. Need a jet as well.
> Can't have the wife seen wearing the same dress twice, people might
> think I
> am poor! Mmmm, can't really be seen with an old wife either, people will
> think I am impotent!
Someone has to hire somebody to provide all the goods and services
demanded. You are making this silly assumption that there are two kinds of
people - capitalists and workers when in fact all you can see are market
players with more or less purchasing power (for capital goods and
services, for consumer goods and services, it does not matter). A worker
who puts his money in an investment fund is a small scale capitalist.
--
Michał Gancarski
"If there's not drama and negativity in my life, all my songs will be
really wack and boring or something." Eminem
James A. Donald
> > But if capital is accumulating, then wages will also
> > rise where they import labor from or export jobs to
> > - eventually reaching or surpassing typical first
> > world levels, as has happened in almost all the
> > places you lot were raising the hue and cry about
> > "sweatshops" thirty years ago.
brique:
> Your theory assumes that the locations that lose
> production facilities to the new cheaper locations
> will remain as wealthy as they were prior to the loss.
But evidently this is happening. Observe: America was
"exporting jobs" thirty years ago. America and
Americans are now considerably richer than they were
thirty years ago, and for the most part the people in
the places they were exporting jobs to thirty years ago
now have living standard standards that are now similar
to Europe.
So Americans got richer, and the recipients of the lower
value jobs that Americans were no longer interested in
doing got richer. Who in America has parents who say "I
want my child to work in a barbie doll factory when she
grows up"? But there were plenty of peasants shoveling
shit who hoped their children would work in a barbie
doll factory. So Americans exported those jobs that
Americans did not want, and that the recipients did
want. Now the Taiwanese no longer want those jobs, and
are exporting them to China and India.
James A. Donald
> > > No, if demand is finite then eventually the
> > > capitalists will have all the capital they need to
> > > satisfy the demand. The accumulation and use of
> > > more capital will only result in a lower return on
> > > investment for a given amount of capital. (We are
> > > taking the law of supply and demand seriously
> > > here.) There will be no need for more workers.
James A. Donald:
> > And no need for more capital. So capital is sitting
> > around demanding a profitable use, and workers are
> > sitting around demanding a profitable use, demanding
> > a salary that, though high is considerably less than
> > the value they can produce if equipped with lots of
> > capital
> >
> > So what is an entrepeneur to do? :-)
"brique"
> Buy another boat, a bit longer maybe?
No he is going to invest in making those workers richer,
and himself richer, increasing demand by a corresponding
amount in the process.
Michał Gancarski
>
> Michal Gancarski wrote:
>> On Tue, 06 Jun 2006 14:39:36 +0200, <anarc...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> [...]
>> >> The reason is that if you are a rich capitalist with
>> >> abundant capital available, this increases the
>> >> productivity of your workers, who make more money for
>> >> you, so you hire more workers. Unfortunately for you,
>> >> we suppose that all the other capitalists also have more
>> >> capital available, so they all bid up the price of
>> >> workers as they all try, unsuccessfully, to hire more
>> >> workers
>> >>
>> >> This is true even if demand is finite. Finite demand
>> >> merely means you eventually approach the utopian point
>> >> where everyone is rich enough to not care much about
>> >> economics
>> >
>> > No, if demand is finite then eventually the capitalists
>> > will have all the capital they need to satisfy the demand.
>> > The accumulation and use of more capital will only result
>> > in a lower return on investment for a given amount of
>> > capital. (We are taking the law of supply and demand
>> > seriously here.) There will be no need for more workers.
>> > Nothing utopian is going to happen to the working class
>> > because, in this model of capitalism, there is no reason
>> > to distribute more of the wealth to them than is required
>> > for subsistence.
>>
>> It must be really hard to "forget" about complementary nature of human
>> capital and capital goods twice in one thread. How do you do this?
>
> It has not been forgotten, it has been assumed: "[I]f
> demand is finite then eventually the capitalists will have
> all the capital they need to satisfy the demand. The
> accumulation and use of more capital will only result
> in a lower return on investment for a given amount of
> capital.
In market economy all capital is owned by capitalists by definition of a
capitalist. All cars are driven by drivers.
> ... There will be no need for more workers."
That's a third time. You are able to forget about your own premises.
Amazing.
> I can't imagine why you think it has been forgotten in
> what I wrote.
"... There will be no need for more workers." Workers who are
complementary to capital goods.