Re: True faiths ( was Re: The true faith )

[tfb@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Thomas F. Burdick)]

Christopher Browne <cbbrowne@acm.org> writes:

> tfb@conquest.OCF.Berkeley.EDU (Thomas F. Burdick) writes:
> > Nils Goesche <cartan@t-online.de> writes:
> > 
> > > In article <slrna40nb0.7nn.randhol+abuse@kiuk0156.chembio.ntnu.no>, Preben Randhol wrote:
> 
> > > > Capitalism will need to adjust itself in the near future from
> > > > the short-term gain view to a long-term view.
> 
> > > Funny; ``in the near future''.  This claim is *very* old, but we
> > > are still waiting ;-)
> 
> > Even restricting one's view to economics alone, look at the United
> > States.  We're in the second economic recession in 10 years.  And in
> > the time in between, although unemployment was low, wages didn't
> > grow.  This isn't much of a refultation of the claim.  Or are you
> > just arguing that capitalism still exists?  If so, that's not much
> > of an argument.
> 
> And "wages" and "unemployment" are forcibly supposed to be related to
> the manner of ownership of the results of production _how_?

I was responding to a claim that seemed to be implying that there
wasn't anything wrong with capitalism's optimizing for short-term
gain.  In fact, I think imperialism has just about reached a point of
equilibrium, where it's no longer beneficial (for the capitalist
class) to increase productivity.  The United States is now a society
where the average amount of labor is increasing, but the net
production isn't (if things are produced but subsequently exploded or
thrown out, there was no net production).  Increased work and
declining wages during the period *between* cyclical recessions is a
symptom of this.

> [You're probably _not_ amongst the clueless on this, but I find it
> tremendously irritating when people get spectacularly worshipful about
> "capitalism" when they're clearly thinking about things that aren't
> forcibly related, such as when concepts of "private property" and
> "free markets" could apply equally well under arrangements such as
> "mercantilism."]
> 
> The notion that it makes sense for "capitalism to adjust itself" to
> something when capitalism is an _economic concept_ seems just
> spectacularly silly.  It's a _definition_, and definitions don't
> adjust themselves.

But capitalism has certainly evolved over time.  Property and class
relations have changed since the mid 19th century.  Who knows, maybe
it will evolve some more and find a way to increase production.  Or
maybe it won't, and we'll have a social crisis and a change in
property relations :)

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