carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (03/15/85)
From JoSH: > Case: My neighbor makes gears by hand, one every two days. He > makes enough for a decent living and some of the amenities (beer, > tv?). I do the same but only 3 days a week--I barely make enough > to survive. The other days I spend on the gear-making machine I'm > building. It's purely my choice--I could live as well as my neighbor > if I liked. Finally the machine is finished. With it, I, or my > neighbor, alone, can make ten times the gears that both of us could > make before. I make a deal with him: He can use the machine, and > not working as hard as before, take half the money (making more than > before); I, on my part, will do absolutely nothing, and collect the > other half as profit. Now: is this exploitation? The deal you describe is not capitalist production. In capitalist production, the deal is: "Hey you. If you'll work in my factory and do as I tell you, at the end of the week I'll pay you X dollars per hour in wages." The capitalist appropriates the resulting product and sells it, generally for a profit. The worker accepts the deal because he has no other way to make a living than to sell his capacity for labor to one or another owner of the means of production. The crucial point is that one section of the population controls the means of production and another section does not. The capitalist doesn't *provide* the machines and factories, he just *controls* them. > Capital is precisely that which creates the increased productivity of > labor, and which makes possible the "profit" the capitalist makes. > *Capital* is the factor separating the man who farms an acre with a > stick, and the one who farms a square mile with a combine....A > capitalist is one who has made possible the explosion of wealth of > the modern industrial world; and justly deserves any profit he has > gotten therefrom. Because he *owns* the machines and factories? But a factory doesn't need to be owned in order to produce -- it just has to exist and be operated by people. And the people who brought it into existence are the workers who built it, the engineers who designed it, the inventors who invented the machines -- i.e., the people whose labor of various kinds brought the factory into being. (The capitalist qua capitalist is one who *owns* the means of production -- insofar as he works (invents, builds, whatever) he's not a capitalist.) To call capital productive is to attribute a human quality to something that is dead, an animate quality to something inanimate (Marx termed it "fetishism"). It is PEOPLE who do things: who build machines, who invent machines, who discover scientific knowledge, who, in short, create new wealth, and who are therefore productive. Capitalism, however, cannot tolerate this truth, since it undermines the rationale for profit-making. To clarify one point: "Capital" for Marx does not mean the machines, etc., per se; they are no more intrinsically capital than gold and silver are intrinsically money. Capital for Marx is a social relation in which the means of production are monopolized by one class and counterposed to another class which must sell its labor power to the other class to live. So capital is, for Marx, the relationship of ownership of the means of production which gives title to a profit. Richard Carnes
js2j@mhuxt.UUCP (sonntag) (03/15/85)
> From JoSH: > > Case: My neighbor makes gears by hand, one every two days. He > > makes enough for a decent living and some of the amenities (beer, > > tv?). I do the same but only 3 days a week--I barely make enough > > to survive. The other days I spend on the gear-making machine I'm > > building. It's purely my choice--I could live as well as my neighbor > > if I liked. Finally the machine is finished. With it, I, or my > > neighbor, alone, can make ten times the gears that both of us could > > make before. I make a deal with him: He can use the machine, and > > not working as hard as before, take half the money (making more than > > before); I, on my part, will do absolutely nothing, and collect the > > other half as profit. Now: is this exploitation? > > The deal you describe is not capitalist production. In capitalist > production, the deal is: "Hey you. If you'll work in my factory and > do as I tell you, at the end of the week I'll pay you X dollars per > hour in wages." The capitalist appropriates the resulting product > and sells it, generally for a profit. The worker accepts the deal > because he has no other way to make a living than to sell his > capacity for labor to one or another owner of the means of > production. The crucial point is that one section of the population > controls the means of production and another section does not. First of all, your last sentence mystifies me. Is a factory which is owned by many shareholders, many of them also workers not an example of capitalism? You seem to imply that capitalists and workers must be disjoint sets. Secondly, you say that the worker accepts the deal because he has not other way to make a living than to sell his labor to a capitalist. Why can't he use his savings to buy the means to produce something and become a capitalist? You claim that the deal described above is not capitalist production. Well, accepting *your* rather narrow definition above, what if we change the gear-making deal to meet your definition? I will pay my neighbor X dollars/hour for making gears, while I go relax in the sun. I'll make X dollars/hour profit, as long as I keep my gear-making machine in good repair, and we'll both be making several times as much as we were making gears by hand. O.K.? Now, you may come along and tell me that I'm not entitled to X dollars/hour for mere ownership of the gear making machine, but I'll remember the work I put into making it, and the lowered standard of living I suffered while working on it, and just tell you to piss off. Just in case you point out that in this example, I *made* the gear making machine, while a true capitalist only buys it, I'll offer an alternative scenario: I work extra hours, making gears, don't spend more of my income than I need to survive, saving the rest until one day I've saved enough to place my order at the local Acme gear-making machine company. > capitalist doesn't *provide* the machines and factories, he just > *controls* them. Huh? Unless you're playing fast and loose with definitions, you must mean that paying someone to produce the machines isn't the same as providing them. Why not? Do you think that in the scenario above, where I saved up to buy a gear-making machine, I haven't actually *provided* a gear-making machine? Or do you mean that I'm not a capitalist if I actually *worked* to get the money to pay for the machine? Maybe that *is* what he means. Look at this: > (The capitalist qua > capitalist is one who *owns* the means of production -- insofar as he > works (invents, builds, whatever) he's not a capitalist.) I'm really not sure I understand this definition. Do you mean that I wasn't a capitalist while I was saving up for my gear-making machine, and became one when I got it? I guess I'll just have to remain puzzled until I see Richard's response to this. *I* haven't even managed to figure out his definition of capitalism yet. > capital productive is to attribute a human quality to something that > is dead, an animate quality to something inanimate (Marx termed it > "fetishism"). It is PEOPLE who do things: who build machines, who > invent machines, who discover scientific knowledge, who, in short, > create new wealth, and who are therefore productive. Capitalism, > however, cannot tolerate this truth, since it undermines the > rationale for profit-making. > > To clarify one point: "Capital" for Marx does not mean the machines, > etc., per se; they are no more intrinsically capital than gold and > silver are intrinsically money. Capital for Marx is a social > relation in which the means of production are monopolized by one > class and counterposed to another class which must sell its labor > power to the other class to live. So capital is, for Marx, the > relationship of ownership of the means of production which gives > title to a profit. > > Richard Carnes *** REPLACE THIS LINE WITH YOUR MESSAGE *** -- Jeff Sonntag ihnp4!mhuxt!js2j "I am what I am, and that's all that I am."-Popeye the sailor man.
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (03/15/85)
I don't get it. JoSH builds his machine -- fine and good. He hires one of his neighbours to use it -- fine and good. Assume he hires all the widget makers in his town. Still fine and good? JoSH decides that he is onto a good thing, and gets a loan to build a widget factory with lots of his machiens in it, so that he can make a lot of widgets. He gets his loan. He hires more people. A lot of widgets are made, and JoSH and his employees can now undersell and out produce all the other widget makers. JoSH gets a lot of business. JoSH pays off his loan and starts making money. JoSH gets rich. I'm a widget maker from another town. Business gets lousy -- everybody would rather buy from JoSH because he produces more and cheaper widgets. I decide that I can either provide some function that JoSH doesn't have in my widgets (but I can't think of one) or I can retrain to do something else (but I don't want to do this, or think that I can't) or I can go and work for JoSH. Somewhere JoSH went from being good and fine, to putting me in a place where i am forced to sell my labour to JoSH. But I don't get it -- what has JoSH done wrong? Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
gam@amdahl.UUCP (G A Moffett) (03/17/85)
> = Richard Carnes > From JoSH: > > .... I make a deal with him: He can use the machine, and > > not working as hard as before, take half the money (making more than > > before); I, on my part, will do absolutely nothing, and collect the > > other half as profit. Now: is this exploitation? > > The deal you describe is not capitalist production.... How convenient. "My definition of capitalism is intrisically icky. If you have an example that is not icky, it is not capitalism." > ... The > capitalist doesn't *provide* the machines and factories, he just > *controls* them. Who builds the machines and factories? More important, who *pays* for the materials from which they are built, the land on which they rest? > ... But a factory doesn't > need to be owned in order to produce -- it just has to exist and be > operated by people. And the people who brought it into existence are > the workers who built it, the engineers who designed it, the > inventors who invented the machines -- i.e., the people whose labor > of various kinds brought the factory into being. (The capitalist qua > capitalist is one who *owns* the means of production -- insofar as he > works (invents, builds, whatever) he's not a capitalist.) Where did the raw materials come from? Who pays the engineers to design, the workers to build? (And as far as inventors are concerned, the US Constitution protects their ownership of original ideas in the form of the patent). Certainly there is nothing to stop a collection of inventors and engineers from getting together and building a factory which they own -- this is how many small computer companies got started -- so if they don't want their creations owned by a capitalist, they can built it themselves (they themselves thereby become capitalists). Where's the problem? > To clarify one point: "Capital" for Marx does not mean the machines, > etc., per se; they are no more intrinsically capital than gold and > silver are intrinsically money. Capital for Marx is a social > relation in which the means of production are monopolized by one > class and counterposed to another class which must sell its labor > power to the other class to live. If the means of production (collectively speaking) were monopolized, economic competition would not be possible. It may not be in the interest of a single capitalist to have to compete with other capitalists in a free marketplace, but it is better for the group as a whole that they do so. This is why some of us defend the capitalistic free market system -- not because we are "dupes of the capitalists", but because we benefit from this system directly. My employer is exploiting my knowledge and skills to make a profit. One compensation to me is that I get to have this entertaining discussion with you, made possible by millions (?billions) of dollars of computer hardware and software. "Go ahead -- EXPLOIT ME!" -- Gordon A. Moffett ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,sun}!amdahl!gam
ncg@ukc.UUCP (N.C.Gale) (03/18/85)
No, Laura, you got the story wrong.
JoSH didn't borrow the money, he inherited it.
And having got so much money in the first place, he can inevitably
borrow more than the bloke in the next town.
So JoSH starts off by building a factory, fully automated with
one employee to watch the coloured lights flash.
The cottage industry in the next town never has a chance.
Overall, the <product> is being made faster, better & cheaper.
But no-one can compete unless they have the big money to start with.
~~~
Giving the lower social groupings the supposed possibility of
advancement, while in fact providing no real means of doing so,
is distinctly remnicient of Dark Ages European libertarianism.
The nobleman owned the land. The peasants needed to use the
land in order to live. They were quite free (sometimes) to move
away onto someone else's land, and pay someone else rent.
But the only peasants who ever advanced from 'peasant' status
were those who joined the army and got some money or the favour
of their liege lord from battle.
Nowadays, there are no battles to get plunder from.
(sorry, there are no battles from which to get plunder)
This really does look like libertarianism in practice, to me.
Please flame me.
-Nigel Galejosh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall) (03/19/85)
> Laura Creighton > I don't get it. JoSH builds his machine -- fine and good. He hires one > of his neighbours to use it ... [etc] > > I'm a widget maker from another town. Business gets lousy -- everybody > would rather buy from JoSH because he produces more and cheaper widgets. > I decide that I can either [nothing which works] > or I can go and work for JoSH. > > Somewhere JoSH went from being good and fine, to putting me in a > place where i am forced to sell my labour to JoSH. But I don't get > it -- what has JoSH done wrong? Aha! This is what we might call the "really interesting question". What indeed did the auto makers "do to" the manufacturers of buggy whips? (Or the plumbers to the water carriers, or the electricians to the purveyors of whale oil?) The answer is at once simple and obvious, subtle and abstract: Nothing. The seller of a new and better thing has not touched a hair on the head of the seller of the old. How then can the buggy-whip maker be worse off? Who *has* done something to him/her? The answer is again simple, but hard to see for those who follow the conventional wisdom of the powerful seller: It is her customers who have caused Laura's demise in this scenario. It is the power of the consumer to choose a better deal. In a free market, the business exists only because it satisfies the fickle desires of the people at large--it *must* offer a deal they'll accept *voluntarily*. The entrepreneur puts himself in the position of the lumberjack scrambling from log to log--it beats swimming, but you have to keep on your toes, and you're apt to find yourself swimming anyway on very short notice! Laura has, perhaps without intending to, put her finger on the very reason that people *do* work for wages (and value "having a job" so highly). Why indeed become a "wage slave"? In a word: security. The worker is not utterly secure (who is?) but considerably more so than the capitalist. The workers of this country make an order of magnitude more, in sum, than the capitalists. If they wanted, they could just buy them out. Why don't they? They are, simply, comfortable. Sure, they want more. Everybody always wants more. Those who want it enough to pass up the beer and football games are able to succeed here more than anywhere else in the world; when they do, they are called -- capitalists. --JoSH
mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor) (03/21/85)
>The worker is not utterly secure (who is?) but considerably more >so than the capitalist. The workers of this country make an order >of magnitude more, in sum, than the capitalists. If they wanted, >they could just buy them out. Why don't they? They are, simply, >comfortable. Sure, they want more. Everybody always wants more. >Those who want it enough to pass up the beer and football games >are able to succeed here more than anywhere else in the world; >when they do, they are called -- capitalists. > >--JoSH If you subtract living costs up to, say, 150% of the poverty level, do the workers still make an order of magnitude more than the capitalists? If they do, do they have the coherent organization that would enable them to become effective capitalists (remember, that means centralization of control). I suspect that many of those who DO have a little left over after staying alive ARE capitalists, in that they may own a little stock, or have a pension plan that invests for them. It's a bit smug to say workers aren't capitalists because they are comfortable, and prefer another beer to owning factories. -- Martin Taylor {allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt {uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt
vassos@utcsri.UUCP (Vassos Hadzilacos) (03/21/85)
> [...] Why indeed become a "wage slave"? In a word: security. > The worker is not utterly secure (who is?) but considerably more > so than the capitalist. The only meaning of "secure" for which this makes any sense is that workers stand to lose less than capitalists. If that was a reasonable definition of "security", the less you'd have the better off you'd be, security-wise. I guess this would make us all envy the "security" "enjoyed" by Ancient Greek slaves. > The workers of this country make an order > of magnitude more, in sum, than the capitalists. If you mean "make" in the sense "make in wages" this is an understatement. (Employed) workers make *infinitely* more in wages than capitalists, since the latter don't make any wages. If you mean it in the sense of "they own more wealth" then two things: 1. The validity of your assertion is doubtful: I don't have any statistics handy, but probably more than 50% of the USA's wealth is owned by capitalists. 2. Have you ever heard about division? By the same sort of argument one might argue that people in India consume, in sum, more food than people in the USA. So what does this tell you about the diet of the average American and the average Indian? Vassos Hadzilacos.
mwm@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA (03/21/85)
In article <4985@ukc.UUCP> ncg@ukc.UUCP (Nigel Gale) writes: >Please flame me. Ok :-). >JoSH didn't borrow the money, he inherited it. Not in my libertarian society, he didn't. The dead don't have property rights to be violated, so they can't state what the money should be used for. >And having got so much money in the first place, he can inevitably >borrow more than the bloke in the next town. Yes, but he can't borrow as much as the bloke in the second town over who has a successful track record with start-up firms. >So JoSH starts off by building a factory, fully automated with >one employee to watch the coloured lights flash. >The cottage industry in the next town never has a chance. Which results in: >Overall, the <product> is being made faster, better & cheaper. And this is a bad thing. Apparently Josh, by providing more surplus for everybody to use (he gets the bulk of it, and deservedly so), has sinned according to the socialist bible. I'll think I'll take the Christians. >But no-one can compete unless they have the big money to start with. > ~~~ Right. Just ask The Woz, Bill Gates, either Hewlett or Packard, or the man who drives the "visi-car." In an era when cottage firms are turning into multi-megabuck corporations as never before, I find it hard to believe that anyone can make that statement with a straight face. >Giving the lower social groupings the supposed possibility of >advancement, while in fact providing no real means of doing so, >is distinctly remnicient of Dark Ages European libertarianism. Of course, insisting that somebody display diligence, responsibility, and an ability to fulfill their commitments is not quite the same as "providing no real means of doing so." I will concede that those born and raised in the current crop of ghettos are never encouraged to develop those qualities. Living in a ghetto doesn't cause this problem in and of itself - just ask any elderly Jew - so the solution isn't eliminating the ghetto. Possibly taking the kids out of the ghetto at a tender age and raising them to have those qualities will do, but I hope that the socialists will find that idea almost as abhorrent as I do. >The nobleman owned the land. The peasants needed to use the >land in order to live. They were quite free (sometimes) to move >away onto someone else's land, and pay someone else rent. >But the only peasants who ever advanced from 'peasant' status >were those who joined the army and got some money or the favour >of their liege lord from battle. >This really does look like libertarianism in practice, to me. The feudal system is an equally good example of socialism in practice. The noblemen ran all the land (minus a few times) for the good of everybody living on it, and wealth was redistributed fairly by the noblemen. See how easy it is to distort a system to look like your opposition by ignoring pertinent facts? I think we can all agree that "authoritarian dictatorship" is a much better description of a feudal state than either "libertarian in practice" or "socialist in practice." <mike
orb@whuxl.UUCP (SEVENER) (03/21/85)
> > Because he *owns* the machines and factories? But a factory doesn't > need to be owned in order to produce -- it just has to exist and be > operated by people. And the people who brought it into existence are > the workers who built it, the engineers who designed it, the > inventors who invented the machines -- i.e., the people whose labor > of various kinds brought the factory into being. (The capitalist qua > capitalist is one who *owns* the means of production -- insofar as he > works (invents, builds, whatever) he's not a capitalist.) To call > capital productive is to attribute a human quality to something that > is dead, an animate quality to something inanimate (Marx termed it > "fetishism"). It is PEOPLE who do things: who build machines, who > invent machines, who discover scientific knowledge, who, in short, > create new wealth, and who are therefore productive. Capitalism, > however, cannot tolerate this truth, since it undermines the > rationale for profit-making. > > Richard Carnes Your articles are magnificent logical expositions, Richard, and in general I am in total agreement. However I think that you cannot neglect one aspect of the "Capitalist" which *is* important-that is the degree to which the entrepreneur and some capitalists do contribute organization to the productive enterprise whatever it is. Organizing all the elements of machines, labor and planning is a very important function-without somebody or some group of people to pull these all together nothing will get produced. Of course there is nothing to say this organization has to be either inspired ,motivated or organized in a capitalistic fashion. Being a member of several coops I know that it took a certain entrepreneurial spirit to get them started and organized. However that spirit was collective and democratic in nature: decisions of all the coops I have been in have always been made democratically. NOT by some "owner" who dictates the organization to those below. Moreover with the separation of ownership from control and management of modern corporations, one may legitimately ask how much an absentee jetset owner who has inherited stock in a corporation (more likely numerous corporations to diversify their portfolio: done most likely by a stockbroker hired to make smart investments) contributes to the organization or management of the corporation. The answer is undoubtedly precious little. But people like Andrew Carnegie, Rockefeller who built up their own companies did do much organizational work in the process of accumulating their industrial empires. Encouraging and allowing entrepreneurship is very important to a productive socialism. tim sevener whuxl!orb
faustus@ucbcad.UUCP (03/21/85)
> >JoSH didn't borrow the money, he inherited it. > > Not in my libertarian society, he didn't. The dead don't have property > rights to be violated, so they can't state what the money should be > used for. Well, probably then his father signed over all his property to him on his deathbed. It's not that easy to distinguish between inheritance, which you want to eliminate, and the giving of gifts, which you probably don't. Wayne
franka@hercules.UUCP (Frank Adrian) (03/21/85)
In article <5252@utzoo.UUCP> laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) writes: > >I'm a widget maker from another town. Business gets lousy -- everybody >would rather buy from JoSH because he produces more and cheaper widgets. >I decide that I can either provide some function that JoSH doesn't >have in my widgets (but I can't think of one) or I can retrain to >do something else (but I don't want to do this, or think that I can't) >or I can go and work for JoSH. > >Somewhere JoSH went from being good and fine, to putting me in a >place where i am forced to sell my labour to JoSH. But I don't get >it -- what has JoSH done wrong? > You just said it in the parenthetical comment "but I can't think of one". JoSH, through his ability to work harder, think ahead, put off short term for long term gains, and simply being smarter (and perhaps luckier), has come out on top. All persons are NOT created equal. Any attempt to change this basic fact of nature will ultimately fail as one must inevitably pull down the FEW achievers drastically to raise the standard of MANY unworthies marginally. I've always been a big fan of "social Darwinism". Funny, no one has ever disproved it to me, either. Most of the disproofs are based on some sort of moralistic thinking (very questionable, as survival is its own morality) which then generally boils down to, "I don't like it, so it isn't true." A firm believer that Ghengis Khan was right, Frank Adrian
jonab@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Jonathan Biggar) (03/22/85)
In article <836@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA> mwm@ucbtopaz.UUCP writes: > >>JoSH didn't borrow the money, he inherited it. > >Not in my libertarian society, he didn't. The dead don't have property >rights to be violated, so they can't state what the money should be >used for. Then your society isn't very libertarian. If I want to make a will that designates the distribution of my worldly goods upon my death, who are you to say that I can't do that? Is this any different than putting money in a trust fund for my benificiary with the agreement that as long as I live I can do anything I want with the money in the fund? In a true libertarian society, my heirs have NO right to any of my property, but I have EVERY right to give it to whomever I please when I die. Jon Biggar {allegra,burdvax,cbosgd,hplabs,ihnp4,sdccsu3}!sdcrdcf!jonab
josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall) (03/23/85)
>Martin Taylor >If you subtract living costs up to, say, 150% of the poverty level, >do the workers still make an order of magnitude more than the >capitalists? The only stat I know that bears on this is that 90% of all income in the US is made at or below the $35K level (Grace, in Burning Money). > If they do, do they have the coherent organization >that would enable them to become effective capitalists (remember, >that means centralization of control). Here the collectivist fallacy rears its ugly head--"you have to be centrally organized or you're powerless". I suggest that this one point is more important than all the rest of the discussion here. It's "out of sight, out of mind" writ large: "if I can't point to it, it doesn't exist." A market is *more* effective as a force for the betterment of the worker (indeed of everybody) than any central organization. In this particular case, the workers need merely buy stock. If they formed a central organization to do their buying, the organization, not the workers, would own it. > I suspect that many of those >who DO have a little left over after staying alive ARE capitalists, >in that they may own a little stock, or have a pension plan that >invests for them. All this means is that they have already started in with my plan... >It's a bit smug to say workers aren't capitalists because they are >comfortable, and prefer another beer to owning factories. I say it because I tried it, and so I know what I'm talking about. --JoSH
laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton) (03/25/85)
Ah, Mike's society is probably very libertarian. Libertarians are very much divided on the issue of inheritance. I think that once you are dead you have no rights whatsoever, so your argument doesn't wash. If I get to make the inheritance rules (fat chance, eh?) you will be allowed to set things up so that your heirs will be provided for in the manner in which you have been providing them -- but you had better have been providing for them before you die. It should keep the vultures down as well. Laura Creighton utzoo!laura
carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) (03/26/85)
From JoSH: > Laura has, perhaps without intending to, put her finger on the very > reason that people *do* work for wages (and value "having a job" so > highly). Why indeed become a "wage slave"? In a word: security. > The worker is not utterly secure (who is?) but considerably more so > than the capitalist. The workers of this country make an order of > magnitude more, in sum, than the capitalists. If they wanted, they > could just buy them out. Why don't they? They are, simply, > comfortable. Sure, they want more. Everybody always wants more. > Those who want it enough to pass up the beer and football games are > able to succeed here more than anywhere else in the world; when they > do, they are called -- capitalists. It's not often one finds such a clear depiction of the fantasy world in which a good many libertarians evidently dwell. The workers, indeed, make an order of magnitude more than the capitalists because there are two orders of magnitude more workers than capitalists. Most of workers' income goes to basic living expenses and is not available to invest in large quantities of stocks, bonds, trusts, and real estate. I'd like to ask the local janitor if his preference for security is the real reason he doesn't just save up his money and buy a controlling interest in IBM, but I'm afraid of getting punched out. I wonder if JoSH has calculated how long it would take a typical worker to save enough money so that he can live comfortably on his "unearned" income. Remember, this "typical" worker has a family to support. Let us have some facts and figures, please, and some kind of evidence beyond bald assertion that the wage-slaves are contented with their life down on the capitalist plantation, or would be if it weren't for the damn-yankee abolitionists who want to abolish wage labor. Studs Terkel's book *Working* is a very readable eye-opener for those who look through rose-colored glasses at the "comfort" and "security" typically enjoyed by American workers. Security, my ass. The outcome of capitalism in the US is not legions of contented wage-slaves tap-dancing on the levee, but rather a massive concentration of wealth in the hands of an elite. Here are some facts on the distribution of wealth in the US (from various sources, available on request.) Wealth is much more unevenly distributed than income, mainly because income is taxed and wealth mostly is not. Hence the rich prefer to keep their wealth in the form of stock holdings, real estate, etc. Officially, profits and interest account for only about 2-3% of the national income, but this is misleading for two reasons: most profits are retained and reinvested, thus increasing the wealth but not the income of the stockholders; and the huge salaries of executive brass are really a share of the profits. In 1969, Americans with gross assets of more than $60,000 owned $1.224 trillion (in terms of 1985 dollars, of course, this would be a much larger figure). This relative share of wealth has remained essentially unchanged since 1945. The top 0.5% of individuals have consistently owned 20-25% of the nation's wealth in the postwar period. In 1972, the same 0.5% owned 49.3% of all corporate stocks, and the richest 1% of the population owned 56.5% of stocks, 60% of the bonds, 52.7% of the debt instruments, and *89.9%* of the trusts. What about the people on the bottom? The bottom quarter of the population possesses negative wealth -- they are net debtors. The bottom four-fifths possesses wealth which almost equals that held by the top 0.5%. Furthermore, most of the wealth possessed by this four-fifths consists of homes (generally mortgaged) and consumer durables which do not generate income for their owners. This income-generating wealth is generally safe from the ups and downs of business cycles, barring a collapse of the economy on the scale of the Great Depression. The very rich in the US can pass along this huge concentration of wealth to the next generation, very often through trusts. Yet the value of trust funds is excluded from the estate tax returns which form the basis for most estimates of wealth in America (see John A. Brittain, *Inheritance and the Inequality of Material Wealth*). Turning to Britain, we find that in 1973 the bottom four-fifths of the population held 13.6% of the total wealth, compared to about 23% in the US. Wealth in the US is almost as unevenly distributed as in Britain with its aristocratic social structure. This suggests that the maldistribution is built into the structure of capitalism itself. Richard Carnes
esco@ssc-vax.UUCP (Michael Esco) (03/27/85)
>> To call >> capital productive is to attribute a human quality to something that >> is dead, an animate quality to something inanimate (Marx termed it >> "fetishism"). It is PEOPLE who do things: who build machines, who >> invent machines, who discover scientific knowledge, who, in short, >> create new wealth, and who are therefore productive. Capitalism, >> however, cannot tolerate this truth, since it undermines the >> rationale for profit-making. >> Richard Carnes People require resources to be productive. Capitalists risk savings in order to supply the resouces for the workers. Profits are the reward people get for risking their savings. Money stuffed in a mattress is unproductive, money supplying resources to enterprises is productive. > Organizing all the elements > of machines, labor and planning is a very important function-without somebody > or some group of people to pull these all together nothing will get > produced. Bravo, Tim! For once I agree with you. Too bad you follow that statement with: > Of course there is nothing to say this organization has to be > either inspired ,motivated or organized in a capitalistic fashion. No, but can you name an organization as effective as capitalism? > ... one may legitimately > ask how much an absentee jetset owner who has inherited stock in a > corporation contributes to the organization or management of the corporation. Keeping money in a stock implies approval of the current management. If you are disatisfied, you sell. If enough stockholders sell, the value of the stock drops and the board of directors will take action to protect the investment of the remaining stockholders. If the directors do not correct the situation, they will probably be voted out in the next election. > But people like Andrew Carnegie, > Rockefeller who built up their own companies did do much organizational > work in the process of accumulating their industrial empires. > Encouraging and allowing entrepreneurship is very important to a > productive socialism. > tim sevener whuxl!orb People like Carnegie and Rockefeller did what they did because of capitalism. They used their personal abilities and savings to the maximum because they received the benefits of their own efforts. They were able to use their profits as they saw fit: whether reinvestment, personal affluence, world- class museums, or lazy relatives. The incentive that drives a Carnegie also drives Joe Engineer with his small start-up *and* Jim Plumber with his IRA fund. Michael Esco Boeing Aerospace
josh@topaz.ARPA (J Storrs Hall) (03/29/85)
In article <380@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP> carnes@gargoyle.UChicago.UUCP (Richard Carnes) writes: >From JoSH: >> Laura has, perhaps without intending to, put her finger on the very >> reason that people *do* work for wages (and value "having a job" so >> highly). Why indeed become a "wage slave"? In a word: security. >> ... > >It's not often one finds such a clear depiction of the fantasy world >in which a good many libertarians evidently dwell. The workers, >indeed, make an order of magnitude more than the capitalists because >there are two orders of magnitude more workers than capitalists. Carnes and I part company here-- I think his quaint ideas of class oppression and capitalist "exploitation" are the fantasy world. The only actual figures I know off hand are that in the Birmingham, Ala, area, US Steel has 5000 employees and 7000 stockholders. >Most of workers' income goes to basic living expenses and is not >available to invest in large quantities of stocks, bonds, trusts, and >real estate. According to my almanac, per capita income in the US (this includes children, so it's not the average wage income) for employed persons is $7019, of which $2413 goes to TAXES. So we find that the worker is somehow managing to live without 34% of his income. As we seem to agree that the workers make 10 times the capitalists overall, and assuming that the capitalists are getting a 10% return on their holdings, then if not for the government, the workers could buy the capitalists out completely in just under three years--*with no reduction in their standard of living*. > I'd like to ask the local janitor if his preference for >security is the real reason he doesn't just save up his money and buy >a controlling interest in IBM, but I'm afraid of getting punched out. Ask him instead what he would do if you gave him $2413, and see if he says "buy IBM stock". >I wonder if JoSH has calculated how long it would take a typical >worker to save enough money so that he can live comfortably on his >"unearned" income. 12 years. The worker, or rather each member of his family, has a net income of $4606 (total minus taxes). If not for the GOVERNMENT, he could invest $2413 per year without any reduction in living standard. His equity (per family member) is: 1st year: 2413 2nd Year: 5067 (remember, he's already making 10% on what's invested) 3rd: 7987 4th: 11198 5th: 14731 6th: 18617 7th: 22892 8th: 27594 9th: 32767 10th: 38457 11th: 44715 12th year: 51600, from which he makes an annual income of $5160, a bit better than before. (all these figures in 1979 dollars). (World Almanac 1981) >The outcome of capitalism in the US is not legions of contented >wage-slaves tap-dancing on the levee, but rather a massive >concentration of wealth in the hands of an elite. > [statistics] I think you're changing the subject here. Most of what the capitalists own (that we're worried about anyway) is pieces of paper giving them income. > Wealth is much more unevenly distributed than >income, mainly because income is taxed and wealth mostly is not. I think you've punctured your own point. Obviously someone who holds property to derive income (the capitalist)will own more property than someone who owns it merely to enjoy it directly (the worker). Its value to him, however, must be measured by its use, namely, the income it produces. >Richard Carnes --JoSH