Gregory's Server@FisherPeter @Radical_EgoCom The essence is: I answered yes, but I hovered for a moment over no, because I think what we have now is not capitalism, not in any sense that makes sense of economic theory. It's a kind of neo-feudal-colonialist looting with no real name we all recognise. What we need is a version of very small business capitalism with aspects of socialism, distributism and collectively owned stewardship of natural resources, but it has no name we all recognise either.
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7 comments
  @Radical_EgoCom @FisherPeter I think those terms are all classic economic theory, & mean something very different in classic theory to what we have now. We don't have anything like marketplace competition except perhaps in very small businesses. We have corporate ownership of most means of production, and both "corporate" and "means of production" signify different things to what they did in Adam Smith's time, & classic theory falls over when "profit" is is speculative, not surplus value. 1/2 @Radical_EgoCom @FisherPeter "Corporate" is shells within shells financialised to the point where the ownership is derivatives of derivatives. "Means of production" gets wierd when applied to things like orbital space for satellites or attention (media) or the cultural heritage as digitalised, that AI is comandeering, or the limited atmospheric landfill space for greenhouse gases. And supply and demand theory gets wierd when people have so much crap that op shops won't take donations of it. 2/2 There is nothing outdated or non-applicable about the definition of capitalism I gave. Private ownership of the means of production is still private ownership, whether it be by single individuals or corporations, the accumulation of profit is still the primary motivator in business, and while large corporations have cornered many markets and have made competition with them near impossible, these corporations still compete with each other and with... 1/2 ...corporations in other countries. Just because modern capitalism doesn't adhere to the specific version of capitalism that Adam Smith envisioned doesn't make it not capitalism. Capitalism comes in many different forms. 2/2 |
@lindawoodrow @FisherPeter
If capitalism is to be understood as an economic system characterized by the private ownership of the means of production, profit motive, and marketplace competition, then we are indeed currently living in capitalism. We (workers) do not need capitalism; capitalism needs us. We can survive in a socialist society with collective ownership of the means of production built on cooperation instead of competition. The only thing we need from capitalism is for it to die.